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Amphetamine and methamphetamine - effects, consequences, therapy
contents
- An artificial drug
- Synthetic copies
- Cold, swallow and inject
- How does amphetamine work??
- Artificial stress
- Flight, attack or death?
- Stress serves the naked survival
- Survival instead of sleep
- A neurochemical trick
- Stress versus social interaction
- Euphoria and aggressiveness
- Psychic dependence
- Pull effect on labile
- Artificial exhilaration
- Inner unrest
- The disturbed balance
- Dancing until you drop
- Conformist egomaniacs
- consequences
- Physical dependence
- overdoses
- Antisocial behavior
- Danger to pregnant women
- Long-term consequences
An artificial drug
Amphetamine was first synthesized in 1887 and 43 years later it was marketed as an anti-cold medicine. In 1934, methedrine first circulated, a methamphetamine (meth) with even greater potency than amphetamine. Methamphetamine is now considered to be the most harmful substance to the body and also very quickly becomes physically dependent. Methedrine served at the time as a remedy for poor performance.
Crystal Meth is extremely fast-paced and causes massive physical and mental damage. (Image: Kaesler Media / fotolia.com) Speed and crystal meth are also such stimulants: They promote the release of neurotransmitters, and these messengers provide higher performance in the short term. The side effects can be increased aggression and psychosis.
Synthetic copies
Amphetamine and methamphetamine are synthetically produced substances that copy natural phenylamines. These are, for example, hormones such as epinephrine, transmitters such as dopamine, amino acids such as L-tyrosine or alkaloids such as mescaline. All these substances are psychoactive, but in different directions.
Cold, swallow and inject
Amphetamine is usually sold as a white powder. It can be pulled through the nose, dissolved in liquid or injected into the blood. Methamphetamine consists of whitish crystals (chrystal meth). These can be smoked, sniffed to powder, or injected into water to inject.
How does amphetamine work??
Amphetamine stimulates the autonomic nervous system, which expands by the substance norepinephrine, as well as dopamine and norephedrine. Namely, amphetamine enters the presynaptic nerve cells, from which information is transmitted to the organism.
Inside these nerve cells, the amphetamine now forces neurotransmitters stored there from their reservoirs, and they now pour themselves into the cells. That alone would not have serious consequences, but the material also reverses the direction of the neurotransmitters: they now travel directly into the synapse, unlike the natural process, regardless of whether the cell "fires".
Methamphetamine works in the same way, but more intensively. Thus, "meth" releases more dopamine, and the substance playfully overcomes the blood-brain barrier - so it spreads immediately in the brain.
Through stress, the body is put on alert. Our senses are sharpened and we feel neither hunger nor fatigue. (Image: Bildgigant / fotolia.com) Artificial stress
The state that consumers seek and that amphetamine triggers is by no means healthy - it is artificially produced stress. Stress is a state of emergency in body chemistry that allows it to react faster than usual in dangerous situations.
Flight, attack or death?
In evolution, these were the situations where we would have to decide at lightning speed whether we were fleeing from a predator or a human enemy, hiding or fleeing. Our senses are sharpened, we hear better, we see better; we are driven and do not feel tired or hungry.
Stress serves the naked survival
In nature, for example, it would have distracted us if we had followed a prey animal for hours and lost focus because we were tired. If we were faced with a lion, we could not analyze the situation for long, but immediately had to either throw the spear or bring us to safety.
Survival instead of sleep
Physical means stress: The body emits more messengers, which drive us and suppress the feelings of hunger or fatigue. However, that does not mean that the body needs less food or sleep - on the contrary, stress consumes energy, and after the stress periods, we need more sleep and more food to regenerate. But who, in the face of the lion, would have taken a nap or struck his stomach, would not have survived long.
In these survival situations, body chemistry sets priorities: In the medium term, we can not live without food and sleep, but in moments of bare survival this has priorities.
A neurochemical trick
The "trick" of synthetic amphetamines, however, is that the body chemistry does not know whether a real danger, that is stress situation, is present or not. Only the chemical messages are transmitted via the neurotransmitters, and they put the state of emergency into effect.
So, whether we feel energized in nature, think ourselves invincible and increase our physical performance, because we have to make the last ten kilometers to the safe camp, or we feed ourselves amphetamines to dance all night - that's what the neurotransmitters say Not.
Amphetamines assassinate, they wake up and allow, for example, hours of dancing. (Image: DWP / fotolia.com) Stress versus social interaction
There are good reasons why, of course, we are not always in a state of stress: Stress not only means faster reactions, but also rash ones, and from the structures of the human brain it can be deduced, compared to chimpanzees, that the level of stress is the same Civilization as well as the speed with which the stress process begins.
According to the biologist Carl Safina, this is an evolutionary adaptation to living together in large groups in a confined space, dogs went through a similar change in the hormone balance compared to wolves. In constant coexistence with many peers in a confined space, it would be fatal if we were constantly reacting with the rapid reactions of flight and attack: stress makes aggressive, and that is exactly what is an effect of amphetamine.
