Download Psychoactive

10/13/13
Psychoactive Drugs
•  "If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for
five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as
individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing
exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects
seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and
significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring
drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next
morning with a clear head and an undamaged
constitution-then, it seems to me, all our problems (and
not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel
pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would
become paradise."
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ALDOUS HUXLEY
1894 - 1963
Psychoactive Drugs
•  Influence central nervous system (brain)
•  Stimulants
–  Enhance alertness and physical activity
–  Reduce fatigue and suppress hunger
•  Depressants
–  Dull mental awareness, induce sleep
–  Trance-like state
•  Hallucinogens
–  Changes in mood, thought, perception
–  Dream-like state
•  Medical, psychoactive, toxic
Psychoactive Drugs
•  Psychological dependence
–  Desire to re-experience the pleasure
•  Physiological dependence
–  The body needs the drug to avoid withdrawal symptoms
•  Tolerance
–  Body needs stronger doses for same effect
•  Addictive
•  Narcotic
–  Vague term
–  Originally a drug that induces sleep (opiates)
–  Currently an illegal drug
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Psychoactive Drugs
Lancet 369 (9566): 1047–53 March 20078
Neurons
Synapse
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Modification of Neuronal
Activity by Drugs
•  Mimic the neurotransmitter
–  Drug acts like neurotransmitter
•  Alter the release of the
neurotransmitter
–  Enhance or decrease
•  Modify the receptor site
–  Affinity change
–  Blockage
•  Influence the removal of the
neurotransmitter
–  Enzyme splits neurotransmitter
–  Reuptake into knobs
Psychoactive Drugs
•  Agonists
•  Antagonists
•  Drug tolerance
–  Decreased sensitivity to
the drug
–  Higher doses needed
–  Synapse not as effective
Psychoactive Drugs
•  “The mind is its own place, and in
itself can make a Heav'n of Hell, a
Hell of Heaven”
•  Satan, in Milton's Paradise Lost
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Tobacco Nicotiana tabacum
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Nicotine
Increases the effect of dopamine in the brain
Increases adrenalin release
Highly addictive
–  "To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to
know, because I've done it a thousand times" Mark Twain
Tobacco
•  Medicinally
–  Ease pain of childbirth
–  Decreases hunger
–  Headache remedy
•  Psychoactive use
–  Biphasic effect of invigoration and relaxation
–  Pleasure
–  Reduces anxiety and tension
Tobacco - History
•  New world (60+ species)
•  Domesticated 1000 years
before Columbus
•  Tetraploid hybrid
•  Smoked, eaten, or snuffed
•  Rituals and initiations
•  Sweep across Europe and
Asia from 1600-1700
•  Unsubstantiated uses
–  Lung strengthener, plague
cure, aphrodisiac, etc.
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Tobacco - History
•  Wealthy men in England and colonies
•  Wealth of tobacco trade aided the French and Indian
War, and the Revolutionary
•  War
•  25% of signers of Declaration of Independence
wealthy tobacco owners
•  Washington, Jefferson, etc.
•  Virginian slavery
–  Better relationship
–  Knowledge of tobacco
Tobacco - History
•  Curing tobacco
–  Dry
–  Fire
–  Flue 1839 curing tobacco changed type of smoke
•  Alkaline to acidic smoke
–  Needs to be inhaled
–  More nicotine and more addictive
•  Bright Burley tobacco 1864
•  Cigarette machine 1881
Tobacco - History
•  Duke and American Tobacco
•  Duke the most aggressive
•  Sherman Anti-trust act split Am.
Tobacco
•  Shift from chewing tobacco to cigarettes
•  1900s aggressive marketing
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Tobacco - Health
•  1948 AMA “more can be said in behalf
of smoking as a form of escape from
tension than against it…there does not
seem to be a preponderance of
evidence that would indicate the
abolition of the use of tobacco as a
substance contrary to the public health”
Tobacco - Health
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AMA Today
Smoking causes about 30% of all cancers. The risk of developing
lung cancer is 10 times greater for smokers than for nonsmokers.
Those who smoke 2 or more packs of cigarettes a day are 15 to 25
times more likely to die of lung cancer than nonsmokers.
This year, more than 450,000 Americans will die prematurely of
diseases linked to smoking.
