[MUSIC] So, do you think this list is comprehensive and it includes everything? Yes or no? No, it's not. And I'm going to add one more substance to this list that is going to really surprise you. But before we do that, I want to tell you what these substances do, that I'm spending one class time just on bad drugs on college campuses. So, I just want to tell you what they do. And I don't have time to present every single study and every single publication, but I'm going to do my best to present the ones that are relevant to you. So, these drugs mess up your neurotransmitters and harm your brain. And I'm not going to say with the exception of this and the exception of that. I'm not going to do that, because all of them do that. And do you guys know what neurotransmitters are? What is a neurotransmitter? Name a neurotransmitter, dopamine. So, dopamine is known as what? Makes you happy. So, in people who have clinical depression, if you measure their dopamine and serotonin levels they are low. So, this is somebody who really needs to be on an antidepressant. I'm not arguing that, because once I had a student in my office hours asking me, so, are you against the use of any kind of drugs for mental health? I said, absolutely not. If you have clinical depression, of course you need to be on a medication, because really nothing else is going to help you. So, I'm not going to stand here and say that if you have clinical depression go and exercise two hours a day, exercise is going to help you, but you may need also a prescription drug. But all of them, everything that you saw in the previous slide, all of them, they mess up your neurotransmitters and your brain. So, what you see on this slide, is a very simplified, a very simple picture of your brain with various regions. This is not an anatomy or physiology class, so, I'm not going to cover different sections, but I just want you to pay attention to something. So for instance, you see the hypothalamus, right? This is where you need serotonin to have a healthy hypothalamus, right? So, if you have low levels, you're going to maybe experience abnormal stress response, a little bit of anxiety, so, you need these neurotransmitters to have a healthy brain. But when we take these drugs and we start manipulating the concentrations and level of these neurotransmitters, this is when bad things start happening. And I'm going to talk about them in one of the slides. But this is one of the reasons that these drugs, that we are talking about today are bad for you, because at the end of the day, they all harm your brain. So, this is your brain on marijuana. So this is for those of us, or for those of you, [LAUGH] who thought that marijuana is quite safe. This was a very interesting study that look at people who use marijuana over the last past three months. So, they look at the use of marijuana, and they grouped patients into chronic users and occasional users or people who didn't use marijuana. And what you see on this slide, these are functional MRIs which means that it's an MRI, it's a brain image that shows brain activity. So, this is what this slide is doing. So first of all, if you thought that there is no risk to get addicted to marijuana, you're absolutely wrong, one in 10. I just love it when people say that, marijuana has no risk for addiction. And I say, when was the last time you stopped taking marijuana for two weeks and you were fine? And they can't answer that question. I say, when was the last time you smoke marijuana, yesterday, okay, so don't smoke. Did you smoke today, no, are you going to, yes. Why, you're not addicted, you don't need that. So it gets into a vicious cycle, right. Its honor I don't have any addiction, but you do, because you have to use it every day, you're dependent on it. So, what marijuana does is that, it alters the brain development. And as you can see on this slide where you see those blue dots, there you see this coloration, that means you're decreasing the gray matter in your brain. And the decrease in gray matter is happening in many places in these brains, including the cortex. So, this is how chronic use of marijuana is going to impact your memory. In this article, they also talked about IQ. And they also talked about, how people who become chronic marijuana users, they usually get engaged in risky behaviors. So, the wife of a friend of mine, smoke marijuana at the party, I don't know for how many hours and then she drove home. And on the corner of Colburn Campus, I'm sure you all know where that is, she hit a two year old, because she was under the influence of marijuana. That's why, you get checked for that now. S,o if the police suspects that you're high or your stone, they check you. Luckily, this two year old didn't die. But, the family settled with the friend's wife, friend's wife settled with the with the family. But imagine if that two year old had been killed, and this is somebody that I know. I mean, I'm sure there are many examples like this out there. And my friend finally filed for a divorce, because she would not go to a rehab to get rid of her marijuana addiction. So, marijuana addiction again does exist. And then, you're going to have decreasing cognition and we talk about memory issues. This is the other drugs that I was going to tell you about. Do you