Drugs

Drugs and Alcohol, and their Effects to Human Body System

Drug refers to any chemical substance that alters the functioning of the body systems when taken. Therefore, prescription of drugs should only be recommended by qualified people who have adequate knowledge about their ingredients and also their effects to the human body. However, drugs can be abused through being used for other purposes rather than their medicinal uses. For instance, a person may take an overdose of a certain drug in order to relieve his or her body from stress. Drug abuse causes adverse effects to the body which may either be long-term or short-term effects.

Alcohol is one of the drugs which are commonly abused because it is legal in many nations. Mainly, people abuse alcohol either to get relieved from stress or during celebrations. It results to side effects which include; nausea, loss of memory, blindness, insomnia and fatigue, sexual impotence among other effects. Most of the drugs which are common abused are highly addictive hence it becomes very hard for one to stop taking them. This causes the health of the body to deteriorate which may lead to death.

Many institutions have established rehabilitation centers to help drug addicts to stop their bad habits and participate in development projects within their community. This has also led to decrease in crime rates in the society since most of the crimes are committed by drug addicts. It has also led to establishment of development projects due to the adequate labor provided by the youths who were initially drug traffickers.

Abuse of drugs is largely condemned in the society and also seen to be against required the moral values. Therefore, drug addicts are rejected by the other members of the society which makes them to feel that they are not important and that the society does not appreciate their actions.

Effects of Drugs and Alcohol to Human Body System

Kidney Disease

This is caused by overworking of the kidney to detoxify the body from the high amount of alcohol ingested. It results to wearing out of the kidney which leads to failure in its functions. Therefore, it becomes necessary to have another mechanism which will help the body in detoxification of harmful substances. At this stage, a dialysis is done to clean the toxins from the body in order to support life.

Heart Disease

High toxin levels from drugs affect the heart’s electrical system which hinders it from the normal pumping of blood. These toxins alter the heart’s normal electrical pattern hence affecting its muscles which makes it unable to maintain a steady rhythm during the pumping process. A failure of the heart results to low blood supply to some parts of the body such as the head which may lead to death of brain cells due to inadequate supply of oxygen. This situation may cause stroke to the person or loss of function to some parts of the body if proper treatment is not given. Other drugs such as cocaine increases the heartbeat beat rate above the normal range which leads to overworking of the heart hence causing it to malfunction.

Liver Disease

The liver performs many functions in the body including detoxification of harmful substances. Therefore, high intake of drugs increases the toxin levels in the body hence making the liver to get overworked. This is because of the need to get rid of the toxins from the body while performing other functions such as regulation of body temperature and helping in production of blood cells. The liver becomes unhealthy due to constantly being overworked to protect the body from the harmful effects caused by these toxins.

Viral Diseases

Many drug addicts become careless about their health hence they end up contracting infectious diseases from one another. Some people may share needles with their peers to inject drugs into to their bloodstreams hence risking contracting diseases. The highly contracted diseases according to PA DUI Association include; HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, Syphilis, and Malaria. There are also other illnesses which may affect drug addicts such as Tuberculosis or even pneumonia due to living in unhealthy conditions. In some cases, drug addicts live together irrespectively of their gender which may result to unprotected sex hence causing transmission of Sexually Transmitted Infections.

Brain Damage

Drug abuse interferes with the chemical composition in the brain hence impairing its communication with other body systems. The failure of the key organs in the body such as the heart also results to death of brain cells hence affecting its functioning. This is seen through signs such as abrupt change of moods, confusions or paranoia. If the brain is largely affected it may result to madness or even death of the victim.

Carelessness of the drugs addicts makes them to ignore advices from other people about the dangers they are exposed to. This makes them unwilling to visit health centers for consultation hence their heath continues to deteriorate until they die.

