CAN YOU PASSTHIS DRUG TEST?

1. There are good drugsand bad drugs. True orFalse?

2. Most drugs don’t hurtyour mind. True orFalse?

3. No one knows whatcauses people to takedrugs. True or False?

4. Most drugs aren’t habit-forming. True or False?

5. Alcohol isn’t a drug.True or False?

6. Marijuana isn’t harmful.True or False?

7. Ecstasy is safer thanother drugs. True orFalse?

8. Drugs increase creativity.True or False?

9. Drugs improve yoursenses. True or False?

10. Drugs stay in the bodyfor only a short time.True or False?

ALL TEN OF THESESTATEMENTS ARE FALSE!

Most of the information people get aboutdrugs isn’t true. It comes from people whosell drugs, or from people who take drugsthemselves. Companies that make drugsadvertise them on TV in order to sell them andmake money. People who sell street drugs alsogive out information about drugs that isn’ttrue.

People who take drugs often think that drugsare safe. Sometimes they find out they werewrong, but it’s too late. In order to make upyour own mind about drugs, you need toknow what drugs do.

1. DRUGS AREBASICALLY POISONS.

Drugs are basically toxins or, more simply,poisons. The amount that you take controlshow the drug affects you. A small amount actsas a stimulant (something that speeds up theactivity of the body). A greater amount acts asa sedative (something used to make someonesleepy or calm). A larger amount acts as apoison and can kill you. This is true of ANYdrug. Each has a different amount at which itgives those results.

Caffeine is a drug. So coffee is an example.Two or three cups stimulate. Ten cups wouldprobably put a person to sleep. One hundredcups of coffee, taken fast enough and all at onetime, would probably kill a person.

A small amount of any druG acts as a stimulant.

A greater amount acts as a sedative.

An even greateramount acts as

a poison and can kill you.

2. ALMOST ALL DRUGSAFFECT THE MIND.

When a personthinks ofsomething, he getsa picture of it in hismind. These“mental pictures”are very easy to seefor yourself. If youclose your eyes andthink of a cat, youwill get a picture ofa cat. The mindrecords thesepictures and usesthem to solveproblems in life.

Normally when aperson rememberssomething, the mindis very fast,andinformation comes tohim very quicklyfrom the pictures inhis mind.

But drugs blur thepictures. They makethe pictures dull andcloudy. This causes“blank spots”in themind.

When a person triesto get informationthrough all thisblurry mess, he can’tdo it. Drugs make aperson seem sloweror stupid. This cancause him to havefailures in life. Andwhen he fails, whatdoes the personwant more of?DRUGS!

3. PEOPLE TAKEDRUGS TO GET RID OFUNWANTED SITUATIONS

OR FEELINGS.Anyone who takes drugs does it to get rid ofsome pain, or to avoid problems and unwantedfeelings, including boredom. To understandwhy someone takes drugs now, you need toknow what was wrong before he or she tookthem.

He may have had some physical problem whichwas causing him pain.

He may havebeen trying to calm down.

Maybe shewas unable

to sleep.

She may have wanted to feel happier.

Or maybe hewas just bored.

The drugs were a temporary solution to theunwanted feelings. To get a real solution, theperson would have to fix what was causingthe problem in the first place.

4. WHEN A DRUGWEARS OFF, THE

PERSON WANTS MORE.When any drug wears off, the pain or otherfeeling that went away comes back strongerthan before.

If someone had aproblem that made himwant to take drugs, likefeeling “too nervous” totalk to anyone at aparty...

he might take a drug to help him relax.

When the drug wearsoff, the feeling ofnervousness is worsethan before—and hewants MORE drugs tocalm himself.

This person’s problemtalking to people won’tgo away until he doessomething about hisshyness and finds out heCAN talk to peoplewithout drugs.

5. ALCOHOL ISONE OF THE MOST

USED DRUGS.Alcohol is a drug. Like any other drug it ispoisonous to the body in a large volume. Likeother drugs, alcohol uses up vitamins in yourbody so you feel tired or sick after drinking it.This is what causes a “hangover.” If alcoholuses up too many vitamins, a person’s bodycan start shaking and sweating. The personcan also feel more anxious and tired.

The body needs vitamins to stay alive. If youdon’t eat a healthy diet, you may not get thevitamins you need. Not having enoughvitamins can make you feel tired, or even makeit easier for you to get sick. And, when you getsick, it can take much longer to get well.

