What Are Stimulants

Psychoactive drugs are classified into three – depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens. Stimulants include amphetamines, caffeine, cocaine, ecstasy, nicotine etc. Stimulants can be divided differently; legal and illegal, herbal and synthetic etc. Their head-spinning and stupefying properties have been used to benumb the senses and experience the bewitching trance. There is a colossal market for these stimulants and a lot of people have used them at some or the other phase in their lives. Most commonly people use them in their teenage years and often the habit crawls in the adulthood as well.

TOP LIST OF STIMULANTS

1. Amphetamines
2. Cocaine
3. Nicotine
4. Caffeine
5. LSD
6. Heroin
7. Tobacco
8. Marijuana
9. Magic Mushrooms
10. Ecstasy (MDMA)

STIMULANTS- AN OVERVIEW

Amphetamines

Amphetamines were discovered by a German chemist in 1887 but were first used in the ’20s as nasal decongestants.

Amphetamines cause the heart rate to increase, appetite to diminish, mood to improve and the pupils to dilate. Users often report a ‘rush’ of confidence lasting three or four hours before they begin to ‘come down’. Methamphetamine brings on a rapid feeling of exhilaration, a perceived sharpening of focus and heightened sexual desire.

Also known as Crystal Meth, it has been popular on the US gay scene for over a decade, and there is concern that the drug may be becoming more popular amongst gay men in the UK and Europe.

Caffeine

Caffeine is the world’s most popular drug. The white, bitter-tasting, crystalline substance was first isolated from coffee in 1820.

Caffeine stimulates the brain and behavior. Use of 75-150 mg of caffeine elevates neural activity in many parts of the brain, postpones fatigue, and enhances performance at simple intellectual tasks and at physical work that involves endurance but not fine motor coordination.

Caffeine- containing soft drinks account for more than 65% of soft drink consumption.

The fatal oral dose is in excess of 5,000 mg – the equivalent of 40 strong cups of coffee taken in a very short space of time.

Cocaine

It comes in the form of a white powder and is usually snorted into the nose. It provides a feeling of excitement, exhilaration and self-confidence lasting for about 15-30 minutes. Cocaine can also be rubbed into the gums and into the anus or vagina before penetrative sex.

Cocaine is the most frequently reported illicit substance associated with drug abuse fatalities and causes three times more deaths than any other illegal drug.
Coca leaves, the source of pure cocaine, have been chewed and ingested for thousands of years for the euphoric effects of the drug. Cocaine produces its euphoric effect by activating the nerve cells in the brain that release dopamine, a chemical associated with pleasure and mental alertness. The drug then inhibits neural transporters from “mopping up” the dopamine and storing it for a later time.

In 1884, William Stewart Halsted, a famous American physician, performed the first surgery using cocaine as an anesthetic. Subsequently, Halsted became the first cocaine-addicted physician on record.
Men tend to feel the effects of cocaine faster than women and report more episodes of euphoria and dysphoria (intense bad feelings) related to the drug than women do.

When cocaine is used in combination with alcohol, the body converts the two substances into cocaethylene. This toxic combination causes a greater duration of drug effects in the brain and is the cause of more deaths than any other drug combination.

Ecstasy

Ecstasy has both stimulant and hallucinogenic properties. Its active ingredient is a synthetic drug called MDMA. Originally used in psychotherapy, from the late 1970s it started to be used on the club scene due to its ability to reduce inhibitions, give an energy boost, induce relaxation and give intense pleasure by releasing the neurotransmitter serotonin.

“Never take ecstasy, beer, baccardi, weed, pepto bismol, vivarin, tums, tagamet hb, xanax, and valium in the same day. It makes it difficult to sleep at night”— Eminem

Heroin

Heroin is a derivative of morphine, a product of the opium poppy.

After an intravenous injection of heroin, users report feeling a sudden surge of eclectic euphoria accompanied by heaviness of the extremities, and clouded mental functioning. Following this initial euphoria, the user goes in an alternately wakeful and drowsy state.

“The nice thing about being a heroin addict is that you either have no problems or one big one.” – Richard Schuldenfrei
“It did not feel like something that was going to take over my life and destroy it. It felt like a subtle flower instead of a manipulative demon. That`s the mystery of heroin.” – Corey Feldma

Ketamine

It comes in a white powder that can be snorted, dissolved or injected. It normally takes effect after about 20 minutes. The body heats up and users have reported a range of different experiences including an altered sense of their body, hallucinations, difficulty moving or even completely freezing.

It is medically used to produce ‘dissociative analgesia’.

LSD

Dr. Timothy Leary, interviewed by Playboy, announced that LSD was the most powerful aphrodisiac ever discovered. In his opinion the three inevitable goals of the LSD session are to discover and make love with God, to discover and make love with self, and to discover and make love with a woman. Leary taught psychology at Harvard and realized that psychiatry benefited only 33 percent of those who tried it; 33% remained the same and 33% became worse.

“I have been born again [after using LSD]”. — Cary Grant

Before LSD became illegal, Beverly Hills psychiatrists gave LSD to Cary Grant, James Coburn, Jack Nicholson, Novelist Anais Nin and filmmaker Stanley Kubrick.

