Amphetamines


What are the street names/slang terms for it?
Bennies, Black beauties, Dexies, Jollies, Speed, Uppers, Ups, Wake ups

What is it?
An amphetamine is a drug that is a stimulant to the central nervous system.

What does it look like?
Amphetamines are taken in tablet and pill form.

How is it used?
Amphetamines are colorless and may be inhaled, injected, or swallowed.

What are its short-term effects?
Short-term effects include increased talkativeness, increased aggressiveness, increased breathing rate, increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, reduced appetite, dilated pupils, visual hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, compulsive, repetitive action. Other effects of large does can include fever and sweating, dry mouth, headache, paleness, blurred vision, dizziness, irregular heartbeat, tremors, loss of coordination, collapse.

What are its long-term effects?
Possible long-term effects include tolerance and dependence, violence and aggression, malnutrition due to suppression of appetite. Amphetamines are addictive.

Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

Barbiturates


What are the street names/slang terms for it?
Barbs, Block busters, Christmas trees, Goof balls, Pinks, Red devils, Reds and blues, Yellow jackets

What is it?
Barbiturates are prescription sedatives. Barbiturates that are commonly abused include amobarbital (Amytal), pentobarbital (Nembutal), and secobarbital (Seconal).

What does it look like?
Barbiturates come in multi-colored tablets and capsules.

How is it used?
These sedatives are used most often to treat unpleasant effects of illicit stimulants, to reduce anxiety, and to get "high". Short-acting barbiturates such as pentobarbital and secobarbital are the preferred drugs of abuse. They are swallowed or injected. Commonly called "sleeping pills" or "downers" and often used on the street in combination with stimulants such as cocaine, amphetamines, and crystal meth/crank.

What are its short-term effects?
Slurred speech, shallow breathing, sluggishness, fatigue, disorientation, lack of coordination, dilated pupils. Barbiturates mimic alcohol inebriation causing mild euphoria, disinhibition, relief of anxiety and sleepiness. Higher doses cause impairment of memory, judgment and coordination, irritability, paranoid and suicidal ideation.

What are its long-term effects?
Tolerance develops quickly and larger doses are used, increasing the danger of an overdose. In an overdose or when taken with other drugs like alcohol, death is due to depression of the respiratory center in the brain. Withdrawal symptoms: Include tremors, elevated blood pressure and pulse, sweating, and possible seizures.

Source: Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) The Center for Alcohol and other Drug Education of The George Washington University

Cocaine/Crack


What are the street names/slang terms for it?
Cocaine: Big C, Blow, Coke, Flake, Lady, Nose candy, Snow, Snowbirds, White
Crack: Freebase, Rock

What is it?
Cocaine is a drug extracted from the leaves of the coca plant. It is a potent brain stimulant and one of the most powerfully addictive drugs.

What does it look like?
Cocaine is distributed on the street in two main forms: cocaine hydrochloride is a white crystalline powder and "crack" is cocaine hydrochloride that has been processed with ammonia or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and water into a freebase cocaine - chips, chunks, or rocks.

How is it used?
Cocaine can be snorted or dissolved in water and injected. Crack can be smoked.

What are its short-term effects?
Short-term effects of cocaine include constricted peripheral blood vessels, dilated pupils, increased temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, insomnia, loss of appetite, feelings of restlessness, irritability, and anxiety. Duration of cocaine's immediate euphoric effects, which include energy, reduced fatigue, and mental clarity, depends on how it is used. The faster the absorption, the more intense the high. However, the faster the absorption, the shorter the high lasts. The high from snorting may last 15 to 30 minutes, while that from smoking may last 5 to 10 minutes. Cocaine's effects are short lived, and once the drug leaves the brain, the user experiences a "coke crash" that includes depression, irritability, and fatigue.

What are its long-term effects?
High doses of cocaine and/or prolonged use can trigger paranoia. Smoking crack cocaine can produce a particularly aggressive paranoid behavior in users. When addicted individuals stop using cocaine, they often become depressed. Prolonged cocaine snorting can result in ulceration of the mucous membrane of

What is its federal classification?
Cocaine is a Schedule II drug.

Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

Ecstasy


What are the street names/slang terms for it?
Adam, Bean, E, Ecstasy, M, Roll, X, XTC

What is it?
MDMA or Ecstasy (3-4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine), is a synthetic drug with amphetamine-like and hallucinogenic properties.

