Community Education Project
How drugs affect a teens brain:
ADDICTION
Drugs change how the brain works, causing people who use them to become addicted. Being addicted to drugs means the person can’t stop using the drugs even if they really want to. Even if the drugs cause serious illness and bad consequences, the person is physically addicted. People often need lots of treatment and support to heal the damage done to the brain.
REWIRING
Once the person uses drugs for a long time, the brain begins to rewire itself, making the drugs less pleasurable as in the beginning. Drugs affect the part of the brain that is responsible for emotions, behavior control, sleep, learning, memory, and decision making. Imaging if these areas of your brain are still growing, and you are taking drugs that impact them!? Marijuana use that begins in teen years is linked specifically to lower IQ and poor grades.
LOSING CONTROL
Drugs like marijuana and alcohol impact a persons’ coordination skills, driving abilities, reflexes, and judgment. Using these drugs, in addition to others, causes people to lose control over their current situation, leaving the person in a vulnerable state, and potentially in a dangerous situation that they have little control over.
FEAR AND RAGE
Using drugs such as stimulants, otherwise known as cocaine, methamphetamine, prescription stimulants, and steroids can cause symptoms of hostility, rage, fear, anxiety, and paranoia.
Abusing many of these drugs can cause memory problems in the brain. Alcohol can cause you to blackout, or lose consciousness. Smoking marijuana can cause short term memory loss, making it hard to remember what you just did or said.
References
National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2015, April 7). Drugs and the Brain. Retrieved from https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/drugs-brain