Marijuana

Cannabis can be smoked, usually with tobacco, eaten, drunk in a ‘tea’ or snorted as a snuff. The drug affects the central nervous system and, as a result, users may experience relief from pain, feel light-headed, relaxed or sleepy.
After alcohol, marijuana is the most popular recreational or mood-altering drug used worldwide.

According to one report, it would take 800 joints to kill a person—but the cause of death would be carbon monoxide poisoning.
The name marijuana comes from a Mexican slang term for cannabis and is believed to have derived from the Spanish pronunciation of the names Mary and Jane. (The two names were also common Mexican military slang for a prostitute or brothel.)

Cannabis seeds were used as a food source in China as early as 6000 B.C.
“Marijuana is self-punishing. It makes you acutely sensitive, and in this world, what worse punishment could there be?”—- P.J.O’ Rourke

“The drug is really quite a remarkably safe one for humans, although it is really quite a dangerous one for mice and they should not use it”.—– J.W.D Henderson

Mushrooms

Psilocybe and Muscaria mushrooms are the most commonly used hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Spores are sold through the mail.

The high from using magic mushrooms is mild and may cause altered feelings and distorted perceptions of touch, sight, sound and taste.

Psilocybin, the active compound, is structurally similar to serotonin, and produces its effects by disrupting normal functioning of the serotonin system.

Nightshades

Nightshades, such as jimsonweed and datura, cause hallucinations which are often frightening and vivid , resulting in dangerous actions by the user.
In Hinduism, Lord Shiva was known to smoke Datura. People still provide the small green fruit of Datura during festivals and special days as offerings in Shiva temples.

The phrase “Red as a beet, dry as a bone, blind as a bat, mad as a hatter” has been used to describe Datura’s effects, and it does a good job of summing them up.

Tobacco

Tobacco is our most addictive recreational drug.

“I’d rather hang out with the losers that would sit and smoke a cigarette than the ones who wanted to throw a baseball”.—Kurt Cobain

STIMULANTS ABUSE BY PROMINENT PERSONALITIES

 

Sigmund Freud

Freud, a well known psychoanalyst, was a big proponent of cocaine use. He thought it had great uses as an anesthetic, analgesic and in attaining of transcendence. He himself used it to feel the effects first hand.

Bob Marley

Bob Marley, the blessed singer, was a known drug user and believed that marijuana and singing were the perfect combination.

Linda McCartney

Linda was Paul Mcartney’s (Band member of ‘Beatles’) first and beloved wife. She was a well known advocate for marijuana use. She even smoked it during her battle with breast cancer in an effort to lessen the severity of the effects of chemotherapy.

Jim Morrison

Morrison, a member of the rock band the “Doors,” was an ecstasy user. This is just one of the many other drugs he took. His style of music, psychedelic or acid rock, would lend itself to this sort of drug use. Morrison died unexpectedly possibly under the heavy influence of narcotics and stimulants at the young age of 27.

Cary Grant

Grant is one of America’s most treasured silver screen stars. He was “the” leading man in the 1930s and 1940s. However, away from the bright lights, he struggled a good deal personally. He was prescribed the drug LSD by his therapist to help him overcome personal problems and became hooked on it.

Tim Allen

Tim Allen was incredibly popular in the 1990s when he starred in the sitcom, Tool Time. Long before that, he experimented with drugs including cocaine. He was busted in the late 1970s and landed in jail. However, fortunately for him, he would turn things around and get his life back on track.

Robin Williams

Williams is a celebrated Hollywood actor who has had a long and well-known career. He also was once addicted to cocaine and even used the drug with Jim Belushi, another famous actor and comedian who later succumbed after taking a ‘speedball’ which is a mixture of cocaine and heroin.

Adolf Hitler

It was believed that Adolf Hitler took methylamphetamine injections every day which were administered by his personl physician, Doctor Morell. He was also a cocaine user.

Judy Garland

This Hollywood starlet was addicted to amphetamines and used them to help her keep her famous figure slender. To counteract her amphetamines addiction, she used barbiturates so that she could sleep.

Ozzy Osbourne

Osbourne, the lead vocalist of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, has abused drugs and alcohol for most of his life. It is rumoured that in 1984 while heavily intoxicated, Osbourne snorted a line of ants, in competition with Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe, who had set fire to himself the night before.

Crick, Francis

Nobel Prize winner for structure of DNA, Crick was high on LSD when he discovered the secret of life, as reported by the The Daily Mail (London) in 2004.

Courtney Love

Courtney Love’s drug problems started at an extremely young age. It is reported that her father gave her LSD when she was only four years old. Love had also reportedly used Heroin during the early stages of pregnancy with her daughter.

Whitney Houston

Whitney has been in and out of rehab, and also has admitted to abusing Alcohol, Marijuana, Cocaine and Pills. Her sister-in-law claimed that Whitney often punches and bites herself until she is black and blue, thinking that the devil is attacking her.

Drew Barrymore

An acclaimed Hollywood actress and producer, Drew began drinking and smoking cigarettes by the age of 9. By the age of 10 she was smoking Marijuana, and by 12 she began snorting Cocaine.