There's a lot of "information" floating around the Web about drugs and even some misinformation spreading by word-of-mouth. The movies, music and other media don't always accurately portray the risks of use either. With all the hype around drugs, you may not realize that most high school students choose not to smoke weed.

There is a complicated list of reasons why people try or use drugs. Some people do it to change the way they feel, but by taking drugs, they haven't changed the situation. They've only distorted it for a little while. And since many drugs are depressants, the "escape" of drug use isn't happy and can be quite unpleasant. Former users often say that drugs ended up isolating them from friends and family and made them feel more alone.

Remember no one "plans" to become a drug addict, and every one of the millions of people with drug dependency started out thinking they had it "under control."

Check out these drug facts. Get informed and decide for yourself.

WHAT IS IT?
Cocaine is a white powder made from coca leaves. Crack is another form of cocaine that is usually smoked. Crack and cocaine are stimulants that give an immediate high that lasts a few minutes.

Cocaine and crack cause sweating, loss of appetite and increased heart and pulse rate. At higher dose levels users may feel very anxious and panicky.

RISKS
Cocaine and crack affect the body and emotions.
After using cocaine and crack, many people feel tired and depressed.
Cocaine and crack use can cause heart attacks and strokes. They can also make you stop breathing.

WHAT IS IT?
GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate, or gammahydroxy-butyric acid) is a depressant that is usually available in odorless and tasteless liquid form. It can also be sold as a powder or pill. It takes effect 10-20 minutes after it is ingested and its effects typically last up to four hours. People who use GHB (particularly when combined with other substances, such as alcohol) may experience nausea, drowsiness, dizziness, and breathing problems

RISKS
Coma and seizures can occur following use of GHB. Combining use with other drugs such as alcohol can result in nausea and breathing difficulties. Chronic use of GHB may also produce withdrawal effects, including insomnia, anxiety, tremors, and sweating. GHB has been involved in poisonings, overdoses, date rapes, and deaths.

WHAT ARE THEY?
Hallucinogens are strong mood-changing drugs with unpredictable psychological effects. LSD, or “acid,” is sold as tablets, capsules, liquid, or on absorbent paper. PCP is illegally manufactured as tablets, capsules, or colored powder and can be snorted, smoked, or eaten. Other hallucinogens can come in many forms, including plants and cough suppressants.

RISKS
Because hallucinogens alter your brain, they can affect the way you move, react to situations, think, hear and see. These drugs skew your perception of time, reality and the environment around you.

Hallucinogens affect your self-control and emotions. They can cause you to mix up your speech, lose control of your muscles, make meaningless movements and do aggressive or violent things. These drugs can make you feel confused, suspicious and disoriented.

Hallucinogens powerfully affect the brain, distorting the way the senses work and changing impressions of time and space. People who use these drugs a lot may have a hard time concentrating, communicating, or telling the difference between reality and illusion.

Using hallucinogens increases your heart rate and blood pressure. This rapid increase can lead to heart and lung failure, possibly causing coma or even death. At low to moderate doses, PCP use causes breathing to become shallow, and flushing and profuse sweating occur. Generalized numbness of the extremities and loss of muscular coordination also may occur.

WHAT IS IT?
Heroin is a white or brown powder made from opium poppies. Users may snort, smoke or inject it. Heroin is a depressant. It also impairs the thinking process, which affects the way you act and make decisions.

RISKS
Heroin is highly addictive, and because of the way people use it, it enters the brain almost immediately. Users build up a tolerance very quickly and need more and more of the drug to feel the same high they did the first time they used it. Because the strength of heroin varies and its impact is more unpredictable when used with alcohol or illicit drugs, the user never knows what might happen with the next dose.

WHAT ARE THEY?
Ketamine is an odorless, tasteless drug that is found in liquid, pill and powder form. Ketamine was developed as an anesthetic for veterinarians to use on animals.

Ketamine distorts sounds and sensations and makes users feel detached from reality. Users report sensations ranging from a feeling of floating to being separated from their bodies. Some ketamine experiences involve a terrifying feeling of almost complete sensory detachment that is likened to a near-death experience.

RISKS
Ketamine can impair your senses, memory, judgment, and coordination. Users can experience hallucinations and disconnection from everything around them.

Certain doses of ketamine can cause dream-like states and hallucinations. In high doses, ketamine can cause delirium, amnesia, impaired motor function, high blood pressure, depression, and potentially fatal respiratory problems.

WHAT IS IT?
Marijuana has a chemical in it called tetrahydrocannabinol, better known as THC. A lot of other chemicals are found in marijuana, too - about 400 of them, some of which are carcinogenic.

