Reality Check
Alcohol
Each year, an estimated 7,000 people under the age of 21 die from alcohol-related injuries.
Source: National Highway Traffic Administration, 2003
In 2002, 29 percent of drivers aged 15 to 20 who died in traffic accidents had been drinking alcohol.
Source: Traffic Safety Facts 2002: Young Drivers, National Highway Traffic Administration. U.S. Department of Transportation, 2003
The younger you are when you start drinking, the greater your chance of becoming addicted to alcohol at some point in your life. More than 4 in 10 people who begin drinking before age 15 eventually become alcoholics.
Source: NIAAA 
Repeated alcohol exposure can alter the trajectory, or path, of teen brain development impacting adolescents even after they become adults.
Source: Zeigler DW, Wang CC, Yoast RA, et al.
Forty-five percent of those who begin drinking alcohol before the age of 14 become alcohol dependent at some time in their lives, compared with 10% of those who wait at least until age 21.
Source: Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine
Early drinking onset has been linked to unintentional injuries, car crashes, physical fights, unplanned sex, and academic underachievement in teens.
Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Cocaine and Crack
Cocaine can kill you the first time you use it.
Source: NIDA
Cocaine and crack cocaine are highly addictive.
Source: NIDA
Regular cocaine and crack users can become very paranoid.
Source: NIDA
Cocaine use can cause damage to your nose. Regularly snorting cocaine, for example, can lead to loss of sense of smell, nosebleeds, problems with swallowing, hoarseness, and a chronically runny nose.
Source: NIDA
Mixing alcohol and cocaine increases your risk of sudden death.
Source: NIDA
Cocaine can cause heart attacks even in young abusers.
Source: NIDA
Ecstasy
Ecstasy can cause you to become dehydrated or to drink too much water without realizing it. This can also be deadly because it interferes with the salt balance in your body.
Source: NIDA Community Drug Alert Bulletin – Club Drugs
Ecstasy can be addictive.
Source: NIDA: Research Report Series – MDMA Abuse (Ecstasy)
Even limited use of ecstasy can cause increased heart rate, involuntary teeth clenching, nausea, blurred vision, chills or sweating.
Source: NIDA
GHB
GHB affects your self-control. It is used in "date rape" and other assaults because it is a tasteless, odorless substance that can be unknowingly ingested.
Source: SAMHSA Substance Abuse Treatment Advisory: GHB: A Club Drug to Watch
GHB can cause people to lose consciousness.
Source: SAMHSA Substance Abuse Treatment Advisory: GHB: A Club Drug to Watch
GHB withdrawal symptoms include anxiety, tremors, sweating and sleeplessness.
Source: NIDA InfoFacts: Rohypnol and GHB
Different amounts of GHB have different effects on people. In other words, no amount is safe.
Source: SAMHSA Substance Abuse Treatment Advisory: GHB: A Club Drug to Watch
Hallucinogens
Hallucinogens can cause flashbacks. Effects of hallucinogenic drugs can occur weeks, months, even years after use.
Source: SAMHSA Tips for Teens: The Truth about Hallucinogens
LSD is manufactured from lysergic acid, which is found in ergot, a fungus that grows on rye and other grains.
Source: NIDA InfoFacts: LSD
Originally manufactured as an IV anesthetic in 1950, PCP use in humans was discontinued because of its intensely negative psychological effects.
Source: NIDA InfoFacts: PCP
Heroin
Heroin is commonly associated with fatal overdose and is a highly addictive drug.
Source: NIDA: Drugs of Abuse: Heroin, 2005
Heroin abuse is associated with serious health conditions including HIV/AIDS and hepatitis, particularly in users who inject the drug.
Source: NIDA. InfoFacts: Heroin. 2006.
Inhalants
Inhalants can kill you the very first time you use them.
Source: SAMHSA Tips for Teens: Inhalants
Chemicals like amyl nitrate and isobutyl nitrate (“poppers”), and nitrous oxide (“whippets”) are sometimes sold at concerts and dance clubs. They can permanently damage your body and brain even if you try it only one time.
Source: SAMHSA Tips for Teens: Inhalants
Chronic inhalant abusers may permanently lose the ability to perform everyday functions like walking, talking, and thinking.
Source: SAMHSA Tips for Teens: Inhalants
“Huffing” concentrated amounts of chemicals from paint and gas can directly induce heart failure and death. Long term effects of chronic abuse include brain, liver and kidney damage.
Source: NIDA
Ketamine
Ketamine causes delirium, amnesia, impaired motor function, high blood pressure, depression, and potentially fatal respiratory problems.
Source: NIDA Research Report Series: Hallucinogens and Dissociative Drugs
Because you don’t feel any pain while high on ketamine, you can seriously injure yourself without knowing it.
Source: NIDA Research Report Series: Hallucinogens and Dissociative Drugs
Marijuana
Marijuana is illegal.
