Addictions and Substance Abuse Prevention Posters & Charts
reference for classrooms, rehabilitation, therapy, and medical professional offices.

Hallucinogens (also called psychedelics and designer drugs) alter a number of chemicals in the brain including seratonin. They can be found in nature as Mescaline (from Peyote cactus) or psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and certain seeds. Hallucinogens are also synthetically produced as LSD, MDMA (ecstasy) and other designer drugs.

Legal Uses: MDMA was once used as a drug in psychotherapy but was outlawed in 1985. There are currently no legal uses.

Street Names: LSD: acid, blotter, trip, microdot, tabs, doses, hits, sugar cubes. Mescaline: buttons, moon. Psilocybin: Magic mushrooms, caps, silly putty, shrooms. MDMA: ecstacy, X, XTC.

Short Term Effects: Hallucinations, paranoia, nausea, increased heart rate and blood pressure, blurred vision, fainting, chills and sweating, fearlessness, restlessness, teeth clenching and lowered inhibitions.

Long-Term Effects: Users often develop signs of organic brain damage such as impaired memory and attention span, confusion, and difficulty with abstract thinking. Hallucinogens have potentially devastating psychiatric effects, sometimes causing severe paranoid delusions (flashbacks) years after ingestion.

Marijuana is a mixture of dried, shredded leaves and flowers of the hemp plant. While usually rolled into cigarettes or put in a pipe, marijuana is sometimes cooked in brownies or cookies.

Legal Uses: The compound THC, which gives marijuana its potency, is sometimes prescribed in pill form to glaucoma patients or to treat nausea caused by some cancer and AIDS treatments. The hemp plant is used to make rope, sails, soap and paint.

Street Names: Pot smoke, weed, herb, grass, Mary Jane, gangster, boom, chronic, dope, ganje, giggle smoke, goof smoke, laughing grass, yellow submarine, feefer, sinsemilia, Aunt Mary, skunk, kif.

Short-term Effects; Increased heart rate, light-headedness, bloodshop eyes, dry mouth, impaired short-term memory and comprehension, altered sense of time, loss of coordination, altered motivation paranoia, difficulty speaking and thinking, intense anxiety and panic attacks.

Long-term Effects: Chronic users may experience psychological dependence and an increased risk of cancer, respiratory problems such as lung infections and pneunomia, and problems with their immune and reproductive systems.

Narcotics are the natural and synthetic drugs that relieve pain and induce sleep. They include opiates (opium and its derivatives, morphine, codeine, and heroin) and some synthetic chemicals that have a morphine-like action. Heroin is one of the most dangerous and addictive, affecting the brain's pleasure systems and interfering with the ability to perceive pain. Heroin is a powder or tar-like substance and is injected, smoked or inhaled.

Legal Uses: Narcotics are found in anesthetics, sough syrups and painkillers.

Street Names: Big H, black tar, bozo, brown sugar, china white, crank, crap, dirt, dope, dyno, ferry dust, horse, junk, mud, smack, downtown.

Short-Term Effects: Slowed and slurred speech, slow gait, constricted pupils, droopy eyelids, itching nausea, sedation, respiratory depression, reduced appetite and irregular heart rate and blood pressure.

Long-Term Effects: Addiction and death from overdose are the greatest dangers. Heroin, the most commonly abused, can cause coma, impaired immune systems, menstrual irregularity and various infections.

Sedatives