Drug Facts: Stimulants

What Are Stimulants

Stimulants are a type of drugs that elevate mood, increase feelings of well-being, and increase energy and alertness. Examples of stimulants are cocaine, methamphetamine, nicotine, and ecstasy.

Prescription stimulants include Adderall and Ritalin. Both are used to help with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Street Names

Cocaine is generally sold on the street as a fine, white, crystalline powder, known as “coke,” “C,“ “snow,” “flake,“ “blow,” “bump,“ “candy,“ “Charlie,” “rock,” and “toot.” “Crack,” the street name for the smoke-able form of cocaine, got its name from the crackling sound made when it’s smoked. A “speedball” is cocaine or crack combined with heroin, or crack and heroin smoked together.

Methamphetamine is commonly known as “speed,” “meth,” “chalk,” and “tina.” In its smoke-able form, it’s often called “ice,” “crystal,” “crank,” “glass,” “fire,” and “go fast.”

How Stimulants Are Used

Stimulants can be swallowed in pill form, snorted as a powder through the nostrils, injected, using a needle and syringe, or heated in crystal form and smoked.

Injecting, or smoking, a stimulant allows for a rapid high because the drug is absorbed into the bloodstream quickly. Snorting or swallowing the stimulant produces a high that is less intense but lasts longer.

Powder cocaine is usually snorted and crack cocaine is often smoked in a glass pipe. Many street dealers dilute cocaine with other substances, such as cornstarch or sugar.

Methamphetamine can be swallowed, snorted, injected, or smoked.

Short-Term Effects

Stimulants produce feelings of tremendous joy, can increase wakefulness, and decrease appetite. Negative effects of stimulants include increased body temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure, dilated pupils, nausea, blurred vision, muscle spasms, and confusion.

Long-Term Effects

Long-term effects of stimulant abuse can lead to paranoia, aggressiveness, extreme anorexia, thinking problems, visual and auditory hallucinations, delusions, and severe dental problems.
Repeated use of cocaine can result in a tolerance of its euphoric effects, causing the abuser to take greater amounts or use the drug more frequently to get the same effects. Repeated use can also cause violent behavior, mood disturbances, and psychosis which can include paranoia and delusions. These mental issues can result in homicidal and suicidal thoughts.

Sudden death can occur on the first use of cocaine or unexpectedly thereafter. Like other drugs, stimulants can be lethal when taken in large doses or when mixed with other substances. Overdoses can lead to heart problems, strokes, hyperthermia, and convulsions. If not treated immediately, these physical issues can result in death.