Stimulants


 * What are Stimulants? **

Stimulant drugs are those substances that cause hyperactivity in the central nervous system of a human being. These drugs induce temporary improvement in mental and physical functioning. Some effects of stimulant drugs include enhanced alertness, awareness, endurance, motivation, and it increases heart rate, blood pressure, arousal, and suppressed appetite and sleep (Hart, et al, p.112). Although stimulant drugs are known to enhance productivity in an individual, there is no clear evidence to show they actually provide better results than when a task is done sober.

Stimulant drugs have been used in the pharmaceutical industry and also as an illicit substance for recreational use and abuse. There are two subtypes of stimulants, those that are restricted including cocaine and amphetamines, and the others being more readily available, caffeine and nicotine (Hart, et al., p.112). These categories of stimulants have different effects on individuals with mental health.


 * Cocaine Use and History **

Cocaine is a central nervous system stimulant that creates intense feelings of pleasure, increases alertness, and decreases appetite and the need for sleep. Coca is a bush that grows in the Andes and produces cocaine, which is the active chemical in the coca plant and has been used historically, beginning with the natives of the Andes chewing coca leaves to gain strength and endurance and also used in religious ceremonies (Hart, et al., p.112). An alternative use of cocaine was in the medical profession, used as an anesthetic for eye surgery for its tissue-numbing capabilities.

At the end of the 1960s, the recreational use of cocaine increased (Hart, et al., p.122). There have been causes for concern of the acute toxicity effects on the central nervous system, causing respiratory or cardiac arrest and chronic toxicity of the continual use of cocaine, including damage to the nasal septum, heart muscle, and can cause a full-blown paranoid psychosis, in which the individual loses touch with reality and experiences auditory hallucinations (Brady, 1991).


 * Cocaine and Schizophrenia **

As mentioned above, comorbidity of substance abuse among the mentally ill population is greater than the general population. Specifically, schizophrenic patients engage in cocaine use as a way to self medicate the side effects associated with the medications used to treat schizophrenia (Potvin, Stip, & Roy, 2003). According to Addy et al. (2012), common themes as to why schizophrenia patients use substances are to cope with negative feeling sates or to relax, enhance positive mood or achieve intoxication, a social lubricant, and to relieve medication side-effects or symptoms. Antipsychotics prescribed to schizophrenic individuals may cause side reactions such as tremors, dysphoria, and movement disorders (Borel, 2008). Thus, cocaine may be used as a resort to remove the drawbacks of these medications. Of course, the use of cocaine only renders the effectiveness of prescription medication for schizophrenia with research providing that hallucinations and delusions are actually worsened by cocaine abuse.


 * Amphetamine and Schizophrenia **

Amphetamines have similar effects on the central nervous system as cocaine. When administered for a long period of time at higher doses, like the effects of cocaine, the user can go into a state of paranoid psychosis. Likewise, amphetamine abuse does not directly cause schizophrenia to develop among individuals, but can elevate the onset of schizophrenia in an individual who is vulnerable to developing this disorder.


 * Nicotine **

Over the past few years, cigarette use has been increasing among all age groups and is not significantly related to gender or extracurricular orientation. Health Canada (2003) administered a survey to look at the trend of smoking between 1985 to 2003, and found that there has been an overall 14% decrease in smoking among all age groups. Despite anti-smoking prevention strategies provided through school programs, 8% of young people ages 15-19 still become regular smokers (Health Canada, 2010).

There are obviously many adverse health effects to smoking, one of which lung cancer occurs in 85% of all smokers. Not only does smoking cause great damage to an individual’s body and health, but second hand smoke (or passive smoking) is as damaging if not more than first hand smoking. Research has demonstrated that the smoke rising from the ash of the cigarette has higher in many carcinogens than is the mainstream smoke delivered to the lungs (Hart et al., p.240).

Given these known facts about tobacco and nicotine, why do people still smoke? Nicotine is the addictive agent in tobacco and individuals can develop a dependence liability to smoking. Children who smoke at a young age have a harder time quitting than an individual smoking later in their life. Cigarette smokers engage in smoking because of its stress relieving effects, social pressures, it can act as an appetite suppressant, and can temporarily increase mental alertness.


 * Nicotine and Schizophrenia **

Similar to other stimulants listed above, nicotine has properties that can help alleviate the symptoms experienced in a schizophrenic patient. In particular, Dalack, Healy, & Meador-Woodruff (1998) conducted an experiment looking at the effects of nicotine dependence in schizophrenia, and found that smoking in schizophrenia represents an attempt to self-medicate symptoms of illness, particularly the negative symptoms. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter more often associated with the pathology of schizophrenia, and these stimulants, cocaine, amphetamine, and nicotine all appear to modulate the function of this neurotransmitter in the brain. Since nicotine use is one of the major drugs where the onset occurs at a young age, there has been considerable clinical evidence of the interactions between nicotine’s effects and signs and symptoms of schizophrenic illness. However, there is no exact casual link between cigarette smoking and schizophrenia. The vast increase in research based on the “prodromal” period of schizophrenia in early adulthood would detect heavy smoking at an early age as a possible symptom in developing schizophrenia later on in an individual’s life.