Most people who drink or use drugs do so without harming themselves or others, but sometimes things go wrong and people get sick or even die. This can happen at any time, to first timers or those with lots of experience.
All drink and drugs can cause ill-health, and if someone gets hooked they're more likely to forget their healthy eating, sleep and exercise. Certain types of drugs have their own risks.
Downers like alcohol, heroin, Ketamine, tranquillisers and solvents make you less alert, and slow down your breathing, heartrate and consciousness. This can make people feel very sleepy and can also cause accidents, passing out, overdose and death. If you use two or more downers together your risk of overdose and death goes up a lot. Alcohol causes more deaths from overdoses than all the other drugs put together.
Uppers like coke, crack, E and speed speed up your heartbeat and breathing, build up your blood pressure and increase consciousness. This can make people tense, panicky and even paranoid but can also lead to heart attacks and strokes.
Trippy drugs like ecstasy, acid and mushrooms distort your senses, affecting vision, sound, taste, hearing, touch and thinking. This can lead to worry, fear and at worst confusion leading to accidents or behaviour that puts the user and others at risk of harm.
Cannabis can make people worried or paranoid and this can lead to strange or dangerous behaviour.
Cigarettes cause cancer and heart disease.