Gather Buzzed: The Straight Facts About The Most Used Abused Drugs From Alcohol To Ecstasy Chronicled By Cynthia M. Kuhn Issued As Textbook
well written and researched resource, One late spring night, while I was teaching Drugs and Society at UConn, I knocked on a neighbor's door to ask them to turn down their party a bit, They invited me in for a moment to be social, I heard a young person call out my name by my title, and there were two of my students with three other partygoers huddled around this book, which I'd assigned.
One of my favorite moments, Wonderful and informative as I use this as a guide to help my clients each day whom are struggling with addiction and working on recovery, While I have read this cover to cover, I find myself often going back to it, Great resource! An excellent source of information on pretty much any "drug", Even chocolate.
On a related note, wanna learn about "The History of the NonMedical Use of Drugs in the United States", by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School, in a speech to the California Judges Associationannual conferencesitelinkcheck this out.
Amusing and informative. Thankfully, evenyears later we haven't succumbed to his prediction that we'd make tobacco illegal,
for work. Good survey of the health impacts of various drugs, Frankly, I'm shocked that there are no citations, Also, the authors qualitative assessment of what drugs subjectively do is nearly worthless, The description of PCP, for example, as like being drunk while on a stimulant and psychedelic is about as far off from capturing the experience as I could imagine, The do better quoting Burroughs for heroin, This is an absolutely fantastic book, but I wouldn't recommend it for a covertocover readthrough hence the four, It's a reference book, and it cuts through all the bullshit related to drugs that has been promoted by the government in favor of pure scientific facts, Great for anyone who is interested in brain chemistry or anyone who might have a loved one addicted to a controlled substance, all reviews in one place: sitelink
night mode reading
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About the Book: Book is written in stead of the idiotic slogans like “Just Say No” and “This is your brain on drugs“, that provides no information, and is blatantly ineffective scare tactic that leads to mistrust among the groups of people that should otherwise rely on one another.
Without sugarcoating the book provides a list of addictive substances that can and are classified as drugs, why are they drugs, how theyre used, where, how it became “a thing“.
Alongside what are the withdrawals like, what are the lasting effects, irreversable ones, what are other dangers, and all the simple science behind it all, Whether then its still worth it or not is left fully in the hands of the reader, without any judgement, and, rather, guiding to possible precautions, safety measures that can be taken to avoid even the simplest of these becoming a lifealtering negative experience.
My Opinion: A peoplefriendly book, easy to read, highly informative, would need a slight update already, but if theres none by the time youre picking it up it remains a fine read.
It doesnt talk down, instead providing information to stay safe, and hopefully even help reconsider, or consider quitting, rehab, Buzzed is a pretty remarkable book, Designed to cut the BS out of propaganda for and against drug use, Buzzed is essentially a reference book for all psychoactive substances, legal or illegal, from caffeine to nicotine to ecstasy.
It gives a breakdown of what damage is caused to the brain by excessive chocolate consumption, and it tells you why caffeine makes you feel so jumpy sometimes, It takes away a lot of the myths about some recreational, illegal drugs, but also gives frightening examples of what longterm use can do to the human brain and body.
No more lies about marijuana leading teenagers to commit assaults, but plenty of scientific, understandable evidence about how abuse of ecstasy can lead to chronic, lifelong depressive problems, In the one hand the book takes away the scaremongering myths about drug experimentation, but they make clear the evidence for damages caused by chronic abuse of some drugs, In light of the clearheaded lack of scare tactics used in this book, the warnings have infinitely more merit than they do in any governmentfunded ad campaign on television, A very educational, helpful reference book for anyone who has ever known someone who likes to party too much some times,
NC Basically a high school report of drugs, Very shallow, and just propaganda for "drugs bad overall", Research experiments are all quite inconclusive as to whether or not drugs are bad seems like a lack of research out there
I was hoping to read about some crazy experimental drugs that people don't know about, crazy stories, or even some sage advice to kids about why or why not to do drugs.
This book is none of that, so you're probably better going to Psychonaut wiki, Jonathan just finished reading the chapter on caffeine for his Science Fair Project, . . great read chapter by chapter on all types of substances, . . the good, the bad and the ugly,
Before children learn to "just say NO" to drugs, it is good that they "KNOW" about the drugs, see what they look like so they're not fooled into anything.
. . to realize how cautious they need to be, . . especially beginning in an innercity middle school, . . that some drugs really do look like candy and we don't take candy from strangers, . . or even some friends. Buzzed is a straightforward book about drugs: which classes of substances are available, what they're called scientifically and colloquially, where they come from, how commonly they're used, and exactly what they do to your body.
It's not a blanket condemnation of all drug use, but a sober heh commentary on the proven dangers and pitfalls, within the context of a range of acceptable use, Reading this book has easily quintupled my knowledge on the subject, and I wish every young adult could read it and spare themselves a lot of bad information and needless, heedless experimentation.
Who are these experts who wrote Buzzed, you ask It's a trio of doctors from Duke University: Cynthia Kuhn is a professor of pharmacology, Scott Swartzwelder is a professor of psychology and neuroscience, and Wilkie Wilson is a professor of prevention science.
The book is also written and commented on by two students at the time of the first edition who could share their own perspective on drugs, I was reading the fourth edition, released inthe original came out in,
The book is oddly organized: if you plan to read it from cover to cover, they recommend you start with part, which serves as a primer on neural pathways, brain chemistry, addiction, legal ramifications and other important information you'll need to understand the rest of the Buzzed's explanations.
Once you've finished the hind quarter, you can then hop back to the beginning and read about the drugs themselves, The authors did this because they felt many would use this as a reference book, but, . . can't reference readers just flip to later chapters Anyhow, the odd structure slowed my process a bit, It was also a slow read due to the complexity of the effects described: neurotransmitters GABA, dopamine, serotonin, etc, interacting with the agonist and antagonist actions of various multisyllabic chemicals takes some work to grasp, I found myself rereading many passages to get a mental picture of what was being described, Those complexities are necessary, and everywhere else the book was plainly and accessibly written,
Buzzed is clear about what we know and WHY we know it, and is also very frank about the things we don't know yet, There are constant references to the quality of various studies, For example: we're pretty sure this is true about drug x, but the studies could have been more robust and involved more sujects, so it could turn out to be the effects were more due to factor y.
Or: people often warn about the dangers of z, but the only confirmation has been in animal studies where the animals were given FAR more of the substance than any human user would ever consume.
There's also much care given to differentiate between the effects on bodies at various stages of development, Some drugs cross the placental barrier and have effects on developing fetuses, others can hamper growth and development in teenage years I'm looking at you, marijuana, but might not be harmful in moderate amounts in adults.
Some drugs easily cross the bloodbrain barrier, but close relatives cannot, All of this is put in context for each drug and class of drugs,
The broad categories of substances addressed are alcohol, caffeine, ecstasy, hallucinogens, herbal drugs, inhalants this is the one we are warned to simply NOT DO, marijuana, nicotine, opiates, sedatives, steroids, and stimulants.
This book itself is stimulating, and I highly recommend it, Great and easy to read overview, I read this because it is clinically relevant to my job but I think that learning more about drugs of abuse is important for everyone as
our kids, family members and friends may come into contact with or use dangerous substances, especially in light of the current opiate crisis.
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