The use of il­le­gal drugs for many peo­ple can start off as a cu­rios­i­ty, a false ide­ol­o­gy of fun, hav­ing a good time, peer pres­sure among friends, the need to cov­er-up oth­er prob­lems with­in their life and/or a method of es­cape from re­al­i­ty. While not all peo­ple try or use drugs, many end up as recre­ation­al users or ad­dicts. This may have a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on fam­i­ly life and so­ci­ety as a whole.

Drug use is a prob­lem in T&T and be­ing able (a) to iden­ti­fy a per­son who may be us­ing il­le­gal sub­stances, (b) why they re­sort­ed to drug use, and (c) un­der­stand­ing the type of drugs be­ing used and what can cause or in­crease ad­dic­tive habits of drug use, are all-im­por­tant steps to bring­ing aware­ness to the prob­lem.

In many in­stances, par­ents or loved ones are un­aware of drug use, don't know how to deal with the is­sue or sim­ply do not want to get in­volved.While this ar­ti­cle is not in­tend­ed to ad­dress is­sues of moral­i­ty and par­ent­ing but to high­light the symp­toms and in­di­ca­tors that some­one you care about is us­ing drugs, it al­so helps to iden­ti­fy the type of drug be­ing used and the like­li­hood of that in­di­vid­ual be­com­ing ad­dict­ed, based on com­mon symp­toms that are ex­hib­it­ed, and to al­low for that per­son to get help with their ad­dic­tion.Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to be­com­ing ad­dict­ed to drugs can de­pend on a num­ber of dif­fer­ent fac­tors such as men­tal health, fam­i­ly life, abuse, ne­glect, trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ences, so­cial en­vi­ron­ment and self-con­fi­dence.

In ad­di­tion to these fac­tors, an in­creased risk of ad­dic­tive be­hav­iour may be a re­sult of the method of drug ad­min­is­tra­tion, via in­hala­tion, in­tra­venous or oral­ly.Il­le­gal drugs gen­er­al­ly fall in­to these main cat­e­gories: hal­lu­cino­gens, de­pres­sants, stim­u­lants, steroids and syn­thet­ic hy­brids. Each of these clas­si­fi­ca­tions has unique char­ac­ter­is­tics based on their phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal ef­fects.In ad­di­tion to clas­si­fi­ca­tions, the US Con­trolled Sub­stances Act breaks down drugs in­to five main sched­ules. These sched­ules are based on the drug's po­ten­tial for abuse, phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal de­pen­dence and med­ical val­ue. So why is all this im­por­tant? Sim­ply be­cause these il­le­gal sub­stances fall in­to dif­fer­ent clas­si­fi­ca­tions based on their chem­i­cal prop­er­ties and have vast­ly dif­fer­ent ef­fects both on the phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal im­pair­ment of a hu­man be­ing.

The ex­tent of the ef­fect of an in­di­vid­ual's drug use can vary great­ly be­tween users, but there are cer­tain gen­er­al symp­toms based on these clas­si­fi­ca­tions. For ex­am­ple, co­caine, a stim­u­lant, is dif­fer­ent from mar­i­jua­na, a hal­lu­cino­gen that does not al­ways act as such. Each of these has dif­fer­ent ef­fects and would re­quire dif­fer­ent types of treat­ment for cor­rec­tive ac­tion.

There are a num­ber of dif­fer­ent symp­toms that can in­di­cate if your child or sig­nif­i­cant oth­er is us­ing drugs and which clas­si­fi­ca­tion these drugs fall in­to. Here are a few com­mon symp­toms to look out for, as stat­ed by the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of Drug Abuse (USA).

�2 Mar­i­jua­na–eu­pho­ria, re­lax­ation, slowed re­ac­tion time, dis­tort­ed sen­so­ry per­cep­tion, im­paired bal­ance and co-or­di­na­tion, in­creased heart rate and ap­petite, im­paired learn­ing, mem­o­ry; anx­i­ety, pan­ic at­tacks, psy­chosis. Some com­mon as­so­ci­at­ed health risks in­clude cough­ing, fre­quent res­pi­ra­to­ry in­fec­tions, pos­si­ble men­tal health de­cline and ad­dic­tion.

�2 Stim­u­lants (co­caine, am­phet­a­mines)–in­creased heart rate, blood pres­sure, body tem­per­a­ture, me­tab­o­lism; feel­ings of ex­hil­a­ra­tion, in­creased en­er­gy, men­tal alert­ness, tremors, re­duced ap­petite, ir­ri­tabil­i­ty, anx­i­ety, pan­ic, para­noia, vi­o­lent be­hav­iour, psy­chosis. Some com­mon as­so­ci­at­ed health risks in­clude weight loss, in­som­nia, car­diac or car­dio­vas­cu­lar com­pli­ca­tions, stroke, seizures and ad­dic­tion.

�2 Opi­ates (hero­in)–eu­pho­ria, drowsi­ness, im­paired co-or­di­na­tion, dizzi­ness, con­fu­sion, nau­sea, se­da­tion, feel­ing of heav­i­ness in the body, slowed or ar­rest­ed breath­ing. Some com­mon as­so­ci­at­ed health risks in­clude con­sti­pa­tion, en­do­cardi­tis, he­pati­tis, HIV, ad­dic­tion and fa­tal over­dose.

�2 Club drugs (MD­MA and Flu­ni­trazepam, GHB)–mild hal­lu­cino­genic ef­fects, in­creased tac­tile sen­si­tiv­i­ty, em­path­ic feel­ings, low­ered in­hi­bi­tion, anx­i­ety, chills, sweat­ing, teeth-clench­ing, mus­cle cramp­ing. Flu­ni­trazepam has ad­di­tion­al symp­toms such as se­da­tion, mus­cle re­lax­ation, con­fu­sion, mem­o­ry loss, dizzi­ness, im­paired co-or­di­na­tion while GHB-in­tox­i­cat­ed peo­ple may ex­hib­it drowsi­ness, nau­sea, headache, dis­ori­en­ta­tion, loss of co-or­di­na­tion, mem­o­ry loss. Some com­mon as­so­ci­at­ed health risks in­clude sleep dis­tur­bances, de­pres­sion, im­paired mem­o­ry, hy­per­ther­mia, un­con­scious­ness, seizures, co­ma and ad­dic­tion.

While these symp­toms can vary be­tween in­di­vid­u­als, it is im­por­tant to keep a watch­ful eye and seek help where nec­es­sary to pro­tect your friends, fam­i­ly and loved ones from be­ing ad­dict­ed to il­le­gal drugs.There are sev­er­al com­pa­nies that pro­vide chem­i­cal test­ing for these sub­stances and var­i­ous dif­fer­ent agen­cies that pro­vide sup­port for drug-abuse pa­tients.Help­ing ad­dress the is­sue of il­le­gal drug use starts with you, at home, with your fam­i­lies, with your friends, and with peo­ple you know. Every­one has a role to play and the more we un­der­stand why peo­ple use drugs and their symp­toms, the bet­ter we'll be pre­pared to deal with it.

The Caribbean In­sti­tute for Se­cu­ri­ty and Pub­lic Safe­ty pro­vides train­ing and de­vel­op­ment to or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­di­vid­u­als in many facets of se­cu­ri­ty, law en­force­ment and pub­lic safe­ty. Con­tact us at 223-6999 or in­fo@caribbeanse­cu­ri­tyin­sti­tute.com