Any time you take drugs, they burn up some ofyour body’s vitamins. If you take enoughdrugs, you may later feel bad or get sick. Whathappens if you keep taking drugs to feelbetter, but each time the drugs burn up yourvitamins? The problem gets WORSE.

vitamins

drugs

vitamins are burned up by the drugs.

6. MARIJUANADAMAGES THE LUNGS,NERVES AND BRAIN.

There are 400 chemicals in marijuana smokeand 60 of these have been proven to causecancer. These chemicals can stay in the bodyfor months or even years. Also, marijuanacontains THC, a “neurotoxin”(a poison thatdamages nerves). Of all the chemicals inmarijuana,THC affects the mind the most.

When someonesmokes pot, itmakes two thingshappen: 1) There’san almostimmediate burn-upof vitamins andminerals in thebody. 2) Thenervous systemchanges and thenerves in the bodygo numb.

Each time someone gets “high,” they don’t feelquite as “high”as they did before, and eachtime they feel a little worse afterwards.

Eventually, pot smokers don’t want the drug—they NEED the drug to get rid of the unwantedconditions the drugs created in their bodies.Their bodies can’t take in enough vitamins tomake up for what the drugs destroy.

Body numb “feels floaty”

Not quite as high each time

vitamins burned up

drops lower each time

7. ECSTASY IS ADANGEROUS DRUG.

Ecstasy can cause a dangerous increase inbody temperature that can make a person’sheart stop working. Ecstasy may damage cellsin the brain. Ecstasy users can also haveproblems with their memory.

Ecstasy is a“hallucinogen”(adrug that acts on themind to causepeople to see or feelthings that aren’treally there).Hallucinogens aresome of the mostdangerous drugs.

Hallucinogens cause pictures in the mind tobecome mixed up. A person can get “throwninto”a scary or sad experience from the past(his attention gets fixed on that experience)and get stuck there without even realizing it.

This person ishallucinating.

This can result in permanent feelings of fear,sadness or other feelings that have nothing todo with what’s happening in the person’spresent life.

In one survey, 50% to 55% of people who triedecstasy said they had feelings of losing control,extreme suffering and fear.

This person is “Stuck”in a bad experience

from his past.

8. DRUGS RUINCREATIVITY.

There is a series of emotions that people moveup and down on as they go through life.Here’s an example:

Cheerfulness

Interest

Boredom

Anger

Fear

Grief (feels sad)

Apathy (doesn’t care about anything)

reaches a goal

has anargument

Fails

Let’s say someone is bored. She smokes potwhich causes the nervous system to go numband “lifts”her into a fake cheerfulness. It’s fakebecause what happens when the drug wearsoff? She feels terrible and doesn’t care aboutanything. When she comes back up the scale,she feels a little lower than before she took thedrug.

The person goes lower and lower, feels lessand less cheerful, and less and less creative astime goes on.

bored

fake cheerfulnessbecause of drugs.

after drugs wear off...

Feels terrible.

doesn’t comeback up toboredom.

now feels angry.

9. DRUGS DULL ALLYOUR SENSES.

Because drugs numb the nervous system, theyare a way to temporarily get rid of unwantedfeelings like sadness, boredom or fear.Sometimes, such as in an emergency or whenthere has been an accident, drugs are neededso that an operation can be performed. Drugsare used to block off pain and other unwantedfeelings. But there is a whole group of wantedfeelings, and drugs block off ALL feelings.

Eventually any kind of feeling becomes harderto experience. That includes sexual feelings.The person feels less alive, and he may act likehe doesn’t care about anything or anyonearound him.

After a while, drugs will make a person lessaware of what is going on around him. He willbecome slower, not as quick to think or moveor react. So he can get into accidents andother dangerous situations more easily whenhe has used drugs.

Often the person isn’t aware of this change inhimself, even though other people may noticeit and try to point it out to him.

10. DRUGS CAN STAYIN THE BODY FOR ALONG TIME AFTERYOU TAKE THEM.

Most drugs can get stored in fat within thebody and can stay there for a long time. Hereis how that happens.

Drugs easily mix with fat in the body. Asnearly all cells in the body contain some fat,drugs become “attracted to”and accumulate invarious parts of the body, especially key organssuch as the brain, lungs, kidneys and liver. Inthe below representation, you can see howdrugs can be pulled into the fat.

Fatvein

drugs

This is a problem because later, when theperson is working, exercising at the gym orhiking, the fat burns up and a tiny amount ofthe drug can go back into the vein. This canmake a person feel some of the effects of thedrug again. The person gets a tiny “taste”ofthat drug.

