Club Drug Use By Teens

At Visions Adolescent Treatment Center we've noticed the use of “club drugs” by teenagers has been on the rise. Teenagers involved with raves or other all night dance parties often take these extremely dangerous drugs thinking they are harmless and non-habit forming. Because they generally come in pill or liquid form, many of these drugs are easily hidden in pill bottles, candy containers, or eye drop containers or mouthwash or water bottles. Club drugs, or party drugs often refer to the following:
Ecstasy- (E, X, Beans, Adam, Lover’s Speed, Clarity, Hugs, X-T-C, MDMA, Candy, Thiz, Rolls) This drug is a hallucinogen and a stimulant. Users often feel a sense of extreme euphoria and energy. Chronic abuse damages users ability to think and regulate emotion. “Candyflipping” involves the combination of X and acid, or LSD. Overdose can lead to death, and the drug also impair the user’s ability to regulate body temperature and heart rate. User’s may suck on a pacifier or “binky” or suck on candy because the drug causes jaw clenching. Other signs of use include dilated (big) pupils, sleeplessness, and extreme irritability (crashing) on the day following use.
GHB- (Liquid Ecstasy, G, Georgia Home Boy, Goop) This drug causes the user to feel more relaxed, but increased amounts can lead to sleep, coma, and death. It comes in liquid form and can be consumed in water.
Ketamine- (Special K, K, Kay Jay, K Ways) Ketamine is an anesthetic used by veterinarians and causes the user to feel a sense of delirium. Taking too much causes the user to fall into a “k-hole” where they often cannot move or experience extreme confusion. It is often snorted.
Rohypnol- (Roofie, Roche, Rophies, Ruffies, Rope) More commonly known as the date rape drug, Rohypnol causes the user to suffer from memory loss, drowsiness, and dizziness or confusion. People actually abuse it though.
Teens abusing these drugs often combine them with other drugs like meth, acid, cocaine, and heroin. They may possess Tiger Balm for cramps, hospital masks lined with menthol ointment to get a “vapor rush,” baby pacifiers, lollipops, candy necklaces, fluorescent light sticks, and various containers for hiding pills. Club drugs are just as dangerous and harmful as street drugs, and teens abusing these drugs need help too.

If you suspect that your teen is abusing club drugs, don’t hesitate to contact us today.adolescent drug treatment in Encino.

Long Term Effects of Ecstasy

Long Term Effects of Ecstasy

University of Adelaide researchers have found that ecstasy taken on a few occasions could cause long-term brain damage from severe damage to brain cells, with the potential to cause future memory loss or psychological problems.

Dr. Rod Irvine, of the University's Department of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology, with an increased use of ecstasy among teens, major health problems can be expected in the future.

"For many years it has been known from animal experiments that small doses of ecstasy - even if only taken on only a few occasions - can cause severe damage to certain brain cells," Irvine said in a news release. "More recently, evidence has started to accumulate suggesting that this damage may also occur in humans."

Brain scans and psychological assessment of teen ecstasy users has been used to obtain this information.

"If our suspicions are proved correct, it will mean many of our young people will have memory loss or psychological problems in the future."

Irvine's research shows that the drug seems to work mainly through its effects on one type of brain cell, and even through one molecule in those cells. He said, "the way the body reacts chemically to ecstasy is important in producing adverse effects, as is the surrounding temperature, which can lead to users overheating."

Irvine is looking at the shorter-term consequences of ecstasy "overdoses" and has found that the high rate of death is due to a different strain of ecstasy appearing on the market in the mid 1990s.

"Normal ecstasy contains the pharmacological ingredient known as MDMA as its main ingredient, but the new strain often contained no MDMA but rather a more potent chemical known as PMA," Irvin said.

"PMA hasn't been around since the early 1970s when it was responsible for the deaths of several people in Ontario, Canada, and now it's reappeared," Dr Irvine says. "We don't know where the PMA came from, but we do know that it has been prevalent since the mid 1990s."

Why Are So Many Teens Doing Drugs?

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, more than eleven million people have tried MDMA (ecstasy), MORE THAN eleven million people have tried methamphetamine, and MORE THAN twenty three million have tried LSD (acid) at least once. Why are so many people trying drugs, is it that there is absolutely nothing to do so why not make life exciting or is it just for “fun”, “experimentation” and the all classic “my (add whatever you want brother, sister, mother, father, friends) _____ does it so why cant I”. We tell ourselves many things to make our actions that we know are wrong ok. .No one can really say why teens are doing drugs an individual is exactly that with free will so unless you are controlled by a disease you cant say why people do drugs or why so many teens are getting hooked. I use to look around and feel so sorry for the kids at my high school who didn’t do drugs because look at me I am experiencing life I am having so much fun and all they are doing is going home and studying. I thought everyone should see and think and feel the way I felt towards drugs and all that fun ended up at sixteen being admitted into an adolescent treatment center for drug and alcohol dependency. The fact is that the numbers keep rising so what can we do to change that? This question is for the community because no one person can say they know the answer.