What does it look like?
Ecstasy come in a tablet form that is often branded, e.g. Playboy bunnies, Nike swoosh, CK

How is it used?
Taken in pill form, users sometimes take Ecstasy at "raves," to keep on dancing and for mood enhancement. Older teens and college students often frequent raves.

What are its short-term effects?
Short-term effects include psychological difficulties, including confusion, depression, sleep problems, drug craving, severe anxiety, and paranoia – during and sometimes weeks after taking MDMA, physical symptoms such as muscle tension, involuntary teeth clenching, nausea, blurred vision, rapid eye movement, faintness, and chills or sweating.

What are its long-term effects?
Recent research findings link MDMA to long-term damage to those parts of the brain critical to thought and memory. Chronic use of MDMA was found, first in laboratory animals and more recently in humans, to produce long-lasting, perhaps permanent, damage to the neurons that release serotonin, and consequent memory impairment.

What is its federal classification?
MDMA is a Schedule I drug

Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA); Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)

Heroin


What are the street names/slang terms for it?
Big H, Black tar, Brown sugar, Dope, Horse, Junk, Mud, Skag, Smack

What is it?
Heroin is a highly addictive drug derived from morphine, which is obtained from the opium poppy. It is a "downer" that affects the brain's pleasure systems and interferes with the brain's ability to perceive pain.

What does it look like?
White to dark brown powder or tar-like substance.

How is it used?
Heroin can be used in a variety of ways, depending on user preference and the purity of the drug. Heroin can be injected into a vein ("mainlining"), injected into a muscle, smoked in a water pipe or standard pipe, mixed in a marijuana joint or regular cigarette, inhaled as smoke through a straw, known as "chasing the dragon," snorted as powder via the nose.

What are its short-term effects?
The short-term effects of heroin abuse appear soon after a single dose and disappear in a few hours. After an injection of heroin, the user reports feeling a surge of euphoria ("rush") accompanied by a warm flushing of the skin, a dry mouth, and heavy extremities. Following this initial euphoria, the user goes "on the nod," an alternately wakeful and drowsy state. Mental functioning becomes clouded due to the depression of the central nervous system. Other effects included slowed and slurred speech, slow gait, constricted pupils, droopy eyelids, impaired night vision, vomiting, constipation.

What are its long-term effects?
Long-term effects of heroin appear after repeated use for some period of time. Chronic users may develop collapsed veins, infection of the heart lining and valves, abscesses, cellulites, and liver disease. Pulmonary complications, including various types of pneumonia, may result from the poor health condition of the abuser, as well as from heron's depressing effects on respiration. In addition to the effects of the drug itself, street heroin may have additives that do not really dissolve and result in clogging the blood vessels that lead to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or brain. This can cause infection or even death of small patches of cells in vital organs.With regular heroin use, tolerance develops. This means the abuser must use more heroin to achieve the same intensity or effect. As higher doses are used over time, physical dependence and addiction develop. With physical dependence, the body has adapted to the presence of the drug and withdrawal symptoms may occur if use is reduced or stopped. Withdrawal, which in regular abusers may occur as early as a few hours after the last administration, produces drug craving, restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhea and vomiting, cold flashes with goose bumps ("cold turkey"), kicking movements ("kicking the habit"), and other symptoms. Major withdrawal symptoms peak between 48 and 72 hours after the last does and subside after about a week. Sudden withdrawal by heavily dependent users who are in poor health is occasionally fatal, although heroin withdrawal is considered much less dangerous than alcohol or barbiturate withdrawal.

What is its federal classification?
Heroin is a Schedule I drug.

Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)

Inhalants

What is it?
Inhalants are ordinary household products that are inhaled or sniffed by children to get high. There are hundreds of household products on the market today that can be misused as inhalants.

What does it look like?
Examples of products kids abuse to get high include model airplane glue, nail polish remover, cleaning fluids, hair spray, gasoline, the propellant in aerosol whipped cream, spray paint, fabric protector, air conditioner fluid (freon), cooking spray and correction fluid.

How is it used?
These products are sniffed, snorted, bagged, or "huffed" to achieve a high. Inhalants are also sniffed directly from the container.

