Deck 11: Stimulants: Amphetamine, Methamphetamine, Cocaine, and Crack

Question 1

During the past decade or so,the use of methamphetamine has:

A) increased
B) decreased
C) remained stable
D) fluctuated wildly and randomly from year to year
E) remains unknown

Answer 1

B

Question 2

For which of the following uses do many physicians today most frequently write legitimate prescriptions for amphetamine?

A) students staying up all night to cram for an exam
B) truck drivers staying up for several nights running to transport cargo cross-country
C) athletes seeking alertness and quickness on the playing field
D) as an anti-depressant
E) narcolepsy

Answer 2

E

Question 3

Compare expert opinion on the dangerousness of cocaine use over the past generation,or the past 30 years or so.

A) In the past,experts tended to underplay the dangerousness of cocaine use; today,they tend to exaggerate it.
B) In the past,experts tended to exaggerate the dangerousness of cocaine us; today,they tend to underplay it.
C) Both in the past and today,experts underplay or underplayed the dangerousness of cocaine use.
D) Both in the past and today,experts exaggerate or exaggerated the dangerousness of cocaine use.
E) none of the above

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Cocaine is a:

A) Schedule I drug
B) Schedule II drug
C) Schedule III drug
D) Schedule IV drug
E) Schedule V drug

Question 5

The peak popularity of cocaine-when it was used most,according to surveys-for young adults and college students,was during:

A) the sixties
B) the late seventies to the mid-eighties
C) the nineties
D) the first half of the first decade of the twenty-first century
E) currently-that is,at the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century

Question 6

Since the late 1980s,according to the Monitoring the Future survey,the use of crack has:

A) increased
B) decreased
C) remained stable
D) fluctuated wildly and erratically from year to year
E) remains unknown-and unknowable

Question 7

The high or intoxication resulting from smoking crack cocaine is:

A) longer and more intense than from snorting powder cocaine
B) shorter and more intense than from snorting powder cocaine
C) longer and less intense that from snorting powder cocaine
D) shorter and less intense than from snorting powder cocaine
E) none of the above

Question 8

Stimulants:

A) speed up signals passing through the central nervous system (CNS)
B) slow down,retard,or obtund signals passing through the CNS
C) have no effect on the speed with which signals pass through the CNS
D) have an unknown-and unknowable-effect on the speed of signals passing through the CNS
E) none of the above

Question 9

Is cocaine addicting?

A) yes,definitely,cocaine is addicting
B) no,definitely,cocaine is not addicting
C) the answer to the question depends on what one means by the term,"addicting"
D) the question cannot be answered in any meaningful,empirical fashion
E) none of the above

Question 10

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde under the influence of which of the following drugs?

A) amphetamine
B) methamphetamine
C) cocaine
D) crack
E) none of the above

Question 11

What are the factors that make cocaine as popular a drug as it is? What other factors do you think keep the appeal,and the use,of cocaine in check?

Question 12

Which of the following countries are the origin of the plant from whose leaves cocaine is extracted?

A) Mexico,Guatemala,and Honduras
B) Peru,Bolivia,and Colombia
C) Thailand,Cambodia,and Vietnam
D) Turkey,Iran,and Iraq
E) Algeria,Libya,and Egypt

Question 13

From the early 1970s to today,the number of prescriptions written for the amphetamines has:

A) increased
B) decreased
C) remained stable
D) fluctuated wildly and randomly from year to year
E) remained unknown

Question 14

Another term for "ice" is:

A) cocaine
B) heroin
C) methamphetamine
D) amphetamine tablets
E) none of the above

Question 15

Late in the nineteenth-century,Sigmund Freud,the "father" of psychoanalysis,wrote about and abused which of the following drugs?

A) amphetamine
B) methamphetamine
C) cocaine
D) crack
E) none of the above

Question 16

Which of the following statements is true? The amphetamines and methamphetamine are in the "top five" drugs with respect to:

A) ED episodes but not ME reports
B) ME reports but not ED episodes
C) both ED episodes and ED reports
D) neither ED episodes but not ME reports
E) none of the above

Question 17

Why did a well-known pharmacologist refer to the recreational use of cocaine,crack cocaine,amphetamine,and methamphetamine as "the wild addictions"? Because,in comparison with all the other psychoactive substances,they:

A) cause the most deaths by overdose
B) cause the greatest number of emergency department episodes
C) are the most reinforcing,generate the greatest immediate sensual appeal,and produce the most powerful psychological dependence
D) produce the most chronic or long-term medical harm in the greatest number of users
E) cause the greatest amount of brain damage

Question 18

In what region of the country is methamphetamine most likely to be used?

A) the Mid-Atlantic region of NJ,NY,DE,MD,DC,and PA
B) the New England states
C) the South
D) the West Coast states of CA,OR,and WA
E) the Midwest

Question 19

Evidence from ADAM-II indicates that the use of methamphetamine:

A) is sweeping across the country like wildfire
B) is largely regionalized to the West coast
C) remains confined to the South
D) is used exclusively in large cities
E) none of the above

Question 20

"Punding" is a common effect of taking amphetamines chronically and abusively.What is punding?

A) feeling the sensation of bugs crawling underneath one's skin
B) being unable to go to sleep
C) experiencing the withdrawal symptoms after long-term,high-dose amphetamine abuse
D) engaging in a specific activity compulsively and repetitively,over and over again
E) none of the above

Question 21

Summarize the effects of amphetamine and supply at least one function or purpose that these drugs could help accomplish.In the U.S.at this time,would such instrumental use typically be legal or illegal? Why?

Question 22

Do the different data sources at our disposal (ADAM-II,DAWN,MTF,NSDUH,etc.)say more or less the same thing with respect to stimulant use? Or does each paint a somewhat different portrait of drug use and abuse in the United States at a given time?

Question 23

Why do you think the use of methamphetamine is as regionalized as it is? Why is use of meth so much higher on the West coast than it is in the East? What factors or forces account for this extremely strong concentration with respect to geographic area of the country?

Question 24

Spell out,with reference to the consumption of cocaine,how "classic" addiction,physical dependence,and behavioral dependence differ.Do the same with methamphetamine.

Question 25

What is "immediate sensual appeal" and what role does it play in the use and abuse of the stimulants,including cocaine?

Question 26

The law penalizes,and public opinion condemns,crack cocaine possession,distribution,and sale more harshly than for powder cocaine.Is this fair? Does it make sense? Or is there some logic to it? Explain.

Question 27

What accounts for the media's exaggeration of the danger and threat of certain drugs at certain times-in the case of the discussions in this chapter,that focused on methamphetamine beginning in the late 1980s and continuing,though unevenly,into the twenty-first century? What was it about meth that made it the "scary drug of the year"? Were any of these media dangers based on objective evidence? Or were they all so exaggerated as to be nearly entirely a fantasy? More generally,are drug "scares" really as objectively threatening as the claims,or were they fantasy creations of the press?

Question 28

Spell out some differences between the use of amphetamine pills and tablets and the IV injection of methamphetamine.

Question 29

Compare media attention paid to certain kinds of drug use over,say,the past century,and compare that paid to other drugs,then "match" the volume of each with respect to clear-cut harms-for instance,death by overdose.Consider that the benzodiazepines (tranquilizers such as Valium)and the antidepressants rank in the top five drugs that cause death by overdose,yet methamphetamine and amphetamine do not appear on this list at all (nor does marijuana).What do you think accounts for this discrepancy? Are all the reasons "constructionist" in nature-that is,not based on the objective harms of the drugs in question at all? Or are concrete,objectivistic reasons behind these discrepancies as well?