It is important to understand that different drugs affect the body in a variety of ways. The effects of these given drugs can vary dramatically from person to person depending on physical tolerances and overall health. But what are the general effects of drugs and what do drugs do to your body?
Legal Versus Illegal Drugs
What is the difference between legal drugs and illegal drugs?
Drugs are chemicals that make changes to the make-up of the human body. Some drugs make changes that are necessary, like when someone needs insulin for diabetes or chemotherapy for cancer. Legal drugs are drugs that we use because the good that they do outweighs the possible harm they could do to the body.
Illegal drugs are illegal because they have no real benefit other than to make the body feel good, and they might do so much harm to the body that they aren’t worth the risk that comes with taking them. Essentially, illegal drugs don’t solve any problems like legal drugs do.
It should be noted that many legal drugs can also be abused and are no less deadly than illegal drugs. This is particularly true in the case of prescription narcotics.
Drugs & Effects on the Brain
How drugs react in the brain?
Drugs react in the brain to change the way the body feels. The brain is the master control center of the body and it sends messages to the rest of the body based on the signals that it gets from chemical messengers, or drugs. Most of the chemical messengers are actually made in the body to do specific jobs in the brain. But drugs, which aren’t made by the body, are chemical messengers that can send the wrong messages to the brain, which then sends the wrong signals to the body. In essence, if the brain gets the wrong messages from drugs, you can end up seeing or hearing things that aren’t real, feeling things that aren’t there, or doing things that you wouldn’t normally do.
Drugs can make your heart beat faster, your body move slower, your throat feel dry, your pupils get bigger, and can make you breathe too fast or too slow. Drugs can affect the way you see, hear, feel, smell, think, move, eat, and even how often you go to the bathroom.
Developing Tolerance
What happens when a person develops a tolerance to a drug or substance?
Most people who do drugs for a while develop what is called a “tolerance” to the drug. This means that their body gets used to it. Although some people who do drugs think that this means that their body is “accepting” the drug, it actually means that the person is killing the parts of their body that used to try to resist the drugs. When this happens, the person doing drugs will need to do more and more of the drug to get the same feeling. This is not only expensive, it’s dangerous! Some people even try doing drugs that are a lot stronger just to try to get the good feeling back again.
Because drugs can change the way you interpret what is going on around you, they can change the way you act and react in certain situations. You can end up making some bad choices because the drugs you’re doing change the way you perceive things. Ultimately, you might make some decisions that put you into unsafe situations like agreeing to unsafe sex, drinking and driving, or walking around after dark in a bad neighborhood.
Physical Effects of Drug Usage
Visible effects of long-term drug use
Some drugs, especially drugs like crystal meth, can change your appearance. Many people who do drugs like meth and other amphetamines don’t feel hungry so they don’t eat and end up very thin and unhealthy. Meth users also tend to have skin that has lost its elasticity and luster, making them look as much as 20 years older than they really are. Some meth users also get what’s called “meth mouth.” A user with meth mouth has rotten and broken teeth because meth makes the salivary glands dry out, makes users grind their teeth, and many users forget to brush their teeth because they are too high to care.
Many drugs can cause liver damage, make your body unable to fight off infection, make your heart beat too fast, cause your body temperature to get so high you could damage your brain, cause a stroke, and even cause death. There’s just no need to risk the sometimes permanent side effects that come from a few minutes of getting high.