What are its short-term effects?
When inhaled via the nose or mouth into the lungs in sufficient concentrations, inhalants can cause intoxicating effects. Intoxication can last only a few minutes or several hours if inhalants are taken repeatedly. Initially, users may feel slightly stimulated; with successive inhalations, they may feel less inhibited and less in control; finally, a user can lose consciousness. Other effects include headache, muscle weakness, abdominal pain, severe mood swings and violent behavior, numbness and tingling of the hands and feet, nausea, hearing loss, limb spasms, fatigue, and lack of coordination.

What are its long-term effects?
Sniffing highly concentrated amounts of the chemicals in solvents or aerosol sprays can directly induce heart failure and death. This is especially common from the abuse of fluorocarbons and butane-type gases. High concentrations of inhalants also can cause death from suffocation by displacing oxygen in the lungs and then in the central nervous system so that breathing ceases. Other irreversible effects caused by inhaling specific solvents are hearing loss, limb spasms, central nervous system or brain damage. Serious but potentially reversible effects include liver and kidney damage and blood oxygen depletion.Death from inhalants usually is caused by a very high concentration of fumes. Deliberately inhaling from an attached paper or plastic bag or in a closed area greatly increases the chances of suffocation.

What is its federal classification?
Inhalants are legally sold products.

Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

LSD


What are the street names/slang terms for it?
Acid, Doses, Hits, Microdot, Sugar cubes, Tabs, Trips

What is it?
LSD is the most common hallucinogen and is one of the most potent mood-changing chemicals. It is manufactured from lysergic acid, which is found in ergot, a fungus that grows on rye and other grains.

What does it look like?
Colored tablets, blotter paper, clear liquid, and thin squares of gelatin.

How is it used?
LSD is taken orally and licked off blotter paper. Gelatin and liquid can be put in the eyes.

What are its short-term effects?
The effects of LSD are unpredictable. They depend on the amount taken, the user's personality, mood, and expectations, and the surroundings in which the drug is used. The physical effects include dilated pupils, higher body temperature, increased heart rate and blood pressure, sweating, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, dry mouth, and tremors. Sensations and feelings change much more dramatically than the physical signs. The user may feel several different emotions at once or swing rapidly from one emotion to another. If taken in a large enough dose, the drug produces delusions and visual hallucinations. The user's sense of time and self changes. Sensations may seem to "cross over," giving the user the feeling of hearing colors and seeing sounds. These changes can be frightening and can cause panic.

What are its long-term effects?
Some LSD users experience flashbacks, recurrence of certain aspects of a person's experience without the user having taken the drug again. A flashback occurs suddenly, often without warning, and may occur within a few days or more than a year after LSD use. Most users of LSD voluntarily decrease or stop its use over time. LSD is not considered to be an addicting drug because it does not produce compulsive drug-seeking behavior like cocaine, amphetamines, heroin, alcohol, or nicotine.

What is its federal classification?
LSD is a Schedule l drug.

Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)

Marijuana


What are the street names/slang terms for it?
Aunt Mary, Boom, Chronic, Dope ganja, Gangster, Grass, Hash, Herb, Kif, Mary Jane, Pot, Reefer, Sinsemilla, Skunk, Weed

What is it?
Marijuana, the most often used illegal drug in this country, is a product of the hemp plant, Cannabis sativa. The main active chemical in marijuana, also present in other forms of cannabis, is THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol). Of the roughly 400 chemicals found in the cannabis plant, THC affects the brain the most.

What does it look like?
Marijuana is a green or gray mixture of dried, shredded flowers and leaves of the hemp plant (Cannabis sativa).

How is it used?
Most users roll loose marijuana into a cigarette called a "joint". It can be smoked in a water pipe, called a "bong", or mixed into food or brewed as tea. It has also appeared in cigars called "blunts".

What are its short-term effects?
Short-term effects of marijuana include problems with memory and learning, distorted perception (sights, sounds, time, touch), trouble with thinking and problem solving, loss of motor coordination, increased heart rate, and anxiety. These effects are even greater when other drugs are mixed with marijuana. A user may also experience dry mouth and throat.

What are its long-term effects?
Marijuana smoke contains some of the same cancer-causing compounds as tobacco, sometimes in higher concentrations. Studies show that someone who smokes five joints per week may be taking in as many cancer-causing chemicals as someone who smokes a full pack of cigarettes every day.

What is its federal classification?
Marijuana is a Schedule I drug.

Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

Methamphetamine


What are the street names/slang terms for it?
Chalk, Crank, Croak, Crypto, Crystal, Fire, Glass, Meth, Speed, White cross

What is it?
Methamphetamine is an addictive stimulant drug that strongly activates certain systems in the brain.

What does it look like?
Meth is a crystal-like powdered substance that sometimes comes in large rock-like chunks. When the powder flakes off the rock, the shards look like glass, which is another nickname for meth. Meth is usually white or slightly yellow, depending on the purity.

How is it used?
Methamphetamine can be taken orally, injected, snorted, or smoked.

What are its short-term effects?
Immediately after smoking or intravenous injection, the methamphetamine user experiences an intense sensation, called a "rush" or "flash," that lasts only a few minutes and is described as extremely pleasurable. Oral or intranasal use produces euphoria – a high, but not a rush. Other effects include irritability/aggression, anxiety, nervousness, convulsions, insomnia.

What are its long-term effects?
Meth is addictive, and users can develop a tolerance quickly, needing higher amount to get high, and going on longer binges. Some users avoid sleep for 3 to 15 days while binging. Psychological symptoms of prolonged meth use are characterized by paranoia, hallucinations, repetitive behavior patterns, and delusions of parasites or insects under the skin. Users often obsessively scratch their skin to get rid of these imagined insects. Long-term use, high dosages, or both can bring on full-blown toxic psychosis (often exhibited as violent, aggressive behavior). This violent, aggressive behavior is usually coupled with extreme paranoia. New research shows that those who use methamphetamine risk long-term damage to their brain cells similar to that caused by strokes or Alzheimer's disease.

What is its federal classification?
Methamphetamine is a Schedule II drug.

Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)

Mushrooms


What are the street names/slang terms for it?
Caps, Magic mushrooms, Shrooms

What is it?
Certain types of naturally occurring mushrooms contain hallucinogenic chemicals -- psilocybin and psilocin. These mushrooms are generally grown in Mexico and Central America and have been used in native rituals for thousands of years.

What does it look like?
Dried mushrooms.

How is it used?
Mushrooms can be eaten, brewed and consumed as tea.

What are its short-term effects?
When ingested, mushrooms produce a syndrome similar to alcohol intoxication sometimes accompanied by hallucinations. Once ingested, mushrooms generally cause feelings of nausea and other physical symptoms before the desired mental effects appear. The high from using mushrooms is mild and consists of distorted perceptions. Effects may include different perceptions of stimuli like touch, sight, sound and taste. Onset of symptoms is usually rapid and the effects generally subside within 2 hours.The effects of mushrooms are unpredictable each time they are used due to varying potency, the amount ingested, and the user's expectations, mood, surroundings, and frame of mind. Effects can include sweating, nervous feeling, paranoia.

Source: Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

PCP


What are the street names/slang terms for it?
Angel Dust, Embalming Fluid, Killer Weed, Rocket Fuel, Supergrass

What is it?
PCP, or phencyclidine was developed in the 1950s as an intravenous anesthetic. Use of PCP in humans was discontinued in 1965, because it was found that patients often became agitated, delusional, and irrational while recovering from its anesthetic effects.

What does it look like?
In its pure form, it is a white crystalline powder that readily dissolves in water. However, most PCP on the illicit market contains a number of contaminates as a result of makeshift manufacturing, causing the color to range from tan to brown, and the consistency from powder to a gummy mass. Although sold in tablets and capsules as well as in powder and liquid form, it is commonly applied to a leafy material, such as parsley, mint, oregano or marijuana, and smoked.

How is it used?
PCP turns up on the illicit drug market in a variety of tablets, capsules, and colored powders. It is normally used in one of three ways--snorted, smoked, or eaten. When it is smoked, PCP is often applied to a leafy material such as mint, parsley, oregano, tobacco or marijuana. Many people who use PCP may do it unknowingly because PCP is often used as an additive and can be found in marijuana, LSD, or methamphetamine.

What are its short-term effects?
At low to moderate doses, physiological effects include a slight increase in breathing rate and a more pronounced rise in blood pressure and pulse rate. Respiration becomes shallow, and flushing and profuse sweating occurs. Generalized numbness of the extremities and muscular incoordination may also occur. Psychological effects include distinct changes in body awareness, similar to those associated with alcohol intoxication. At high doses, there is a drop in blood pressure, pulse rate, and respiration. Nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, drooling, loss of balance, and dizziness may accompany this. Psychological effects at high doses include illusions and hallucinations. PCP may have effects that mimic certain primary symptoms of schizophrenia, such as delusions, mental turmoil, and a sensation of distance from one's environment. Sometimes, speech is sparse and mangled. Other effects include inability to feel physical pain, anxiety, disorientation, fear, panic and paranoia, aggressive behavior and violence.

