DrugFacts

Cocaine is a powerfully addictive stimulant drug made from the leaves of the coca plant native to South America. It produces short-term euphoria, energy, and talkativeness in addition to potentially dangerous physical effects like raising heart rate and blood pressure.

La cocaína es una droga estimulante y altamente adictiva que se manufactura a partir de las hojas de la planta de coca, originaria de América del Sur. Produce un estado eufórico de corta duración, energía y locuacidad, además de efectos físicos potencialmente peligrosos como aumento de la frecuencia cardiaca y de la presión arterial.

Club drugs are a pharmacologically heterogeneous group of psychoactive drugs that tend to be abused by teens and young adults at bars, nightclubs, concerts, and parties. Gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), Rohypnol, ketamine, as well as MDMA (ecstasy) and methamphetamine (which are featured in separate DrugFacts) are some of the drugs included in this group.

Scientific research since the mid-1970s shows that drug abuse treatment can help many drug abusing offenders change their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors towards drug abuse, avoid relapse, and successfully remove themselves from a life of substance abuse and crime. It is true that legal pressure might be needed to get a person into treatment and help them stay there. Once in a treatment program, however, even those who are not motivated to change at first can eventually become engaged in a continuing treatment process.

Las investigaciones científicas realizadas desde mediados de los años setenta indican que cuando reciben tratamiento para la drogadicción, muchos de los delincuentes que abusan de drogas cambian sus actitudes, creencias y comportamientos hacia el abuso de drogas, evitan las recaídas, y se apartan exitosamente de una vida de abuso de sustancias y de crimen.

Khat (pronounced “cot”) is a stimulant drug derived from a shrub (Catha edulis) that is native to East Africa and southern Arabia. The khat plant itself is not scheduled under the Controlled Substances Act; however, because one of the mind-altering chemicals found in it, cathinone, is a Schedule I drug (a controlled substance with no recognized therapeutic use), the Federal Government considers Khat use illegal.

How Is Khat Used?

Leaves of the khat shrub are typically chewed and held in the cheek, like chewing tobacco, to release their stimulant chemicals.

El khat es una droga estimulante derivada de un arbusto nativo (Catha edulis) del África oriental y del sur de Arabia. Aunque la planta del khat en sí no está listada en la Ley sobre Sustancias Controladas, la catinona, uno de sus componentes químicos, sí está entre las drogas de la Lista I, por lo que el gobierno federal considera su uso ilegal.¹