guys think that what you see here has any potential for abuse? Yes, absolutely. So, how about energy drinks? And I only have five different kinds here. How many are out there? Every time I go to the grocery store, there is a new one. So now they have a full row, and full, I mean, I don't know how many shelves, filled with energy drinks. And what are some of the active ingredients, high doses of guarana. But look at guarana, it's a plant, it's a beautiful plant. But guess what? Guarana has more caffeine than coffee. So, when you drink that energy drink, check the label, you're going to see caffeine and you're also going to see Guarana, which means more caffeine. So, energy drink companies became really smart, because you cannot have more than about 70 mg of caffeine in a 12 ounce drink. So, they decided to take the dietary supplement route. Because if you do that, then you can put 100 mg of caffeine. And I'm going to share with you in the next light what these energy drinks do to you. So this was a study that was published not too long ago, and it really reviewed a mini review of anything that is published on health effects or the impact of energy drinks on health. Health effects and public health concerns of energy drink consumption just in this country, not worldwide, just here. And this is what they reported, so people who are heavily drinkers, they drink a lot of energy drinks, they also have risk seeking behaviors. They may have tendencies to go for the substance abuse, drink more, smoke more marijuana. Mental health effect, consumption of energy drink can cause stress, anxiety, depressive symptoms, even suicidal ideation. How about adverse cardiovascular reaction, and this is something that I have seen. A friend of mine who was taking guarana supplements, not energy drinks, just supplements, to increase their energy level, ended up having a life threatening arrhythmia, heart palpitations that almost killed her and other problems. So again, energy drinks are not so safe. So, I am going to wrap up this section because we have another group exercise that I'm hoping we can do, is this is your body on drug. So when you take that molly, when you have the smoke of marijuana, you feel happy, you're very confident, you're alert, you experience euphoria, you have high energy, you feel like I'm going to go for a five hour hike right now, I'm going to climb that mountain. You're not inhibited, you can socialize, you can talk to people all of the sudden that shy and timid person is like the life of the party, so this is the beginning. But guess what happened during the calm down, headache, dizziness, you're either sleeping or you're an insomniac, you're fatigued. And then you go back take the drug, then you're happy, confident, and then after a few hours you go back to this. And eventually, if you continue using that for a long enough time, you are going to harm the function of your organs. We talked about the brain, but I have the liver here, we have lungs, we have your heart and eventually you're going to have a very diseased body, because that's what these drugs will eventually do to you. So, this is the group exercise that I want to do right now, and we only have like one minute. So, spend 60 seconds answering this question. So let's say you know someone, friends, a classmate, somebody who you want to help, so that they don't use drugs. So, I just want to have maybe two or three answers, but you have to be very quick. So, how do you help that friend? What do you tell that friend? Yes. You can show them these slides, very good. And I promise you I will upload these slides. I didn't upload them because I wanted to keep the element of surprise today, but I will upload them. So, because we don't have time, I'm going to show you at least one practice, that I learned after reviewing the literature and watching a number of ted talks, including the one that you see here by Johnson Brewer. So, he refers to it as as mindfulness training, so you're exposed. So, this is what I heard somebody doing it, and also, Johnson Brewer talks about an example. You see the alcohol, you're exposed to it, you pause, and then you start being curious, and what does that mean? That means you ask yourself questions. What is this drink, this cocktail, is going to do to me? And you're going to stay mindful just for three minutes, just for three minutes. And Dr. Brewer recommends that this works pretty much with any bad habits that we want to break. So, you're practicing mindful drinking, mindful smoking, mindful drugs of abuse. My God, I remember what that Jafari said about molly. So, you're practicing mindfulness and mindful prescription drugs and the ultimate outcome is that, you eventually stop. So for practical, this is what I want you to do, so, first of all, for all of you in my class, I hope that at least the take home message is that you pay attention and you ask yourself those questions and you would be mindful. But I don't want you to stop there, I don't want you to just help yourself. I want you to be vigilant enough and attentive enough to help a friend, or to help a family member, and a loved one. And I am going to upload these slides on the course website so you can share it with others. And there are some resources also listed on the website, thank you. [MUSIC]
