Drug interactions can take a seemingly safe substance and make it absolutely lethal. But more importantly drug interactions can take an already potentially deadly drug and make it a down right death wish. If you are like us, chances are one drug is not enough, and definitely not nearly as much fun. Mixing drugs is how you intensify and create a new high. Maybe it is through speedballs–ya know, cocaine and heroin. Maybe it is cocaine and alcohol, come up and come down? Maybe it is LSD and molly? Maybe it is pot, heroin, and cocaine?
Whatever the case may be, this “poly” drug addiction doesn’t usually have a happy ending. If you have heard what each substance alone can do to your body, just imagine what kind of damage it causes when the drug interactions between two or more begin.
Here are some of the most common mix and match drugs and what drug interactions are doing to your body:
1. Cocaine and Alcohol
I wanted to start off with this drug interaction. Why? Because this one is unique. Did you know, when you mix alcohol and cocaine, it turns into a third completely new substance within your body? Yep. It literally become as totally new substance that is highly dangerous, damaging and potentially deadly. Let me tell you all about it. Cocaethylene is toxic in the liver. Cocaethylene is also blamed for heart attacks in the under-40s and a surge in social problems. But because so little is known about the drug, few experts can agree on the nature of the threat to users, and indeed society as a whole.
2. Heroin and Cocaine
Also known as a speedball, mixing heroin and cocaine is especially dangerous. One study found that using cocaine and heroin together in this way led to bronchial hyper reactivity, which is a condition characterized by muscle contractions in the airways. The combination also caused wheezing.The combination of heroin and cocaine can also throw off your heart rate which, at a serious level, can result in death.
3. Heroin and Alcohol
Heroin and alcohol are both central nervous system depressants, so when they’re taken together, the combined effects can be too much for the body to handle – the combination can even lead to coma and death. Together, heroin and alcohol can affect your breathing and your heart rate, slowing both to hazardous levels.
4. Benzos and Alcohol/Heroin/Opiates
Part of our brainstem, the medulla, tells our bodies to breath while we sleep. Opioids inhibit the neurons (individual nerve cells) of this area of the brain, potentially interfering with this automatic breathing. This is how overdose deaths occur. People go to sleep, stop breathing, and die from lack of oxygen to main organs like the brain and the heart. Even a relatively small dose of opioid can kill a person who isn’t accustomed to taking them, and a larger dose can kill even those who are used to opioids. If you are wondering what constitutes a small or larger dose, that’s unanswerable, because of the considerable differences between individuals. Benzos, alcohol, and barbiturates all also inhibit this same brain center, and have the potential to slow breathing, just like opioids. So when you mix the two it is like double overload.
