Drugs

Symptoms of withdrawal may occur when you abruptly stop using alcohol or a drug that you’ve developed a physical and mental dependence on over time. The intensity of withdrawal symptoms and how long they last vary depending on the type of drug or how heavy a drinker you are as well as biological make-up. Typical...

Drug abuse can cause a variety of physical disorders and have a negative impact on your mental, behavioural, social and emotional wellbeing.

A bad night's sleep every now and then is fine. But when a bad night, turns into a bad week, turns into a bad month. Sleep deprivation starts to take over our lives. We feel tired all day, our work performance drops and we're grouchy with our family.

They call ecstasy the ‘love drug’ because it amps up your sensations and people using it feel things at a heightened level; colours, sound and touch. It’s great if you’re clubbing or at a manic music concert because you lose all your inhibitions and can dance and rave all night long. And sex on ecstasy is mind-blowing. But what they don’t tell you is ecstasy also causes deep depression, confusion, severe anxiety, paranoia and other very scary psychotic episodes. It’s a synthetic drug and the short burst of exhilaration on ecstasy doesn’t last anywhere as long as the depressed slump you go into after your crazy night out.

That’s a question many people are asking now that dagga is legal for private use in South Africa. There were a lot of funny memes doing the rounds on social media when the news broke in September 2018 but the bigger debate is, “is South Africa courting the devil”? Marijuana, weed, cannabis, dope, dagga… whatever you call it, tends to be used as a social drug and it’s seen as a ‘soft drug’. Supposedly, it’s harmless and not addictive, and certainly less harmful than hardtack alcohol and less addictive than cigarettes. Is it? Or is it a gateway drug that leads to harder and more destructive drug addiction?