It is also a major cause of heart disease, emphysema and chronic
bronchitis. Pregnant women who smoke have higher rates of
miscarriage, stillbirth, premature birth and complications of
pregnancy. More of their babies die soon after birth than
newborns of nonsmoking mothers.
Smoking
•  Smoking kills an estimated 440,000 Americans
each year.
•  On average, men who smoke cut their lives
short by 13.2 years, and female smokers lose
14.5 years.
•  The economic toll exceeds $157 billion each
year in the United States -- $75 billion in
direct medical costs and $82 billion in lost
productivity.
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Coca - Erythroxylum coca
•  Peru
•  Leaves chewed with lime to
release alkaloids
•  Integral part of Inca social,
mystical, religious, and
medicinal.
•  Reduces
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Altitude sickness
Hunger
Fatigue
Pain
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Coca - Erythroxylum coca
•  1551 Catholic bishop banned coca leaves
–  Evil agent of the devil
–  Natives couldn’t work to mine gold
–  Catholics legalized its use in Peru
•  Spanish brought coca to Europe
Cocaine
•  Cocaine isolated in 1855, never
synthesized
•  Synthesized anesthetics
•  Procaine
•  Novocain
•  Lidocaine
Cocaine
•  Stimulant
–  Prolongs the feeling of well-being
•  Blocks uptake of dopamine in brain
•  Constricts coronary blood vessels
(death)
•  Psychological addiction
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Cocaine
•  Isolated in 1855
•  Sigmund Freud
–  Recommended cocaine for
alcoholism and morphine addiction
•  Angelo Mariani
–  Coca wine beverage rage of
Europe & U.S.
•  John Pemberton
–  Invented Coca Cola (coca and
kola nut)
•  Banned in 1914 Harrison
Narcotic Act
Cocaine
•  Illegal trade
•  Coca leaves mixed with sulfuric acid to
extract alkaloids
•  Evaporation
•  Cut with fillers (inositol or baby powder)
•  Freebase and crack (water insoluble)
Cocaine
•  Iran-Contra affair
•  Reagan Administration sold weapons to
Iran (arms embargo)
•  Profits funding the Contras to topple the
government in Nicaragua
•  Planes used to deliver weapons were
used to bring cocaine in U.S.
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Cocaine
•  "Cocaine's for horses and not for
men, Doctor says it'll kill me, but
he won't say when”.
•  from "Cocaine Blues"
Opium Poppy
Papaver somniferum
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Alkaloids (26 types)
Morphine, codeine, papaverine
Latex from fruit capsule
Poppy straw
Analgesic (pain medicine)
Addictive properties
Licit production India, Turkey and Australia
(Tasmania)
–  15% licit - morphine and codeine 85% illicit - heroin
Opiates
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Depressant
Highly addictive physiologically
Toxic stops respiratory centers
Endorphin receptors
Reduces pain and enhances feelings of
pleasure
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Opiates
•  3,400 B.C. Sumerians joy plant
•  Trade with Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians
•  Hippocrates dismisses magical properties, but great
narcotic
•  Alexander brought poppy to Persia and India
•  400 A.D. opium to China for medicine
•  1300s illegal during Inquisition (anything from East
was Devil inspired)
Opiates
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Opium smoking in China 17th century
1729 first Chinese anti-opium eddicts
Late 1700s England controls trade with China
China no need for Western goods so British
traded opium for silk and spices
•  1799 Chinese emperor bans growing, sale
and trade of opium
•  1837-1841 first Opium War
–  British acquire Hong Kong
Opiates
•  1827 Merck company manufactures morphine
•  Morphine addiction after Civil War
•  1874 C.R. Wright synthesizes Heroin
•  1998 Bayer introduces Heroin
•  Used for two decades
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Opiates
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Heroin addiction after WW II
1914 law prohibits possession of opiates
1924 manufacture of heroin illegal
Illegal opium production
–  Afghanistan, Golden Triangle (Myanmar, Laos,
Thailand), Pakistan, Iran, Mexico, and Columbia
–  90% from Afghanistan
–  33 fold increase in production since U.S. war in
2001
Opiates
•  Domestic policy “drug war” contrary to
international policy of “National Security”
•  CIA and its support of drug traffickers
