Psychoactive drugs (or psychopharmaceuticals) are chemical substances derived from certain plants that act upon the central nervous system where they alter brain function. These alterations can result in changes in mood, perception, behavior, and consciousness.
Psychoactive drugs are used in several different ways:
- Recreationally to purposefully alter one’s consciousness.
- Spiritually or ritually in certain cultural ceremonies.
- Therapeutically as medications.
There may often be only subtle distinctions between medicinal, psychoactive (mind-altering), and toxic doses of the various psychoactive drugs.
Alkaloids are Potent Psychopharmaceuticals
One major group of reactive chemicals found in plants are alkaloids. They are a diverse group of compounds of which over 3,000 have been identified in 4,000 species of plants. Alkaloids affect the physiology of animals in several ways but their most pronounced actions are on the nervous system. More than 20 alkaloids have been identified in opium with morphine, codeine, and heroin being the most significant.
The Opium Poppy
Opium has been eaten, drunk, and smoked for centuries. This drug, exuded as a milky white latex from cuts on the capsule of the poppy flower, was so highly valued that it has affected the outcome of history and the destiny of entire nations. From 1839 to 1842 China and Great Britain fought the first Opium War as Britain sought to maintain a lucrative but clandestine trade in the drug with China whose officials attempted to ban it alarmed by rising addiction rates. Chinese opposition was crushed and Britain received major concessions, including the establishment of Hong Kong as a British colony.
Morphine was first isolated in 1806 by Frederic Serturner, a German scientists who named the compound after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. In fact, this was the first active principle isolated from a plant.
Morphine was soon recognized for its ability to deaden pain and is still unsurpassed in this capacity. Currently morphine is still the drug of choice for the control of intense pain from severe burns, cases of terminal cancer, kidney stones, and in some cases, heart failure.
Codeine is one of the most commonly used opiates (compounds derived from opium).It works well in combination with aspirin and acetaminophen, and is especially useful in cough syrups since it suppresses the cough reflex.
Since it is addictive (though much less so than morphine), products containing codeine are available only by prescription in the United States.
Heroin In 1898, the Bayer company introduced heroin, which they believed to be non-addictive and possessing pain-killing properties better than morphine with cough-suppressant qualities superior to codeine. This semi-synthetic derivative of morphine was widely dispensed in many over-the-counter medicines for nearly two decades.
Contrary to earlier belief, heroin is actually six times more addictive than morphine, and its misuse has resulted in long-standing drug and crime problems. Heroin is not used medicinally nor is it manufactured legally in the United States. However, it is used in some other countries to control severe pain.
The Marijuana Plant
Marijuana is one of the oldest cultivated plants and is valued for use as a hallucinogen, for its medicinal properties, and for its fiber, oil, and seed.
Uses in contemporary medicine include the reduction of pressure within the eye as the result of glaucoma (the leading cause of blindness in the United States) and as an aid to relieving the discomforts of chemotherapy. Activists are pressuring the federal and state governments to loosen controls over the use of marijuana to ease the suffering from AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, and glaucoma.
The Coca Plant
Within the shiny evergreen leaves of the coca plant occurs a major alkaloid known as cocaine. The contemporary history of cocaine begins in the late 1850s when it was isolated from coca leaves in a German laboratory. It quickly gained wide popularity in the United States for its anesthetic qualities and its ability in shrinking mucous membranes and draining sinuses.
Soon it could be found in over-the-counter medicines, tonics, elixirs, and even beverages. In 1886, John Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, began marketing the new beverage he had named Coca Cola as a “brain tonic.” However, by the turn of the century, the negative and additive effects of cocaine were becoming painfully evident (It was eliminated from the Coca Cola recipe in 1903.) and the government moved to regulate it under the Harrison Act of 1914, the first federal antinarcotics law.
Medically, cocaine acts as a local anesthetic as well as constricting blood vessels thereby reducing blood flow when applied locally. This has made cocaine the anesthetic of choice for ear, nose, and throat surgery. Many of the widely used synthetic local anesthetics such as Novacain and Xylocaine are structurally similar to cocaine.
Humans have used and abused psychoactive drugs since ancient times. Currently, societies worldwide struggle with the legal, social, medical, and cultural problems presented by psychoactive drugs.
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