Euphoria and aggressiveness
People who are "on speed" not only talk incessantly, can not sit still and dance all night, they also quickly start fights, divide the world into friend and foe, insult and hurt other people in a way like that they would not do it in the "normal state". In addition, methamphetamine releases more dopamine, and those affected feel extra euphoric.
Psychic dependence
The artificially produced state of mental disorder leads to those affected often looking for the kick again and again. Even more: Often just take such people amphetamine, these conditions are not only missing in everyday life, but often feel the opposite of it.
Pull effect on labile
Speed attracts people who are usually passive, shy, "out of self", and low on self esteem. If these sufferers "on speed" now have the experience of behaving like the "king of the city" for a night, and sometimes even of outsiders, then the danger of artificially restoring this feeling is enormous.
Artificial exhilaration
In addition, after the intoxication, as with cocaine, the dejection comes. Excessive dancing, restless running around and talking to the rest of the body costs energy to the body, which he has to laboriously regenerate. After the nights of dancing with amphetamine, the users feel just as they would feel after danced nights without the drug; They are at the end of their powers. You need a lot of rest.
In addition, however, the fears and problems with which they took the amphetamine, in a more severe form again. In the case of meth, the risk of mental dependency is even extreme, because it quickly floods into the brain and it works immediately and very strongly.
After an excessive party night with booster drugs comes the total exhaustion. (Image: pressmaster / fotolia.com) Inner unrest
The "Abtörn" does not begin when the intoxication stops. After several hours, the users feel nervous, they are tired. The body now demands the necessary rest, which artificially stole the amphetamine. The alleged increase in performance was due to a depletion of resources.
The disturbed balance
Many sufferers now take sedatives like Valium to "get back down" or smoke cannabis. The result is a permanent psychological dependence on various substances, the people from the outside feed, because the body's chemistry is out of control.
Constant consumers often suffer from not knowing their real moods anymore. Between the ups and downs through the drugs they go through phases of inner emptiness and depression.
Dancing until you drop
In Europe, amphetamine mainly spread in the Tekkno scene. Compared to previous subcultures, this was characterized by the fact that the "parties" were no longer subject to the traditional time restrictions.
The ravers did not go to a concert for two or three hours in the evening, then perhaps to a pub, and eventually sleep at night, but the digitally generated music ran and runs throughout the next day. The booster drugs allow you to dance through from Friday night to Sunday night.
In contrast to the drug consumption of the hippie generation in the Tekkno amphetamines do not serve to get "higher insights", and unlike the pub pubs they should not help to escape the daily routine by a "stunning on time".
Conformist egomaniacs
The amphetamines, however, the "values" of turbo-capitalism such as constant high performance, aggressive egomania and an unassailable facade to extend into the leisure time. The consumption of the "upper" in the Tekkno scene is not a (helpless) escape from the neoliberal Ver- and devaluation of humans as the consumption of heroin in the times of Christiane F. The upturned by the substance egocentricity of the Raverszene is on the contrary the capitalist performance society in its purest form.
Amphetamines are consumed in Europe mainly in the rave and techno scene. (Image: SammyC / fotolia.com) consequences
Amphetamine and methamphetamine are highly dependent on the body. Because they displace the messengers norepinephrine and dopamine, only a few of these molecules return to the interior of the cell. From time to time fewer of these messengers are available because the body can not produce them indefinitely; the stores empty themselves.
The users replace now every time the distributed messenger substances by even more substance and so take the last neurotransmitters from their memory. Tolerance to the drug is growing.
Physical dependence
Physical dependence means concretely: If the users abruptly stop the amphetamine, the messenger substances are missing in the cells. Extreme fatigue is the result. In biological evolution, the state of stress trickles living beings into thinking that they are not hungry and can do much more than usual. In the case of amphetamine, this means that those affected go far beyond the real limits: they dance until they collapse.
overdoses
Overdose causes high blood pressure, rapid heartbeat, chest pain and anxiety, which can lead to anxiety disorders. In addition, there is sweating and trembling. In worse cases, heart disorders can occur, including acute coronary syndrome, the first phase of a heart attack.
Antisocial behavior
Consumption can lead to underweight, because those affected are not subjectively hungry. Extensive use is often associated with paranoid delusions, persistent hallucinations and high aggressiveness. All three go hand in hand: the paranoid consumer sees enemies all around him, conspiring against him, seeing them doing bad things in his hallucinations and attacking them - verbally or even physically. Speed is no accident as a drug of violent hooligans.
Danger to pregnant women
Special danger arises for pregnant women and nursing mothers: Amphetamine and methamphetamine penetrate the placental barrier and reach both the uterus and the mother's milk. The newborns of meth dependent mothers are thus born as physically addicts of the drug - with all the consequences.
Long-term consequences
Long-term consequences of amphetamine, but especially of methamphetamine, are tooth decay and tooth decay, malnutrition resulting in vitamin and mineral deficiencies as well as liver and kidney damage. In addition, there are diseases of the lungs and the pulmonary circulation and brain damage, which can be compared with Alzheimer's disease and epilepsy, continue it can cause a heart attack and stroke. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)
Specialist supervision: Barbara Schindewolf-Lensch (doctor)