# 3

Exactly what happens when someone self-administers a mind altering substance?  and Why does anyone want to alter their mind?

The human brain is the control center of the Central Nervous System (CNS); it has three membranes which protect it from the inside of the boney skull (dura mater, pia mater and arachnid mater).  Additionally, the brain and spinal cord constitute the CNS and they are bathed in cerebral/spinal fluid.

The user/abuser of any substance needs to find a way which introduces the desired substance into the circulatory system and also to provide the easiest means of crossing the blood/brain barrier in order that the active ingredients of the substance will deliver the substance to the screaming brain receptors.

In the case of alcohol, for example, oral consumption roughly routes 6% into the circulatory system via absorption through the stomach wall blood vessels and 94% is metabolized by the liver prior to introduction to the circulatory system.  A relatively slow means of delivering alcohol to the brain's receptors.  Persons from other cultures, for hundreds of years have found a quicker means of delivery which bypasses the liver: beer enemas provide absorption through the walls of the colon and circulation takes the substance immediately to the brain.  In modern times, persons have devised means of inhaling vaporized ethyl alcohol and its delivery is even quicker than the beer enema after the substance moves quickly from the lungs to the heart and into the brain by a very short route.

So exactly what is going on when the desired substance reaches the corresponding brain receptors?

For the majority of licit and illicit substances; the desired effect is either that the CNS is stimulated or it is depressed.  In the case of adult basketball star Len Bias, exactly 30 years ago today, he self-administered a fatal dosage of the CNS Stimulant Cocaine and his brain receptors initially experienced the analgesic effect (pain killed or dulled) and his heart rate and respiration increased.  His brain was altered and all cocaine abusers/users experienced the perception of invincibility,  In Bias' case, however, the volume of the substance exceeded his body's ability to metabolize, discharge through the kidneys and control the signals the brain was sending to Bias' lungs and heart to speed-up their rates.  The medical examiner's report at autopsy indicated that the young athlete developed a heart arrhythmia and died of heart failure.  Bias' heart rate increased to an unmanageable level resulting in death.  In examples of CNS Stimulants, the term "high" is accurate in that vital body functions and rates are elevated and, with toxic levels self-administered, the adult is recorded as having taken a Fatal Overdose.  Other CNS Stimulants producing similar effects are Nicotine, Caffeine, Methamphetamine, Ritalin, PCP, etc.  An excessive dosage level is frequently fatal.

In the case of hundreds of self-administering heroin abusers, the fatal dose of the CNS Depressant Heroin initially took the abuser down; slowing his breathing and heart rate.  Due to the excessive amount/purity level, the abuser's body's ability to metabolize, discharge through the kidneys and control the signals the brain was sending to the abuser and his respiratory center gave instructions to pass sleep, cross through coma and enter death by cessation of respiration.  Respiration was arrested.  Other CNS Depressants producing similar effects are Alcohol, Morphine, the synthetic opioids, etc.  An excessive dosage level is frequently fatal.  While Heroin and Opiates chart a graph which has life descending with corresponding heart rate and respiration slowing, as described above, the descent to death is anything but a "high" and it may more accurately be referred to as a "low."

The human brain is frequently more resourceful and protective of the individual than the conscious individual himself.  Consider the thousands of high school and college students who self administer a full bottle of whisky or rum - generally a fatal dosage amount.  While the abuser passes through the stages of inebriation, intoxication to sleep; the brain frequently intercedes and prevents the stages of coma or death by stimulating the urge to vomit.  If a self-administering alcohol abuser does not aspirate his own vomit and die an asphyxia death, he frequently learns a valuable lesson which he may never repeat.

On the other hand, some humans believe that they can administer a CNS Depressant and a CNS Stimulant which produce all of the positive/desired results while cancelling-out the toxic risks.  In the case of John Belushi, authorizing a cohort to administer Cocaine and Heroin produced a Fatal cocktail and neither substance cancelled the other's effects.  Belushi expired.

The sedative/hypnotic group of abused substances is joined by the hallucinogens and designer/synthetics as a third category of substances which youth and adults abuse and they introduce a new dynamic of compounding the negative effects when certain substances are combined with alcohol.

A raft of reasons given by adults to explain the choices they have made,

Not all relate to real or perceived pain.

The very term recreational drug use suggests that the substance of choice is unrelated to any malady.  Adults and youth regularly purchase their substance of choice; frequently from strangers, without inquiring about the strangers who manufactured the substance and absolutely unknowing of the percentage of the active ingredient they seek to use to bathe their brain.

Obama had written in his first book, "Dreams From My Father" (1995), before entering politics, that he had used marijuana and cocaine ("maybe a little blow"). He said he had not tried heroin because he did not like the pusher who was trying to sell it to him.  http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/world/americas/24iht-dems.3272493.html?_r=0

Some abusers claim to be able to risk their life on an unknown substance by screening the substance's marketer, as described above.  Despite this view, recent celebrity substance related deaths included the element of a Physician or regular salesperson who was known to the decedent.

Some abusers seek to lose weight as their reason for seeking CNS stimulants.

Some abusers seek to stay awake for long periods of time; frequently the reason given by recording musicians, truck drivers, soldiers and their commanders and college exam students.

Other abusers seek to join their friends as an act of social acceptance and they provide this as their reason for making unwise decisions.

These non-pain related rationales for either starting down the path of substance abuse (gateway activity) or for entry into the world of physiological addiction to particular substances all contain a singular kernel of truth which deniers cannot substantially refute: for every addicted substance abuser, there was probably the day before addiction in the timeline of the individual's life.  Largely, it is this group of readers of this blog who are the targeted audience.  Choices made by adults are life and death matters when the substance considered has an LD50 risk which is not hidden from the literature and may be a Google-query away.

Certainly, there are parents and family members who will want to contest even the assertion that for every substance abuser there was  the day before addiction; to refute this claim regarding the timeline of a human life, some will argue that their loved one's brain receptors were significantly programmed while in the womb.  Interestingly, this view ends the discussion by removing adult/teen choices described by the football coach as universal to all of us; it removes any notion if child rearing responsibilities which our society places on parents - like the one suggested in the cited Proverb - and it holds no one responsible.  Like grace, it just happened!

Yes, there are people who want to attribute the negative effects delivered to an adult who made a decision to self-administer a harmful substance to the substance and not to the adult who made his or her choice to purchase/acquire and self-administer.  Running counter to the social view of individual responsibility, proponents for giving a pass to the adult abuser will seek to bash the substance; usually in the absence of any outcry for eradication of the fatal substance.  These proponents hold the adult abusers as blameless victims.

Next: Qualitative Analysis and Quantitative Analysis; Substances are chemicals in large part.