Health
Risks Related to Alcohol
Short-term effects of alcohol
use include:
• distorted vision, hearing, and coordination
• altered perceptions and emotions
• impaired judgment
• bad breath
• hangovers
Long-term effects of heavy
alcohol use include:
• loss of appetite
• skin problems
• sexual impotence
• malnutrition (food substitution; digestion
interference)
• delirium tremors: disorientation, hallucinations,
memory loss
• brain damage and possible permanent psychosis
• cancer of the mouth, esophagus, or stomach due to
alcohol irritation
• heart disease, enlarged heart, or congestive heart
failure
• liver damage, including cirrhosis, liver cancer, and
alcohol hepatitis
• irritation of the stomach lining causing ulcers and/or
gastritis
• damage to the adrenal/pituitary glands
• fatal bleeding from esophagus
• birth defects or injury to the fetus during pregnancy
• respiratory depression
• increased aggressiveness, possible abuse of others
• impairment of coordination and judgment
Health
Risks Related to Controlled Substance Use
The general health risks
associated with the use of illegal drugs can be divided into two categories:
drug use that can destroy a healthy mind and body by outright organic damage,
mental illness, malnutrition, and failure to get treatment of injuries or
diseases; and drug use that generally reduces the body’s natural immune system
and increases the chances for infectious diseases such as hepatitis and AIDS.
Drug overdose may cause psychosis, convulsions, coma, or death.
Specific health problems
associated with the following drugs:
•
Amphetamines: heart problems, malnutrition, possible death, psychological and
physical dependence, hallucinations;
•
Cocaine: convulsions, coma, death, destruction of nasal membranes, physical
dependence, depression, hallucinations, confusion, lesions on the lungs;
•
Depressants (Barbiturates, Tranquilizers, Methaqualone): confusion and loss of
coordination, physical and psychological intolerance, coma or death, problems
when taken with alcohol;
•
Marijuana and Hashish: confusion and loss of coordination, psychological
dependence, lung damage;
•
Hallucinogens (LSD, PCP DMT STP, MDA, Designer Drugs): hallucinations and
panic, birth defects, convulsions, coma, death; and
•
Narcotics (Heroin, Morphine, Codeine, Opium): lethargy and loss of judgment,
physical and psychological dependence, convulsions, coma, death, malnutrition,
infection, hepatitis.