Smoking pot affects alertness, concentration, perception, coordination and reaction time, many of the skills required for safe driving and other tasks. These effects can last several hours after smoking.
Source: Marijuana: Facts Parents Need to Know, Revised, NIDA, November 1998
Teens age 12 to 17 who regularly smoke marijuana were shown to be three times more likely than non-users to have suicidal thoughts.
Source: Greenblatt, J. Adolescent self-reported behaviors and their association with marijuana use, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 1998
Can you become addicted to marijuana? Actually, yes. More teens are in treatment with a primary diagnosis of marijuana dependence than for all other illicit drugs combined.
Source: Treatment Episodes Data Set (TEDS) 1992-2002, SAMHSA, 2004
Marijuana has some of the same cancer-causing substances as tobacco. One joint can deliver four times as much cancer-causing tar as one cigarette.
Source: Wu, TC et al. Pulmonary hazards of smoking marijuana as compared with tobacco. New England Journal of Medicine. 318(6):347-351, 1988.
Methamphetamine
Meth can kill you by causing overheating, convulsions, and coma.
Source: NIDA InfoFacts: Methamphetamine
Meth users may have cracked teeth due to extreme jaw-clenching during a methamphetamine high.
Source: Center for Substance Abuse Research (CESAR), University of Maryland
Meth can cause a severe “crash” after the effects wear off.
Source: SAMHSA Tips for Teens: Methamphetamine
Meth can damage blood vessels in the brain leading to strokes (which can produce irreversible damage).
Source: SAMHSA Tips for Teens: Methamphetamine
Meth can be made from lethal ingredients like battery acid, drain cleaner, lantern fuel, and antifreeze.
Source: SAMHSA Tips for Teens: Methamphetamine
Prescription and Over the Counter Drugs
Unintentional poisoning deaths from the abuse of opioid painkillers (such as Oxycodone and Morphine) and hallucinogens grew 55 percent from 1999 to 2004. Research suggests this is an increase attributed primarily to prescription painkillers.
Source: CDC, Unintentional Poisoning Deaths --- United States, 1999--2004
Short-term effects of prescription painkillers include inability to concentrate, lack of energy, constipation, nausea, vomiting, and respiratory depression. In the long term, a user can become addicted to the drug and experience withdrawal symptoms.
Source: NIDA InfoFacts: Prescription Pain and Other Medications
Physical side effects of abusing prescription stimulants include collapse, increased heart and respiratory rates; elevated blood pressure; tremors; chest pain with palpitations; vomiting; and psychological side effects include aggression, panic, and paranoia.
Source: NCADI, Drugs of Abuse
Short-term effects of over-the-counter medicine abuse include, nausea, loss of coordination, headache, vomiting, loss of consciousness, numbness of fingers and toes, irregular heartbeat, panic attacks, brain damage, seizures, and coma.
Source: PDFA, Commonly Abused Prescription and OTC Medication, Partnership for a Drug-Free America
Rohypnol
Because it has no taste or smell, Rohypnol can be put into your drink without you knowing it.
Source: NIDA: “Club Drugs Aren’t Fun Drugs”
Withdrawal seizures can occur a week or more after you stop using Rohypnol.
Source: Fact Sheet on Rohypnol: National Institute on Drug Abuse from the Epidemiologic Trends in Drug Abuse-Advance Report by the Community Epidemiology Work Group
Rohypnol may cause individuals under the influence of the drug to forget what happened. Other effects include low blood pressure, drowsiness, dizziness, confusion, and upset stomach.
Source: NIDA: "Club Drugs Aren’t Fun Drugs"
Steroids
Steroids can stop growth prematurely and permanently in teenagers.
Source: NIDA Drug Pages: Steroids
Steroids can make guys grow breasts and girls grow beards.
Source: NIDA for Teens: Anabolic Steroids
Steroids have disfiguring effects—severe acne, greasy hair, and baldness (in both guys and girls).
Source: NIDA for Teens: Anabolic Steroids
Some “side effects” of steroid use including liver tumors and cancer, jaundice, fluid retention, high blood pressure, kidney tumors and trembling.
Source: NIDA InfoFacts: Steroids
Steroid abusers may also develop a rare condition called peliosis hepatis in which blood-filled cysts crop up on the liver. Both the tumors and cysts can rupture and cause internal bleeding.
Source: NIDA
Tobacco
Smoking is addictive. Three-quarters of young people who use tobacco daily continue to do so because they find it hard to quit.
Source: SAMHSA Tips for Teens: The Truth about Tobacco
Smoking can kill you. Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. More than 440,000 Americans die from tobacco-related causes each year, most of whom began using tobacco before the age of 18.
Source: NIDA , Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Smoking puts your friends and family at risk. Each year approximately 3,000 non-smokers die of lung cancer from second-hand smoke.
Source: NIDA’s Report on Nicotine Addiction
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