Human Growth and Development / Unit 11 HGD 1521 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Drug Classes
The idea
Psychoactive drugs fall into classes by their main effects. Stimulants, such as cocaine, amphetamines and methamphetamine, speed up nervous-system activity. Depressants, or sedative-hypnotics, such as alcohol, barbiturates and benzodiazepines, slow it down. Opioids, such as heroin, fentanyl, morphine, oxycodone and methadone, relieve pain and produce euphoria. Hallucinogens, such as LSD, mescaline and DMT, alter perception; the dissociatives ketamine and PCP are grouped with them.
In practice
Alcohol, often thought of as a stimulant because people become livelier, classed as a depressant because it slows the nervous system.
Where people slip
Exam items give a drug and ask for its class, or give an effect and ask for the drug type. Alcohol is a depressant, not a stimulant. Some substances, such as cannabis and MDMA, have mixed effects and are classified differently by different sources, so the course does not assign them a single class.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
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