Learn about the risks of addiction, overdose, and long-term health effects associated with Different Drug Groups
( Opioids, Hallucinogens, Stimulants & Depressants )
Common Street Names
Zol | Joint | Ganja | Marijuana | Weed | Pot | Grass| Dope | Mary Jane
What Is It?
How Is It Used?
Smoked, swallowed or eaten.
Usually smoked in hand-rolled joints or ‘slowboat’, or in a pipe or mixed with Mandrax/Heroin and smoked in a bottleneck known as a “White pipe”.
Dagga is brewed as tea or mixed into food. Sold in plastic bank bags called ‘bankies’ or compressed into dagga parcels and bricks.
Signs Of Use
Bloodshot red eyes, increased sleep, mood changes, coughing, dry mouth, increased appetite, memory loss, impaired judgement and false reality.
Withdrawal Signs
Cravings, thirst, dry mouth or throat, increased appetite, strange or vivid dreams, irritability and anger, restlessness, nervousness, depression and anxiety.
Health Risks
Frequent respiratory infections, impaired learning memory, decreases immune system functioning, damage to organs (brain, heart & lungs), mental illness, depression and decrease in sexual health.
Common Street Names
Umqomboti | Booze | Hot Stuff | Sauce | Hooch | Moonshine | Vino| Draft | Mbamba | Nguthu | Bev | Liquid Courage | 12 Oz | Spinza | Curl
What Is It?
How Is It Used?
Alcohol is swallowed, it is not digested like food.
First, a small amount is absorbed directly by the tongue lining of the month.
Once in the stomach, alcohol is absorbed directly into your blood stream.
Signs Of Use
Slurred speech, lack of coordination, nausea, vomiting, hangovers, bloodshot eyes, pupils larger or smaller than usual.
Withdrawal Signs
Headaches, tremors, anxiety, shakiness, sweating, loss of appetite, restlessness, irritability, nausea or vomiting, insomnia or seizures.
Health Risks
Foetal damage (in pregnant women), depression, neurologic deficits, hypertension, liver and heart disease.
The consumption of alcohol lowers the ability to make rational decisions which can lead to increased risky sexual behaviours and the possibility of STI and HIV infection.
It is also linked with dangerous and reckless driving which can lead to injury or death due to vehicle accidents.
Common Street Names
H | Mexican Mud | Brown Sugar | Smack | Horse | Junk | Skag| Skunk | China White
What Is It?
Heroin is an opioid drug made from Morphine; a natural substance taken from the seed pot of the various opium poppy plants.
How Is It Used?
People inject, sniff, snort or smoke heroin.
Some people mix Heroin with Crack Cocaine (a practice called speedballing).
Signs Of Use
Dry mouth, warm flushing of skin, heavy feeling in arms and legs, nausea, vomiting, severe itching, clouded mental functioning, a back-&-forth state of being conscious and semiconscious, slowed or slurred speech.
Withdrawal Signs
Restlessness, severe muscle and joint pain, sleep problems, diarrhea and vomiting, cold flashes with goose bumps, uncontrollable leg movements.
Health Risks
Insomnia, collapsed veins for people who inject the drug, damaged tissue inside the nose for people who sniff or snort it, constipation and stomach cramping, infection of the heart lining and valves, abscesses, liver and kidney disease, lung complication (including pneumonia), metal disorders, sexual dysfunction for men, coma, death.