Earth's inhabitants have used drugs for their eclectic properties for thousands and thousands of years. Although their use was once mainly for medicinal purposes, the abuse of drugs for recreational purposes has taken a stronghold on today's society [ CITATION The02 l 1033 ]. With the rise in drug abuse has come new methods and combinations of using the drugs. In particular, there has been a rise in people mixing stimulants and depressants. A stimulant is a drug, which alleviates fatigue and causes an increase in a person's respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure[CITATION Pre10 l 1033 ]. A depressant has virtually the exact opposite effect, including alleviating anxiety and inducing sleep[ CITATION NID10 l 1033 ]. The effects of mixing stimulants and depressants are not well known which is becoming a larger problem; especially in this day and age where the age at which recreational drug usage begins is surprisingly young. The result of mixing these two categories of drugs, which will be studied in the succeeding text, is erratic and more fatal than taking the drug independently. .
Discussion.
A common situation under which a stimulant drug and depressant drug are mixed is when a user takes either one of the two, and proceeds to counteract its effects by taking the other type of drug[ CITATION Upp09 l 1033 ]. Although this may seem reasonable on the macroscopic level, on the microscopic level, it could potentially be fatal. Alcohol is often used for this purpose. After a drug user takes a stimulant, the user may try to drink alcohol in order to counteract the effects of a stimulant drug. However, this increases the lethality of ingesting such substances as alcohol may have negative interactions with the stimulant, such as the interaction seen between cocaine and alcohol. Marijuana, although categorized as neither a stimulant nor depressant, is also used in order to counteract the effects of a stimulant[ CITATION Joh99 l 1033 ].