What happens when you get a tiny taste ofsugar? You want MORE. What happens to theperson getting a tiny taste of that drug? Hewants MORE. So he may still want drugs, evenyears after he’s stopped taking them.

drugs stored in fat

drugs released back

into bloodstream

WHAT YOU CANDO ABOUT IT.

By learning and knowing the truth aboutdrugs, you yourself can make the rightdecision not to use them. You can also helpfriends and family by sharing what you knowand helping them lead a drug-free life.

Most schools, youth groups and communitygroups have anti-drug programs or belong to agroup of people and organizations workingtogether to make their community drug-free.You can do your part by contacting thesegroups and working with them. You can alsocontact a Narconon center near you for helpstarting a drug prevention and educationprogram in your community.

If you know someone who is taking drugs andcan’t seem to stop, your nearest Narcononcenter can help.Visit Narconon.org and usethe “Worldwide Centers”button to find thenearest center.

The Narconon program is based on theresearch and discoveries of author andhumanitarian, L. Ron Hubbard. Narcononcenters are open to people of any race, color,belief or religion.

QUESTIONSABOUT DRUGS.

Q. Just because a person takes drugs, doesthat mean he or she has a drug problem?

A. Anyone who takes drugs takes them as asolution to a problem he already has. Itmight be unhappiness at school or at workor at home; shyness, loneliness or boredom;or a medical condition that may require theuse of a drug for a certain time. The drugitself can become a problem when a personcannot stop using it, even though it isharming his body and mind. But there isALWAYS a problem before the drugs, andthere is most often a solution availablewithout them.

Q. Aren’t prescription drugs okay to take?A. Sometimes a person is required to take a

drug for a known medical condition. If thisis the case, then it is very important toknow what you are taking and know whatits side effects are, and that you follow theinstructions carefully. Any drug can betoxic or poisonous; a person should knoweverything about it before putting it in hisor her body.

COMMON DRUGSQUICK FACTS.

MARIJUANA:Street Names: Blunt, Grass, Herb, Pot,

Reefer, Sinsemilla, Smoke,Weed, Mary Jane, Skunk,Boom, Gangster, Kif,Chronic, Ganja.

Long-term Effects: Long-term use is morelikely to producepsychotic symptoms onan ongoing basis. Long-lasting harm to the lungsand to the heart.Increased symptoms ofbronchitis. Coughing andwheezing.Repeated usecan lead to addiction.Useof marijuana weakens theimmune system,and useby pregnant mothers canresult in lower IQ for thechild.

ECSTASY:Street Names: E, XTC, X, Adam, Hug,

Beans, Clarity, Lover’sSpeed, Love Drug.Chemical abbreviation isMDMA.

Long-term Effects: Long-lasting braindamage affecting thoughtand memory. Use ofecstasy is documented tocause severe depression,and can result in lastingfeelings of anxiety andhostility.

COCAINE AND CRACK COCAINE:Street Names: Coke, Crack, Flake,

Rocks, Snow.Long-term Effects: Irritability,mood

disturbances, restlessness,paranoia,hearing thingsthat are not real.Tolerance to the drugdevelops; more of it isneeded to produce thesame “high.” It can alsolead to heart attacks,chest pain, respiratory(breathing system)failure, strokes, seizures,

headaches,abdominalpain and nausea.

CRYSTAL METH:Street Names: Speed, Meth, Crystal,

Crank,Tweak, Go-fast,Ice, Glass.

Long-term Effects: Can cause irreversibledamage. Increased heartrate and blood pressure.Can damage blood vesselsin the brain,which cancause strokes or irregularheartbeat,which in turncan cause heart failureand death. Can causeliver, kidney and lungdamage. Users can alsosuffer brain damage,memory gaps andextreme mood swings.

STEROIDS:Street Names: Arnolds, Gym Candy,

Pumpers, Stackers,Weight Trainers, Juice.

Long-term Effects: The drug is addictive andwithdrawal symptomscan include mood

swings, suicidal thoughtsand/or attempts, fatigue,loss of appetite andsleeplessness. Steroidabuse has beenassociated with heartdisease, including heartattack and stroke.

ALCOHOL:Street Names: Booze, Sauce, Brews,

Brewskis, Hooch, HardStuff, Juice.

Long-term Effects: Can cause liver damageand increased risk forheart disease. Pregnantwomen may have babieswith physical birthdefects and braindamage.Withdrawalsymptoms range fromjumpiness, sleeplessness,sweating and poorappetite to convulsionsand sometimes death.Alcohol abuse can leadto violence or adeterioration of personalrelationships.