Drugs: The Lowdown
Drugs. Find out all you need to know in this basic guide to some of the substances on the street today.
Cannabis
This is the "most widely used illegal drug in Britain", according to FRANK.
It comes in different forms: either a black-brown lump (known as hash); as weed, which looks like dried herbs; or as cannabis oil, which is less common.
Cannabis is usually mixed with tobacco and smoked as a joint, though some put it in a pipe.
It can also be used to make tea or added to food.
Cannabis is a mild sedative and hallucinogen, and effects can include feeling relaxed, getting the 'munchies' (feeling hungry), feeling sick, and an increased awareness of the senses.
Though there are no physical withdrawal symptoms, users can develop a psychological dependence.
Links have been shown between cannabis use and both mental health problems and fertility problems.
Co-ordination and concentration can become difficult, and users can become anxious and paranoid.
Cocaine
Cocaine also comes in different forms: 'coke' comes as a powder, which is snorted up the nose; 'crack' cocaine comes in small lumps, and is usually smoked in a pipe, in foil or through a tube.
Either form can be prepared for injecting.
Cocaine is a stimulant, as it speeds up the processes in the mind and body.
People taking it can feel wide-awake and confident, which lasts for around 20 minutes for snorted coke, and 10 minutes for crack.
It raises the body temperature and heart rate, and can suppress hunger.
Cocaine is highly addictive due to its effect on the brain, and users can experience low moods and general feelings of illness when trying to stop use.
It can bring on mental health problems, and overdose can be fatal.
Ecstasy
Ecstasy comes in tablet form in various colours, sometimes with a logo stamped on, which is swallowed.
It can also come in powder form.
Effects include an energy buzz, chattiness, a sense that surroundings (sounds and colours) are more intense, and feelings of love for others.
People can develop a psychological dependence to ecstasy, and can build up a resistance to it, meaning it takes more to get the same effect.
Users can experience anxiety, panic attacks, raised body temperature, dehydration, and depression, among other negative side effects.
Heroin
Heroin comes as a powder, which is originally white but is whitish-brown once cut with other substances.
