The purpose of this report is to recognize the effect that crystal meth  has on the brain and how it can rapidly cause harm to not only you, but also those around you. A persons mental, physical and social health can all be drastically affected by a drug and this is quite apparent to those in close contact with them. It is due to this that drug users can lose a great many important people in their lives, whether temporarily or permanently, depending on how bad the addiction may be.
The human brain is the most complex organ in the body, where everything communicates and allow us to walk, talk, think and other important things everyone should be able to do naturally. Crystal meth is a mixture of chemicals that affects the brain by tapping into its communication system and interfering with the way neurons normally send, receive and process information.
By taking drugs your  brain slows down and becomes incapable of performing essential commands that keeps us alive and functioning properly. Having an unhealthy brain can lead to very poor physical health. When your physical health is affected, it multiplies the risks of heart attacks, lung cancer, breathing problems and brain damage. By taking drugs your mental health will face a multitude of troubles as drugs can lead to you feeling depressed, having mood swings and changing your behaviour. Bad physical health and bad mental health both link directly to bad social health.
This report will touch on the chemicals path ways on how crystal meth is made, how it reacts on the brain and why your physical mental and social health will be effected .

Background

Crystal meth is a strong stimulant, a highly purified form of methamphetamine that can be (and usually is) smoked. Methamphetamine also known as speed, crystal meth, ice or crack, is commonly manufactured in highly illegal, hidden laboratories, where various forms of amphetamine or derivatives with other chemicals to boost its potency are mixed together to create one harmful substance. Methamphetamine enters the bloodstream through few different ways. These include inhaling it, melting it on a spoon, or taking pills and the most common and dangerous method is injecting it, which carries a relatively greater risks than any other method. Users usually tend to inject in sensitive places such as the veins in their forearms. They are unable to do this for as long as they might like to however, because these veins collapse over time.

A common pill normally taken to relieve a cold or something of the sort, are often used as the basics for the production of the drug. The meth cook extracts ingredients from those pills and to increase its strength, combines the substance with chemicals such as battery acid, drain cleaner, lantern fuel and antifreeze. These dangerous chemicals are potentially explosive and because the meth cooks are more often than not, drug users themselves which makes them disoriented. They are often severely burned and disfigured or killed when their preparations explode. The  ongoing use of crystal meth causes the brain to change, because the body is being constantly flooded with extra opiates and dopamine. When a user continues to take drugs, the effects on the brain will be very obvious as drugs slows down the natural speed of things. By the time your brain gets use to the meth, its tricked to stop making dopamine naturally. 

This means if the user stops taking meth, he won't be able to feel pleasure as the limbic system has been infected. This is the area which controls and regulates our ability to feel pleasure. Methamphetamine is a powerful drug that changes the brain and speeds up many functions in the body. No matter how methamphetamine has been taken, it eventually ends up in the bloodstream where it is circulated throughout the brain. The brain is made up of billions of neurones that come in all shapes and sizes. When the drug arrives in the brain, it destroys each individual neutron and manufactures one or more neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine or any one of a dozen others that scientists have discovered to date. Each neurotransmitter is associated with particular effects depending on its distribution among the brain's various functioning areas. 

Figure 1: hydrolysis of methamphetamine, bloghog CC BY-SA 4.0 retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#/media/File:Methamphetamine_leuckart_synthesis.png

Because a neurotransmitter often stimulates or inhibits a cell that produces a different neurotransmitter, a drug that alters one can have secondary impacts on another such as dramatic increase in dopamine signalling in the nucleus accumbens, leading to euphoria which creates a desire to repeat the experience. In biochemistry, the serotonin is a monoamine neurotransmitter. 5-HT. is the chemical abbreviation for serotonin and the chemical formula is C10H12N2O. It is believed to play an essential role in the modulation of emotions and mood and appetite as well as stimulation of the vomiting reflex.

Methamphetamine also effects the synapse system. Synapse is the area where neurons send a message to another neuron and it releases a neurotransmitter from its axon into the synapse. The neurotransmitter crosses the synapse and attaches to specific places on the dendrites of the receptors. When the neurotransmitter has delivered its message, it is either destroyed or taken back up into the first neuron where it is recycled for use again. Once meth has involved that system it ruins the neurotransmitter before it carries the messages and doesn't let it recycle back to be used again. That gives the results of a lazy unhealthy and destroyed brain and very bad mental, social and physical health.

Discussion

The effects of crystal meth and any other drug has an impact on not only you but also those around you. Everyone reacts differently when taking a drug. Some people get more addicted than others and some have a strong organism that takes more time for the drugs to destroy. This also depends on the person's physical but also mental health and whether the person is used to taking that drug. By taking crystal meth or any other drug, you can change or even destroy your mental, social and physical health. The drug affects your brain, resulting in mood swings, bad behaviour, sleep problems, psychosis and panic attacks. 

Another importance is if other drugs are taken around the same time because if you mix two drugs together, it will have a much stronger effect on your brain and body. The effects of any drug also depend on the amount taken. A high dose of meth can cause a person to overdose which means that the person has taken more than their body can handle. A person who has overdosed is likely to be very anxious and have difficulty breathing. It can cause chest pain, heart attacks, a stroke or even cardiac arrest. In severe cases, a person can go into a coma or suffer seizures and kidney failure. The meth users will normally stay up for days on end if the supply of meth holds out. Meth can put a lot of stress on the body and stops the users from feeling hungry or thirsty. If the users don't eat, they stay high for much longer. In most cases, the high from methamphetamine lasts much longer than the high from cocaine.

When the effects of meth wear off, the person is likely to be exhausted, anxious and depressed. The cravings for more of the drug will be intense and will lead the person to do whatever it takes to get more of it and use it again. A person that is abuses drugs eventually feels flat, lifeless and empty and is unable to enjoy things that they previously considered pleasurable. These are just a few examples of how meth can affect the user and their mental, physical and social health.

Conclusion

In conclusion, methamphetamine is very dangerous, especially when it is abused. In this report we covered how meth can alter important areas in the brain that are necessary for a healthy functioning body. The brain is made to adapt and certain drugs can stop this process if taken too often. The brain begins to break down completely as it adjusts to the overwhelming surges in dopamine by producing less dopamine or by reducing the number of receptors that can receive signals and the brain becomes independent on the drug.

We also covered the impacts on a meth addicts mental, social and physical health, and what it can do to the person and the people around them.

Many people feel depressed when they are not on drugs and that is because the brain has been flooded and that's how physical health is impacted. When your mental and physical health have been impacted from drugs abuse, your social life will be affected too as you won't have the same energy to do things you used to love.

One of the main things you lose is friends and family. You believe that they are all turning against you and you push all of the important people who are really trying to help you, out of your life. 

Public Education Piece

So after all of this, what do you think? Are drugs really worth it? 
My public education piece is a PowerPoint and a movie to show the effects of drugs and how drugs can take away your life without you even realising it.


References

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fscience.education.nih.gov%2Fsupplements%2Fnih2%2Faddiction%2Fguide%2Fpdfs%2Flesson3.pdf&h=5AQGWFpUvAQEXQe55e4CcpqggGo42bnTme01CM_mGbiDU2
https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/methamphetamine/what-are-long-term-effects-methamphetamine-abuse
http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/brain.htm
http://www.mindhealthconnect.org.au/ice-and-mental-health
http://www.drugs.health.gov.au/internet/drugs/publishingcp.nsf/content/facts-about-ice
http://www.medic8.com/drug-addiction/social-effects.html
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/brainchange/
https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/how-drugs-affect-the-brain/