For many drug addicts who have not yet entered the stage when it becomes absolutely no difference, it is important that their family, friends and simply those around them do not understand that they are addicted to drugs. They try to hide their addiction and resort to various methods to do this.
However, there are not many such methods. And the signs of drug addiction are still quite bright and obvious to many around.
When an addict hides one symptom and succeeds, others remain that are not so easy to get rid of. It is by these signs that any person who is familiar with drug addiction first-hand will identify a severe drug addiction. In addition, in addition to the obvious external signs, drug addicts change their behavior. And it is impossible to hide or disguise by any means or means.
And no tricks will hide the serious consequences that drugs leave behind. Especially if you take them regularly over an extended period of time.
External signs that drug addicts manage to hide
- Traces all over the body that remain from constant injections into the veins. These marks are especially common among drug addicts in the area of the elbows of the arms, the knees of the legs or thighs, the groin area or armpits. Such visible signs of intravenous drug use force drug-dependent people not to wear short sleeves or shorts, even in the most extreme heat.
- The pupils of the eyes are narrowed to the point of dots. People who constantly use drugs have eyes that react poorly to light; there is even a term they use for such a pupil - “sunken pupil.” Sometimes drugs can cause the opposite reaction, leaving the pupils permanently dilated.
- Red eyes. In most drug addicts who use cannabis drugs, capillaries in the whites of the eyeball burst and hemorrhages form, which give the eyes a red color.
These are not all the signs by which you can recognize a drug addict. In fact, there are many more of them. And professional drug addicts always have with them a set of items for taking drugs, because without this they simply cannot imagine their life and items that help hide their addiction. How do drug addicts hide these obvious signs?
Masking constricted pupils
The problem of narrow pupils is most often experienced by those drug addicts who use opium drugs. In order to give the pupils a normal appearance, they use a medicine that normally treats stomach diseases. The name of this drug is becarbon.
This medicine has a side effect - when you take it, your pupils dilate. It is this effect that adherents of heroin, opium from poppy straw and crocodile use. In order to dilate the pupils, pink tablets of the drug becarbon are ground into a fine powder and diluted with water. After which the drug solution is instilled into the eyes, a few drops at a time.
Therefore, packaging such a drug in the bag or pocket of a friend or relative should alert his loved ones. After all, this may mean that the person is a drug addict and uses strong opiate drugs. It must be said that the drug becarbon often dilates the pupils unevenly.
One of them turns out to be wider than the other. This is due to the fact that the dosage that goes into both eyes may be different, for example two drops versus three. You can also recognize a drug addict by such pupils.
But the worst thing is that this drug, used in this way and not for its intended purpose, has a very detrimental effect on human vision. Therefore, very soon a drug addict who regularly used it, the sharpness of the picture of the world drops greatly and a cloudy and unclear movie appears before his eyes.
There are other medications that can dilate the pupils as well as becarbonate. These include, in particular, atropine and drugs from its group.
Masking dilated pupils
Dilated pupils of the eyes occur mainly in those drug addicts who use narcotic stimulants. They also use medications to make their eyes look normal. For example, a group of drugs such as miotics.
These include drugs such as: fosarbine, pilocarpine, carbacholine, aceclidine, physostigmine, phosphakol and other drugs that can narrow the eye pupil. Like the previous masking agent, these drugs greatly damage vision and even often cause cataracts. But those drug addicts who want to hide their addictions do not stop even at complete blindness.
Concealing puncture marks
If there are many traces of intravenous injections on a person’s body, then for others this is the most obvious sign of drug addiction, which simply catches the eye. These traces can be seen by any loved one, friend or relative of the drug addict.
And if he compares it with other signs, for example, strange behavior, he will make a clear conclusion about the person’s drug addiction. Of course, when a drug addict begins to be asked questions about the nature of these traces, he has to come up with various, sometimes very ridiculous, options for their origin.
Versions may vary. From a squeezed pimple to scratches from a cat's claws. However, even a person far from medicine or drugs will be able to distinguish traces of injections from other skin lesions.
If you look closely at the marks on the skin, you will see the entrance hole of the needle in the form of a small red dot at the injection sites. Very often a small bruise will form around the injection site. For experienced drug addicts, injection points form entire “roads” because they follow each other.
When a drug addict injects many times in a row into the same vein, a “well” can form at that spot. Each new injection expands and deepens it, making it more distinct and noticeable.
If you take a closer look at the “roads” of a drug addict, you can see a certain pattern. This is a clear sign that the person is injecting drugs into a vein. After all, “roads” follow only along the lines of veins.
But stubborn in their desire to hide their drug addiction, people pass off even the most obvious “roads” as ordinary scratches, and explain the appearance of “wells” as burns. Everything depends only on the degree of development of the drug addict’s imagination.
Masking of injection marks occurs by regularly applying various ointments to the injection sites, which serve against the appearance of blood clots. CU such ointments include: troxevasin, hepatrombin and the like. Using these ointments, drug addicts get rid of bruises in a matter of days.
