Many people don't understand why or how other people become addicted to drugs. Drugs change the brain in ways that make quitting hard, even for those who want to. Fortunately, researchers know more than ever about how drugs affect the brain and have found treatments that can help people recover from drug addiction and lead productive lives.
— National Institutes of Health
Heroin is a highly addictive drug and is a rapidly acting opioid. Heroin is processed from morphine, a naturally occurring substance extracted from the seed pod of certain varieties of poppy plants grown in Mexico, South America, Southeast Asia, and Southwest Asia
Benzodiazepines are depressants that produce sedation and hypnosis, relieve anxiety and muscle spasms, and reduce seizures. Benzodiazepines are only legally available through prescriptions. Many users maintain their drug supply by getting prescriptions from several doctors, forging prescriptions, or buying them illicitly. Alprazolam and clonazepam are the two most frequently encountered benzodiazepines on the illicit market.
Cocaine is a very intense and euphoria-producing stimulant drug. This drugs is often distributed as a white powder and is diluted (“cut”) with a variety of other substances. Some of the most common agents used to cut cocaine are sugars and local anesthetics.
Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent. It is a prescription drug that is also made and used illegally. Like morphine, it is a medicine typically used to treat patients with severe pain, especially after surgery. It is also sometimes used to treat patients with chronic pain who are physically tolerant to other opioids.
Marijuana is a mind-altering (psychoactive) drug, produced by the Cannabis sativa plant. Marijuana has over 480 constituents. THC (delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol) is believed to be the main ingredient that produces the psychoactive effect.
In the late 1990s, pharmaceutical companies reassured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers, and healthcare providers began to prescribe them at greater rates. This subsequently led to widespread diversion and misuse of these medications before it became clear that these medications could indeed be highly addictive.
