EXPERT SHEDS LIGHT ON ADDICTIONS, DRUG USE

Pharmacology guru Dr. David Cook spent Friday morning talking about what
drugs are out there, why drug addicts love the high and why it's hard to quit.

He said drugs are out there but says there's nothing demonic about them.

"There's nothing we can't understand about them," said Dr. Cook,
pharmacology professor at the University of Alberta.

He spoke to about 150 people at Medicine Hat and Area's Community Drug
Response Information Day Friday. He said anything that gives us pleasure
can make us addicts, like drugs, sex and eating.

Cook talked about the reward pathways in the brain that when stimulated, by
drugs for example, provide pleasure.

"The pathway exists to reward us for actions that are good for the
individual or the species."

He said that taking drugs, however, is a false pleasure because it's
chemically induced.

"The longer we do something the more difficult it is to quit."

He further explained that those pathways start to burn themselves out and
turn off after prolonged usage of drugs.

So addicts will increase the doses of their drug intake to still get a high.

Often times their intake by then could be deadly to someone who isn't a
heavy user, he said.

"Then it's really a disaster when they quit."

He said they miss that pleasure sensation and then may look to start doing
other drugs.

If the addict does quit, after sometime the pathways begin to work again.

He said addicts keep using drugs because the withdrawal is worse.

"The addict uses the drug to become normal."

Cook said cocaine is a rapid addiction.

He said cocaine is a very short acting drug, "but the high is really intense."

"It's a very difficult addiction to quit."

He said the cocaine now a days has been cut about three times before it
reaches the users hands, meaning the dealer, whose hands it passes through,
can add things like icing sugar so it weighs more and, in turn, makes them
more money.

Cook said cocaine is usually inhaled, but sometimes it can be injected.

A derivative of cocaine is crack, which is hard. A crack cocaine habit is
not cheap, he said.

"You almost have to deal or steal or go on the streets to keep the habit
going."

Cocaine use can cause seizures, heart attacks, constricted blood vessels
and it called "crack lung," which is from smoking it, he said.

Addicts can also become very nervous and paranoid.

Cook said the addiction to methamphetamine occurs even more rapidly than
cocaine.

The high lasts longer, he said, adding that meth gives off huge bursts of
energy and the users can use it without sleeping for days.

It also increases reaction time, but people can be very unpredictable on
it, he added.

Cook, who has lost count at the number meth conferences he's talked at,
said crystal meth is making people nervous.

He said in northern and western Alberta it's a huge problem, but not as
much down south.

Meth too can have major health risks like increase in blood pressure and
risk of stroke.

Users also can have 10 times more of a risk of developing coronary artery
disease.

And there is evidence he said that it causes brain damage.

"Meth is very ugly indeed."

He said that stimulant users that are mentally ill can exasperate their
illness by using.

"Stimulants have significant health problems."

He said the enjoyment of drugs like cocaine, meth and ecstasy are
accompanied by serious health risks.

He finished by saying drug addicts need as much encouragement as they can get.

"Quitting any drug is both depressing and frightening."