–  Support of drug lord allies with transport of heroin,
arm sales, and political protection
–  Golden Triangle during Vietnam War
–  Golden Crescent Afghanistan and Pakistan
–  Support of Mujahideen guerrillas
–  1999 350 square miles
–  Taliban reduced by 90%
–  Today record numbers
Marijuana Cannabis sativa
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Hallucinogen, stimulant and depressant
Euphoria, calmness, distorted perception
Resins from leaves and female bracts
60 compounds
Psychoactive chemical
–  Tetrahydrocannabinol or THC
•  THC levels
–  Genetics, growing conditions, sex of plant
–  Sinsemilla
•  CB1 receptors in brain for endogenous cannabinoids
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Marijuana Cannabis sativa
•  Medicinal use
–  Hypertension, glaucoma, MS, seizures, nausea during
chemotherapy
–  Legality and the law
•  Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada,
Oregon, Vermont, and Washington
•  Low to moderate use
–  No addition or deleterious health effects
•  Heavy use
–  Reduced sex drive, lower sperm counts, reduced motor
coordination, lung diseases
Marijuana - History
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One of oldest cultivated plants 10,000 years
Hemp, seed, oil, medicinal and psychoactive
Native of central Asia
Medicinal use 5000 years ago in China
Hallucinogen 2500 years ago Scythians
India one of five sacred plants religious ceremonies
–  Three grades of Cannabis
•  Bhang (leaves)
•  Ganja (flower tops)
•  Charas (pure resin or hashish).
Marijuana - History
•  Arab world
•  12th century story of Persian Leader Al-Hasan-ibnSabah cults of Hashishin (assassins)
•  Europe in 1800s
–  Intellectuals, writers, artists
•  Along Mississippi during 1920s and 1930s
–  Jazz musicians
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1937 Federal Bureau of Narcotics
Federal Marijuana Tax Act
California law
County enforcement
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Marijuana - History
•  1960s counterculture movement and
social revolution
•  1980s relaxation of criminal laws
•  Mr. Spud in
Jamaica
•  California?
Hallucinogens
Uses
•  Unintentional use
•  Rituals and religious use
–  Shamans or priests experience visions/god
–  Medicinal knowledge
•  Recreational use
–  Pleasure to escape from daily reality
–  Leisure time and affluence
Hallucinogens
Plant
Chemical
Origin
Peyote
Mescaline
Mexico, Texas
Nutmeg
Elemicin
Spice Islands
Henbane
Mandrake
Datura
Europe, Asia
Ayahuasca
Solanaceous
alkaloids
Solanaceous
alkaloids
Harmine
Morning glory
Lysergic acid
Mexico
New World
Amazon
Rye ergot fungus Ergometrine
Europe, etc.
Mushrooms
Mexico, etc.
Psilocybin
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Peyote Lophophora williamsii
•  Cactus Mexico and
Southwest
•  Mescaline
•  Mimics norepinephrine
•  Religious rituals
•  Colorful visions
•  Nausea, chills, vomiting
Psilocybin
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Magic mushrooms
Psilocybin and psilocyn
LSD like
Mimics serotonin
Religious experiences
Ergot
•  Rye ergot fungus
•  Ergotism
–  Chronic - Burning in fingers and toes gangrene, increase in
miscarriages
–  Acute - convulsions, muscle spasms, hallucinations
–  St Anthony’s Fire in 12th century
–  Salem witch trials
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Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
•  Albert Hoffman
–  Synthesized in 1938 in Sandoz labs
–  First ingestion 1943
–  Illegal in late 60s
•  Ololiuqui (o-low-lee-oo-key)
–  Morning glory seeds
Ipomoea tricolor
–  Mexico religious rituals
Poisonous Plants
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Poison hemlock
Coniine
Neurologic toxin
muscle tremors,
muscular weakness,
dim vision, coma
and convulsions.
Death comes from
respiratory failure
Poisonous Plants
•  Strychnos nux-vomica
•  Strychnine
•  Nerve toxin
–  convulsions
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Poisonous Plants
•  Mushrooms
(toadstools)
•  Amatoxins
•  Inhibits mRNA
formation
Poisonous Plants
•  Oleander
•  Cardiosides
•  Heart problems
Poisonous Plants
•  Castor bean
•  Ricin
•  Inhibits protein
synthesis
•  Long term organ
problems
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Poisonous Plants
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Jimsonweed
Datura wrightii
Tropane alkaloids"
Hallucinogen"
Coma, seizures. "
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