The drugs students are taking today are more potent, more dangerous,
and more addictive than ever.
Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to the effects of drugs. Drugs
threaten normal development in a number of ways:
. Drugs can interfere with memory, sensation, and perception. They
distort experiences and cause a loss of self-control that can
lead users to harm themselves and others.
. Drugs interfere with the brain's ability to take in, sort, and
synthesize information. As a result, sensory information runs
together, providing new sensations while blocking normal ability
to understand the information received.
. Drugs can have an insidious effect on perception; for example,
cocaine and amphetamines often give users a false sense of
functioning at their best while on the drug.
Drug suppliers have responded to the increasing demand for drugs by
developing new strains, producing reprocessed, purified drugs, and
using underground laboratories to create more powerful forms of
illegal drugs. Consequently, users are exposed to heightened or
unknown levels of risk.
. The _marijuana_ produced today is from five to 20 times stronger
than that available as recently as 10 years ago. Regular use
by adolescents has been associated with an "a motivational
syndrome," characterized by apathy and loss of goals. Research
has shown that severe psychological damage, including paranoia
and psychosis, can occur when marijuana contains 2 percent THC,
its major psychoactive ingredient. Since the early 1980s, most
marijuana has contained from 4 to 6 percent THC--two to three
times the amount capable of causing serious damage.
. _Crack_, now becoming widely available, is a purified and highly
addictive form of cocaine.
. _Phencyclidine_ (_PCP_), first developed as an animal tranquilizer,
has unpredictable and often violent effects. Often children do
not even know that they are using this drug when PCP-laced
parsley in cigarette form is passed off as marijuana, or when
PCP in crystal form is sold as lysergic acid (LSD).
. Some of the new _"designer" drugs_, slight chemical variations
of existing illegal drugs, have been known to cause permanent
brain damage with a single dose.