Impaired Judgment

This is the inability of a person to make sound decisions due to influence of drugs and alcohol. It becomes hard for one to think about the consequences which may result due some decisions he or she makes. For instance, a drug addict may choose to steal in order to get money for buying drugs without considering the possible dangers such as mob justice or being arrested by the law enforcers. Drugs also make one unable to know the exact shape, size or color of objects hence he or she is prone to mistakes while handling them. It also becomes hard for people, under the influence of drugs, to see far objects or even determine correctly the distance of various objects from them. This may lead to accidents when driving while drunk or even when crossing busy roads. A drunkard will face difficulties in knowing the approximate distance between his or her vehicle and the other vehicles on the same lane hence may end up causing accidents.

Some drugs affect the communication of the brain and other body systems by changing their electrical pattern. This causes uncoordinated contractions of muscles of the body which makes the victim to become unstable. Therefore, accidents are likely to occur when handling sharp objects.

Schizophrenia

Though there are other causes of schizophrenia, drug abuse is a major cause of the disease. Schizophrenia is a disorder which makes the victims unable to distinguish between real and imagined experiences. It is characterized by symptoms such as bad behavior and social crimes. The victim is likely to have hallucinations, delusions, confusion while giving speech, catatonia, and also bad behavior. People with this disorder become threats to the society since they have to be monitored keenly to make sure that they do not harm other people or even themselves. This disorder may cause other mental complications hence making the health of the victim to be worse. During diagnosis of the disorder, professionals examine the patient fully to make sure that there is no other mental illness which might have resulted due to the disease. Since it may be caused by psychological factors or environmental factors, doctors gather important information from the parents and peers of the patients to determine the possible cause.

Neurotoxicity

This is the impairment of the nervous system due to exposure of the body to toxic chemicals. Drug addicts are prone to this disorder because of the toxins contained in the drugs they abuse, and also due to unhealthy living conditions. For instance, many drug addicts lack permanent houses due to fear of being arrested by the law enforcers hence they end up sleeping in the streets. Therefore, they are exposed to many pollutants which increase the toxin levels in their nervous systems.

High toxin levels in the brain causes memory loss, loss of balance and circulation constraints. On the peripheral nervous systems, symptoms such as numbness, loss of sensation, and tingling are experienced. The toxin levels accumulate in high amounts hence making the body organs unable to detoxify it fully. This leads to damage of the nervous system.

Uncontrolled Body Weight

Alcoholism causes difficulties in ensuring a healthy body weight due to the high amount of calories contained in alcoholic drinks. Since it is addictive, more calories are added in to the body hence exceeding the rate at which the body burns them. Therefore, this causes continuous weight gain hence making the body unhealthy. However, this problem is mainly experienced by the wealthy people. The poor drug addicts on the other hand may have excessive weight loss. This is because most of them participate in hard manual work whereby they burn a lot of calories during their daily activities. The main problem which they face is loss of appetite (Parab, 2012). They do not have the required resources to enable them to enjoy the recommended foods in order to improve their appetite. When they report back to their daily activities, a lot of energy is required in order to perform their hard tasks which make them to rely on the calories obtained from alcohol only. Their health continues to deteriorate due to excessive loss of weight.

High Blood Pressure

Hypertension can be caused by many other factors though drug abuse is a major factor. It results due to direct pouring of adrenaline or drugs into the chambers of the heart. It results to rapid pumping of the heart hence causing blood in the veins and arteries to flow at relatively higher pressure than the normal range. There are many effects which may result due to high blood pressure including overworking of the heart. The cardiac muscles may also grow unpropotionally due to straining in some parts which have been greatly affected by the drugs. Some veins in the body are not able to sustain blood under high pressure hence they may burst.

            Excessive weight gain also increases the resting heartbeat rate hence resulting to high blood pressure. In other cases, whereby drug addiction leaves no time for doing body exercises, it may also result to high blood pressure because of accumulation of a lot of fat in the body. Some of the fat particles may constrict blood vessels hence decreasing their diameter for passage of blood. This causes the blood to flow at high pressure.

