Technically, overdose doesn’t kill. What can take someone’s life is what it causes – and it varies greatly. By its impact on the body, we can divide drugs, illegal or not, into two groups: depressants (or sedatives) and stimulants.
They have opposite – but equally dangerous – effects that vary in intensity according to the amount ingested, the user’s organism, the degree of mixing with other drugs, among other factors. Upon entering the body, the substance is directed to the brain, where it connects to receptors on neurons that cause sensations such as pleasure and tranquility. Each type of toxic activates specific receptors. “It’s as if the drug was the key and the receptor, the lock”, says neurologist Fabio Porto, from Hospital das Clínicas, in São Paulo.
Even those who survive the overdose can have sequelae forever, once the brain has been injured. Among them are cognitive alterations (attention and memory disorders), motor alterations (weakness on one side of the body or lack of coordination for precision movements), in addition to epilepsy. Depressive states also tend to increase, which can lead to suicide attempts.
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overdose of sedatives
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The body of the user of sedatives and opioids practically shuts down, which often causes him to stop breathing and die. The person is also susceptible to fatal trauma caused by fallssince the body has a defense mechanism that seeks a horizontal position when it does not have enough oxygenation.
Another characteristic risk of these types of drugs is the suffocation, which occurs when the stomach, irritated by the foreign substance, provokes vomiting. The problem is that the body does not have the strength to expel the liquid, which can go down the larynx and flood the lungs, drowning the victim.
opioid overdose
Opioid users increase their tolerance level as they take the drugs. This causes greater dependence, and the individual needs increasingly larger doses. There are reports of people suffering dozens of overdoses of these substances before reaching an irreversible state. But there are those who die from the first overdose.
In 2016, 53,332 people died from opioid overdoses in the US. That’s far more than deaths caused by cocaine (10,119) or methamphetamines (7,663). The epidemic began in the late 1990s thanks to a marketing ploy by the pharmaceutical industry, which began marketing potent opioids to people suffering from chronic pain. Laboratories such as Purdue alleged, erroneously, that only 1% of people became addicted to these drugs, which until then had been used, for example, to minimize the suffering of terminal cancer patients. Although there are no official data in Brazil, physicians have observed a greater number of consultations due to opioid overdoses in Brazil.
stimulant overdose
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mixed overdose
Mixing drugs from different groups potentiates the effects of overdose. Singer Elis Regina died in 1982 after mixing tranquilizers (sedatives), alcohol and cocaine (stimulant). Another singer, Whitney Houston, in 2012, drowned in the bathtub after an overdose of sedative drugs, cocaine and marijuana – a drug that has sedative, stimulant and hallucinogenic properties. Even young and healthy people can suffer heart attacks or strokes in an overdose of stimulants.
hallucinogenic drugs
Hallucinogenic substances, such as LSD, mushrooms and ecstasy (and its purest form, MD), generally do not cause an overdose, but they have a risk of leading to death because of the alteration in the perception of reality. Paranoid crises that make the person jump from great heights or cross busy streetsfor example.
READER’S QUESTION Sharon Castanheira, Aracaju, SE
ILLUSTRATION Zé Otávio
EDITION Felipe van Deursen
CONSULTANCY Carolina Hanna and Eduardo Gouvea, physicians at the Alcohol and Drugs Center (NAD) at Hospital Sírio-Libanês (São Paulo, SP), and Luiz Scocca, psychiatrist, member of the Brazilian Association of Psychiatry (ABP) and the American Association of Psychiatry ( APA)
SOURCES El País, DrugAbuse.gov, Folha de São Paulo, G1 It is Deputy.