What are its long-term effects?
People who use PCP for long periods of time report memory loss, speech difficulties, depression, and weight loss. When given psychomotor tests, PCP users tend to have lost their fine motor skills and short-term memory. Mood disorders have also been reported. PCP has sedative effectives, and interactions with other central nervous system depressants such as alcohol and benzodiazepines can lead to coma or death.

What is its federal classification?
PCP is a Schedule II drug.

Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)

Steroids (Anabolic)


What are the street names/slang terms for it?
Juice, Rhoids

What is it?
Anabolic steroids are a group of powerful compounds closely related to the male sex hormone testosterone. Current legitimate medical uses include treatment of certain kinds of anemia, severe burns, and some types of breast cancer. Body builders, long-distance runners, cyclists and various other athletes who claim that steroids give them a competitive advantage and/or improve their physical appearance use these drugs illegally.

What does it look like?
Steroids come in tablets or liquid form.

How is it used?
Anabolic steroids are taken orally or injected, and athletes and other abusers take them typically in cycles of weeks or months, rather than continuously, in patterns called cycling. Cycling involves taking multiple doses of steroids over a specific period of time, stopping for a period, and starting again. In addition, users frequently combine several different types of steroids to maximize their effectiveness while minimizing negative effects, a process known as stacking.

What are its short-term effects?
Reports indicate that use of anabolic steroids produces increases in lean muscle mass, strength, and ability to train longer and harder. Many health hazards of short-term effects are reversible. The major effects of anabolic steroid use include liver tumors, jaundice, fluid retention, and high blood pressure. Additional side effects include the following: for men shrinking of the testicles, reduced sperm count, infertility, baldness, development of breasts; for women growth of facial hair, changes in or cessation of the menstrual cycle, deepened voice; for adolescents growth halted prematurely through premature skeletal maturation and accelerated puberty changes.Researchers report that users may suffer from paranoid jealousy, extreme irritability, delusions, and impaired judgment stemming from feelings of invincibility.

What are its long-term effects?
Long-term, high-dose effects of steroid use are largely unknown.

What is its federal classification?
Anabolic steroids are classified as Schedule III.

Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)

Tobacco


What are the street names/slang terms for it?
Chew, Dip, Fags, Smoke

What is it?
Tobacco is an agricultural crop.

What does it look like?
Brown cut up leaves.

How is it used?
Tobacco is usually smoked. Sometimes tobacco leaves are "dipped" or "chewed" so the nicotine is absorbed via the gums.

What are its short-term effects?
When a person smokes a cigarette, the body responds immediately to the chemical nicotine in the smoke. Nicotine causes a short-term increase in blood pressure, heart rate, and the flow of blood from the heart. It also causes the arteries to narrow. Carbon monoxide reduces the amount of oxygen the blood can carry. This, combined with the effects produced by nicotine, creates an imbalance in the demand for oxygen by the cells and the amount of oxygen the blood is able to supply.

What are its long-term effects?
It is now well documented that smoking can cause chronic lung disease, coronary heart disease, and stroke, as well as cancer of the lungs, larynx, esophagus, mouth, and bladder. In addition, smoking is known to contribute to cancer of the cervix, pancreas, and kidneys. Researchers have identified more than 40 chemicals in tobacco smoke that cause cancer in humans and animals. Smokeless tobacco and cigars also have deadly consequences, including lung, larynx, esophageal, and oral cancer.The harmful effects of smoking do not end with the smoker. Women who use tobacco during pregnancy are more likely to have adverse birth outcomes, including babies with low birth weight, which is linked with an increased risk of infant death and with a variety of infant health disorders. The health of nonsmokers is adversely affected by environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Each year, exposure to ETS causes an estimated 3,000 non-smoking Americans to die of lung cancer and causes up to 300,000 children to suffer from lower respiratory-tract infections. Evidence also indicates that exposure to ETS increases the risk of coronary heart disease.

What is its federal classification?
Tobacco is a legal product for adults.

Source: American Heart Association (AHA) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)