Amphetamines - How Is It Taken?

How Is It Taken?

Amphetamines come in both tablets and capsules and are usually swallowed. However, drug abusers sometimes crack open the capsule to get to the flecks of the drug inside it, or they grind the tablets into a fine powder. Amphetamine powder obtained from either method is then inhaled or "snorted." Users also mix it with tobacco or marijuana and then smoke it.

Beginning in the 1960s, some hardcore drug abusers started mixing the amphetamine powder into a liquid and then injecting it. This is called intravenousInjected into a vein., or IV, drug abuse. When injected, the amphetamine high occurs almost immediately, increasing the danger of addiction. Weil and Rosen described the physical and mental effects of a few weeks of continued intravenous use. Addicts "became emaciatedPronounced ee-MASE-ee-ate-ed; very thin and sickly looking. and generally unhealthy," the authors reported. "They stayed up for days on end, then 'crashed' into stupors. They became jumpy, paranoid, and even psychotic."

Many high-dose amphetamine abusers become psychotic, or mentally deranged, after a week or so of continuous use. A disruption occurs in the way their minds function, making it difficult for people suffering from a psychotic episode to distinguish between what is real and what is imagined. Users who increase "their dose rapidly to enormous levels… swallowing whole handfuls of amphetamine tablets" can develop an "amphetamine psychosisPronounced sy-KOH-sis; a severe mental disorder that often causes hallucinations and makes it difficult for people to distinguish what is real from what is imagined.." According to the Schaffer Library of Drug Policy, this condition makes them feel as if "ants, insects, or snakes [are] crawling over or under the skin."