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Sex, Drugs, Rock 'n' Roll
By Sue Woodman, originally published in My Generation
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DRUGS
Marijuana, LSD, speed, cocaine, mescaline, mushrooms, Quaaludes…they made us high, they changed our perception, they blew our minds. But did they do lasting harm?
It's difficult to say, because all drug studies are to some degree political. Many are funded by parties with their own axes to grind, such as pharmaceutical companies or the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Other studies were conducted on animals or very small groups, which makes them unreliable. But certain conclusions have emerged.
Heroin
If you experimented with heroin in your youth, get a blood test to make sure you're not carrying a potentially deadly souvenir: hepatitis C.
About four million Americans—many of them over 45—are estimated to be harboring this sometimes-fatal virus. The symptoms, which include lethargy, jaundice and abdominal pain, may take up to three decades to appear. As many as 70 percent of cases result in chronic liver disease, and nearly one in four of those patients will develop cirrhosis. Hepatitis C can be spread through sex, but its main transmission routes are syringes shared during IV-drug use. Blood transfusions were also a culprit until a new screening test finally flagged tainted blood in 1992. A staggering 90 percent of IV-drug users may have contracted hepatitis C—even if they shot heroin infrequently. "Most don't know they have it," says Seymour. "I fear that within the next decade, this disease will outstrip AIDS as a public health crisis."
LSD
In the four decades since LSD appeared on the street, between 1 and 1.5 million "teens, Deadheads and hippies" have tried it, estimates Seymour. While some people saw God on acid, others glimpsed madness.
There's disagreement about how long the effects of LSD may linger. A 1993 study, published in the journal Addiction, reported that hallucinogen persisting perceptual disorder (HPPD) could occur for as long as five years after using the drugs. But Seymour claims that he's seen almost no lasting problems from psychedelic-drug use as the first generation to try them reaches 60 and beyond. "Most middle-aged people seem to have left the experience behind long ago," he says. Of course, see your doctor if you have any symptoms oddly akin to those vibrantly colored journeys of yesteryear.
Cocaine
For a few reckless years starting in the late 1970s, cocaine became the drug of choice: chic, sharp, and addictive. Today, our generation seems to be over that love affair. According to the 1998 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, cocaine use has dropped by 90 percent since its peak in 1985.
The immediate risks of snorting coke, such as a stroke or heart attack, are well-known. But new studies suggest that some of cocaine's effects on the brain may be irreversible and lead to chronic problems later on.
"Cocaine causes long-term, possibly irreversible, alterations in brain blood flow," says Dr. Jonathan Levin, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, who has been studying cocaine's effect on blood flow and brain function for almost a decade. Brain scans of cocaine users show distinct areas where blood flow is diminished, and this may be related to the problems associated with long-term cocaine use: memory loss, shortened attention span, sleep disorders, and depression, among others.
Does this brain damage repair itself in the years after you stop sniffing cocaine? "Abstinence does repair some of the abnormalities, but it's not clear to what extent," says Levin. Luckily, researchers haven't found any concrete proof that casual cocaine users who did a few lines at parties 20 years ago caused lasting harm to their brains.
Speed
For many, speed was the first drug—the one they started taking as students simply to pull a few all-nighters—and new findings show it was likely the most dangerous. Methamphetamine, or speed, has become fashionable again among young drug takers, so there's been a glut of new research on the substance. Frighteningly, it shows that speed might be more destructive to the brain than heroin or cocaine.
In a series of studies at the government's Brookhaven National Laboratory, the lead investigator, Dr. Nora Volkow, found that speed causes "significant changes" in the brain's dopamine transporters, and abusers still experienced reduced cognitive abilities, memory loss, and slowed motor function one year after use.
"The drug's assault on the brain's dopamine [system] makes things slow down, just as aging makes things slow down," says Volkow. "Effectively, it accelerates the aging process of the brain."
Are the effects permanent? "We don't yet know, but we're doing the studies to find out," says Volkow. There is speculation that having used methamphetamine may predispose people to neuro-degenerative diseases like Parkinson's. So if you spent junior year whirling at 80 mph, share this news with your physician.
Marijuana
Marijuana is one of the most studied substances in science, yet the verdict on whether it's harmful or not is still quite inconclusive.
While one set of scientists is bent on proving marijuana's medical benefits (research suggests that the substance can stimulate appetite and relieve chronic pain), another is documenting its health risks. The studies pile up on both sides, but the jury is still out—especially on the long-term effects of smoking pot.
On the optimistic side, a study from the Biological Psychiatry Laboratory at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, found that when long-term marijuana tokers stopped toking—even after years of continued use—their mental acuity returned in full force. "In a full battery of neuro-psychological tests, our preliminary data showed that while smoking, all these activities were impaired," explains substance-abuse researcher Dr. Amanda Gruber. "But twenty-eight days later, the long-term smokers did as well on all the tests as nonsmokers. There seemed to be no irreversible effects."
On the gloomy side, a study done by Dr. Zhang Zuofeng of UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center found that past marijuana smoking could sharply increase the risk of developing head and neck cancers. Zhang puts the risk at 2.6 times higher for former occasional pot smokers than for nonsmokers, and 4.9 times greater for those who smoked more than once a day.
"In the sixties, we had very high numbers of people in their twenties smoking [marijuana]," says Zhang. "Our study suggests those people are just now getting to the ages at which they will get head and neck cancers."
And perhaps lung cancer, too. At the UCLA School of Medicine, Dr. Donald Tashkin is midway through a 2,400-person, five-year study investigating marijuana's long-term link to lung cancer.
"Can the microscopic, premalignant changes smoking [marijuana] causes in the lung be repaired? Is a former smoker's lung-cancer risk eventually eliminated?" asks Tashkin. "I suspect the answer will be no, not completely."
Importantly, those of us who still indulge should know that smoking pot causes a sharp increase in heart rate, and that could be dangerous for people over 50 with other health problems. In fact, one recent study found that people who smoke marijuana have a five times greater risk of heart attack during the first hour after use—the same degree of cardiac risk brought on by strenuous exercise. The short-term risk is considerable, especially for patients with other risk factors, such as high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol, says researcher Dr. Murray Mittleman, director of cardiovascular epidemiology at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
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