Low Blood Pressure

            Hypotension may be caused by dilation of blood vessels which makes the blood to flow at a lower pressure than the normal range. Some drugs have great impact on the blood vessels when abused, by increasing their diameter. This makes blood flow in some parts of the body to be inadequate hence leading to suffocation of body cells. The body becomes weak due to reduced supply of oxygen and other essential nutrients. The removal of metabolic waste also slows down hence leading to accumulation of toxins in the body. This poisons body cells thus causing many of them to die. Under serious conditions, death may occur since the body will be lacking enough energy to support its crucial processes.

Respiratory failure

It is mainly caused by abuse of drug through smoking or inhalation of fumes. Some drugs such marijuana can be taken through smoking which affects the lungs of the victim. Unfortunately, more danger is posed to the passive smokers than the active ones. A research conducted by the PA DUI Association shows that the active smokers inhale only a small percentage, 20%, of the harmful contents of the drugs while the passive smokers inhale 80% of the fumes. Smoking causes many dangers to the body including lung cancer.

The smokers are also likely to experience breathing problems due to coating of the respiratory organs by smoke particles. Other drugs such as heroine, whereby the addicts inhale the fumes produced after heating them, may cause inflammation to the respiratory organs. Drug addicts should be advised on the dangers of abusing these drugs since most of them cause permanent deformation to body organs which lead to failure in their functions (Parab, 2012). Moreover, once addicted, it becomes almost impossible to stop using these drugs since the body loses its natural ability to support various processes in providing adequate energy.

Conclusion

Drug abuse is caused by many factors which include; peer pressure, desperation, family problems, or even poverty levels. People start abusing them in order to stop thinking about the challenges the face in life. Other people are forced to become drug traffickers in order to earn a living.

Proper guidance should be given to such people in order to help them to focus on other beneficial activities in the society. In most cases, the youth are lured by wealthy people into the habit, whereby the influence their peers, hence ending up having a gang of drug addicts. Harsh disciplinary measures should be taken to such people and rehabilitation centers established to help those addicted to resume their normal life.

The reckless behavior of the drug addicts poses danger not only to their lives but also to the whole society at large since they cause insecurity by increasing the crime rates. This becomes a setback to the development of the society since the youths who should be relied upon for labor, get involved in abuse of drugs.

Drug traffickers do not spend time in consulting medical doctors about their health status hence becoming a threat in contracting diseases to other people around them. Therefore, people should be advised to seek medical assistance frequently in order to ensure diagnosis of any disease they might have contracted while in its early stages. Alternative ways of earning a living should also be introduced to the youths in order to help them to improve their living standards, and avoid drug trafficking.

Annotated Bibliography

PA DUI Association. (2013, 4 12). Effects of Drugs and Alcohol. Retrieved 07 29, 2013, from Team DUI: www.padui.org/information/effects-of-drugs-and-alcohol/

This information is derived from a web article prepared by The PA DUI Association about the effects of drugs and alcohol to human body system. This article was written to address DUI problems in every stage including; prevention, adjudiction and also rehabilitation of the ones affected. The facts in this article have been supported by other scholarly articles such such the one written by UNC School of Medicine in their official website www.med.unc.edu. It shows many effects caused by drugs and alcohol to the human body and how the can be rehabilitated.

Parab, P. (2012, Semptember 12). Alcohol and Weight Gain. Retrieved July 30, 2013, from Medimanage: www.medimanage.com

This article is written on the basis of facts after a research that was conducted by an Indian researcher on the effects of alcohol to the body weight. This research was triggered by the increased consciousness of the Indians on their body weight in the 21^st century. The researcher aimed at establishing the facts about alcohol drinking and its effects to the body. He analyzed the contents of different alcohol brands and showed how the body reacted to them. The article has been supported by other facts from other scholars in the medical sector such as those from The Harvard School of Medicine.