The effects of different drugs on behaviour

Cannabis
Cannabis is a relaxant and may reduce your ability to react in pressurised situations on the road.  It will affect your concentration, make you unsteady and blur your vision.  Cannabis:

• Slows reaction times
• Makes you feel sleepy
• Impairs your driving
• Distorts your perception
• Reduces your concentration
• Makes you forgetful.

Cocaine
Cocaine can make you think that you are driving far better than you are, and:

• Makes you overconfident and increases the risks you take
• Distorts your perception
• Leads you to behave erratically
• Makes you paranoid
• Can interfere with hearing. 

Because Cocaine is a stimulant it can initially make you feel alert, however, as the effects wear off the danger of falling asleep behind the wheel increases. 

Ecstasy
Ecstasy makes you think that you are a better driver than you are. It makes you feel invincible and affects you in the following way:

• Distorts your perception
• Confuses you
• Leads to feelings of anxiety and paranoia
• Causes nausea
• Increases the risks that you take
• Makes you more aggressive
• Leads to over confidence.

The effects of ecstasy are long-lasting and as it is a stimulant, whilst it can make you feel more alert at first, as the effects wear off the danger of falling asleep behind the wheel increases.

Amphetamine/Speed
Amphetamines or Speed reduces your attention span whilst driving, affecting your ability to react to things, and:

• Causes headaches and dizziness
• Can lead to an irregular heartbeat and irregular breathing
• Can lead to feelings of irritation and cramps
• Affects co-ordination and can cause you to collapse.

As speed is a mental stimulant it can make you feel alert and confident but also makes you overly excited and restless.  A few hours in and the effects are rapid mood swings, depression, sleep problems, total exhaustion and fatigue.