RISKS
Pot affects a user’s judgment, motor coordination, and short-term memory. Weed can cause increased heart rate and make some users extremely anxious or paranoid. Smoking marijuana also causes some changes in the brain similar to those caused by long-term use of cocaine and heroin.

Research found that students with an average grade of “D” or below were more than four times as likely to have used marijuana in the past year as students who reported an average grade of “A”.

Students who have smoked marijuana within the past year are more than twice as likely to have cut class than those who did not smoke, while health problems associated with using marijuana can keep students from attending school due to illness.

Regular marijuana users often have shortened attention spans, decreased energy and ambition, poor judgment, high distractibility, and impaired ability to communicate and relate to others. Young people who use marijuana weekly have double the risk of depression later in life.

WHAT IS IT?
Methamphetamine, or meth, is a synthetic chemical that acts as a stimulant. It is snorted, injected, smoked or swallowed. Users experience an initial rush that lasts only a few minutes. Oral or intranasal use produces euphoria-a high, but not a rush.

Creating a sense of energy, meth can push the body faster and further than it’s meant to go. It increases the heart rate, blood pressure, and the risk of stroke.

RISKS
In the short term, meth causes mind and mood changes, often making the user feel very anxious. Long-term effects can include chronic fatigue, paranoid or delusional thinking, hallucinations and mood disorders.

Meth is very powerful and highly addictive. Users can become tolerant to its effects, and need to increase the amount they take to feel the same way they did the first time they took it.

Meth increases heart rate, blood pressure, and the risk of stroke. It can kill you the first time you take it. An overdose of meth can result in heart failure. Long-term physical effects such as liver, kidney, and lung damage may also kill you.

WHAT ARE THEY?
Prescription drugs are medicines that are given to a patient by a doctor to treat a health condition. However, taking prescription drugs without a doctor’s approval and supervision can be a dangerous – even deadly – decision.

The over-the-counter (OTC) cough and cold medications available in the local pharmacy, supermarket or convenience store are safe and effective when used as directed. But some teens put themselves at risk when they drink OTC medications since their main ingredient, dextromethorphan (DXM), is dangerous in high doses.

RISKS
Long-term use of painkillers/opioids (AKA Oxycodone/Oxycontin® or Hydrocodone/Vicodin®) can lead to physical dependence and addiction - the body adapts to the presence of the drug, and withdrawal symptoms occur if use is reduced or stopped. Symptoms of withdrawal include restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhea, vomiting and cold flashes. Finally, taking a large single dose of an opioid could cause severe respiratory depression that can lead to death.

Depending on the dose of cold medicine, DXM’s effects vary. Misuse of the drug creates both depressant and mild hallucinogenic effects. It may cause a number of adverse effects, including impaired judgment and mental performance, loss of coordination, dizziness, nausea, hot flashes, dissociation, and hallucinations

WHAT IS IT?
Rohypnol (AKA roofies, date rape drug) is a prescription sedative (not approved for use in the United States) that has no taste or odor when dissolved in a drink. It causes users to feel drowsy, forgetful and spacey.

RISKS
Rohypnol is more dangerous when mixed with alcohol. Rohypnol can cause a kind of amnesia – users may not remember what they said or did while under the effects of the drug, making it easier for others to take advantage of them.

You can become dependent on Rohypnol. Withdrawal symptoms range from headache, muscle pain, and confusion to hallucinations and convulsions.

WHAT ARE THEY?
Anabolic (“muscle-building”) steroids are man-made substances closely linked to the male hormone testosterone. These drugs are available by prescription only to treat certain medical conditions. They are only safe for use when a doctor monitors the person taking them. Abuse of steroids – often in an attempt to gain more muscle mass – can lead to serious health problems.

RISKS
In both men and women, steroids can cause severe acne, male-pattern baldness, cysts and oily hair and skin. In males, steroid abuse can lead to shrinking of the testicles and breast development. Side effects for females can include facial hair growth, menstrual changes and deepened voice.

Using steroids can make you hostile, violent and angry for no reason. You can experience uncontrollable outbursts of frustration and combativeness often referred to as “roid rage.”

Steroid abuse has been associated with cardiovascular disease, including heart attack and stroke, even for athletes under the age of 30.

WHAT IS IT?
When smoking tobacco, you inhale tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide and 200 known poisons into your lungs. The nicotine in cigarettes is powerfully addictive.

RISKS
Smoking is the most common cause of lung cancer. Smoking is also a leading cause of cancer of the mouth, throat, bladder, pancreas and kidney.

Smoking can affect your appearance and lifestyle. Toxins can dry out your skin and cause premature wrinkles. Playing sports can be difficult since smoking causes shortness of breath and dizziness.