ESSAY WRITING

EFFECT OF DRUG ABUSE ON
NERVOUS SYSTEM

1. INTRODUCTION

Drug abuse had always been the global issues that affecting health and lives
of individuals that takes place in almost every country. Moreover, the statistics drug
abuse cases in Malaysia shows the upsetting numbers. This problem should have not
be taken lightly because it could bring many harms to health and society.

Drug abuse described the illegally use of any substances such as drugs or
prescription for the wrong purposes in the excessive amounts. In addition, drug abuse
causes by various different reasons that would affect the nervous system of human.
Drugs abuse normally results in a drug tolerance where a person needs more drugs
to produce the same initial effect. The person who is involved in drug abuse may
experience a several symptoms such as sweating, shivering and nausea.
Furthermore, different types of drugs could be categorized into a few groups which are
stimulants, depressant, hallucinogens and narcotics.

2. CAUSES OF DRUG ABUSE

The cause that gives the alarming numbers of drug abuse cases of youth is they
are influenced by peers and always full of curiosity. They have a tendency to take the
illegal substances and this will increase the possibility of them to end up as a drug
abuser. In addition, it is very crucial for every parent to play the main role by observing
a sudden change of their children’s behavior and personality so they can deal with the
problems occur. More importantly, everyone has to realize that environmental
surrounding could give the negative impacts on youth.

3. EFFECT OF DRUG ABUSE ON NERVOUS SYSTEM

Human nervous system could be divided into two which are the central nervous
system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS). The CNS consists of brain
which receives and processes the signals and then initiates the responses while the
spinal cord will conduct the information from and to the brain and control the reflex
actions. Next, the PNS include the peripheral nerves which are cranial nerves from the
brain and spinal nerves from the spinal cord. Both peripheral nerves connect the brain
and spinal cord to the entire body including the muscles, sensory organs and blood
circulation. As a result, CNS and PNS are really important to our body system because
any damages occur could affect the human health.

Drugs are commonly used to diagnose, prevent and treat disease but drug abuse
that affecting the human nervous system could cause changes to the mental state and
behavior of a person. Firstly, morphine and heroin are one of the examples of narcotics
drugs that can slow down the normal brain function. This is because the
neurotransmitters are mimicked by drugs which binding to their receptor sites.
Moreover, the use of depressants drugs can slow down the transmission of nerve
impulses that will result it slower activity of the CNS.

Furthermore, the excessive use of psychoactive drugs such as cocaine can block
the removal of pleasure-inducing transmitter. It will cause the abnormal of large
amounts of neurotransmitters that is remain in synapses for a long time. These cells
will transmit pleasure messages by using dopamine which is one of the
neurotransmitters. Dopamine binds to a transporter molecule in a normal synapse
after performed its action while cocaine prevents the binding of dopamine in drug
abuse. This situation can cause the user to stay addicted to it by reducing the
sensitiveness of the pleasure nerve pathway. In addition, cocaine can affect the
nervous system including changes related to the synapses and neuron, flaccid
paralysis where the condition muscles that are unable to contract and result in
movement disorder.

Lastly, D-lysergic acid diethylamide is the hallucinogens drugs that causes the user
to see, hear and hallucinate where the user will perceive things that do not exist.
Hallucinogens drugs disrupt the action of chemical cells in brain that involved with
memories, emotions, cognition and how people discern pain.

4. TREATMENTS FOR DRUG ABUSE

There are few treatments for drug abuse which are detoxification, behavioral
therapies and medication-assisted therapies. Detoxification is the process to allow the
drugs leaving from the body with the guidance from healthcare to detox safely. The
behavioral therapies are required to deal with addiction’s cause. Psychotherapy is an
example of behavioral therapies that helps in building the self-esteem and teaches
healthy coping mechanism. Last but not least, medications can be used to decrease
addictive behaviors, helps in reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms.

5. CONCLUSION

To sum up drugs are any substances that can harm the process of nervous
systems in our body describe that it is dangerous and should not be taken. A healthy
lifestyle should be practiced to stay free from drugs. More importantly, drug abuse
should be prevented even though not everyone who takes drug becomes addicted.
This occurs because the process of system in everyone’s bodies and brains are
different. In addition, we should protect people surrounding us so that they would not
involve in drug abuse. Lastly, drug abuse has been a worldwide problem. The illegal
use of drugs has been clarified as crime in certain country. This shows that the
government take this problem seriously and put many efforts to solve this. So,
prevention is better than cure and we must play the important role to prevent the illegal
use of drugs.

(853 words)

6. REFERENCES

Bhuwan Sharma, Anjali Arora, Kanwaljit Singh, Harinder Singh & Prabhjot Kaur.
(2017). Drug Abuse: Uncovering the Burden in Rural Punjab. Journal of
Family Medicine and Primary Care, 6(3). 558-562.

Chia, L. T. (2019). Ace Ahead STPM Text. Oxford Fajar.
Gan, W. Y. (2018). Success Biology. Oxford Fajar.

Muzaffar Shah Mallow. (2020). Drug Abuse Among Youth in Malaysia. Journal of
Social Sciences and Humanities, 9(1).

Meredith Watkins. (2021). How drugs Affect the Brain and Central Nervous
System. https://americanaddictioncenters.org/health-complications-
addiction/central-nervous-system

NIDA. (2020). How Does Cocaine Produce Its Effects?
https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-report/cocaine/how-
does-cocaine-produce-its-effects