Another way to hide marks from injections is a method in which injections are made only in those areas of the body that are not visible to others. For example: groin area, legs, neck below and under the hair, back of the forearm or armpit.
With injections in the groin, the drug addict can afford to wear T-shirts and shorts in the hot summer, no different from other people. True, any drug addict is immediately betrayed by huge circles under the eyes and painful thinness.
Those drug addicts who do not inject drugs in any way, intramuscularly or intravenously, but only smoke narcotic mixtures or snort drugs, are not much different from other people. And recognizing them as drug addicts is quite difficult. It must be said that those drug addicts who are afraid for their loved ones or do not want anger on their part come to such drug use.
Concealing red eyes
Addicts who use marijuana or other cannabis derivatives suffer from constant severe hunger and dry mouth, and they also have red eyes. And if the first two consequences of taking drugs cannot be hidden, but they are not striking, then the effect of red eyes is removed with the help of eye drops.
There are many such drops that reduce redness of the eyes and relieve dryness, the most famous drug is Visine.
These are all the main ways that help drug addicts hide the external signs of using certain types of drugs. But loved ones can always compare a person’s behavior, the use of these drugs and other signs in order to understand that he is really a drug addict. He suffers from a severe addiction and needs help.
A drug addict can be recognized by the following signs of taking popular drugs:
- Reception LSD- dilates the pupils, makes the skin pale, increases body temperature, creates hallucinations, causes a rapid pulse and unintelligible speech.
- Reception Ecstasy- dilates the pupils and gives the eyes a characteristic shine, making the jaws clenched. A person's teeth grind and his teeth play, he suffers from insomnia.
- Reception Marijuana(aka cannabis, hashish) - dilates the pupils, makes the eyes red and puffy, makes movements uncertain, increases appetite, makes you laugh for no reason and creates a wandering smile on the face.
- Reception Heroin: turns the pupils into “dots”, gives the effect of “glassy” eyes with half-closed eyelids, slows down breathing. The person experiences drowsiness, suffers from lack of appetite. He often has red, swollen lips, he scratches his nose and face, and sometimes other parts of the body , there are injection marks on the body, and burnt holes on the clothes.
- Reception Amphetamine(aka speed, hair dryer, AIDS) - creates a lack of appetite and mood swings, insomnia begins, the person has dilated pupils, suffers from increased talkativeness and anxiety. The addict develops vigorous activity, which is replaced by severe fatigue. Those addicted people who use the drug, inhaling it through their nose, constantly have with them plastic cards with traces of scratches, on them they “roll out paths” and banknotes with traces of rolling into a tube.
- Reception Pervitina(aka screw) - gives dilated pupils, insomnia, traces of injections are visible on the body. The person has a rapid heartbeat, loses appetite, and has cramped muscles and jaws. The addict is unable to sit still, constantly bites his lips and “goggles” his eyes, and in 90% of cases a strong pungent odor emanates from his clothes.
- Reception Cocaine
The human eye has a complex structure, its components are connected to each other and function according to a single algorithm. Ultimately, they form a picture of the world around us. This complex process works thanks to the functional part of the eye, the basis of which is the pupil. Before or after death, the pupils change their qualitative state, therefore, knowing these features, one can determine how long ago a person died.
Anatomical features of the pupil structure
The pupil looks like a round hole in the central part of the iris. It can change its diameter, adjusting the area of absorption of light rays entering the eye. This opportunity is provided to him by the eye muscles: sphincter and dilator. The sphincter surrounds the pupil, and when it contracts, it narrows. A dilator, on the contrary, expands, connecting not only with the pupillary opening, but also with the iris itself.
The pupillary muscles perform the following functions:
- The diametrical size of the pupil changes under the influence of light and other stimuli entering the retina.
- The diameter of the pupillary opening is set depending on the distance at which the image is located.
- They converge and diverge on the visual axes of the eyes.
The pupil and surrounding muscles work according to a reflex mechanism that is not associated with mechanical irritation of the eye. Since impulses passing through the nerve endings of the eye are sensitively perceived by the pupil itself, it is capable of reacting to the emotions experienced by a person (fear, anxiety, fright, death). Under the influence of such strong emotional arousal, the pupillary openings dilate. If excitability is low, they narrow.
Causes of narrowing of the pupillary openings
During physical and mental stress, people's eye openings can narrow to ¼ of their usual size, but after rest they quickly recover to their usual levels.
The pupil is very sensitive to certain drugs that affect the cholinergic system, such as cardiac drugs and hypnotics. This is why the pupil temporarily contracts when taking them. There is professional deformation of the pupil in people whose activities involve the use of monocles - jewelers and watchmakers. With eye diseases, such as a corneal ulcer, inflammation of the blood vessels of the eye, drooping eyelid, internal hemorrhage, the pupillary opening also narrows. Such a phenomenon as a cat's pupil at death (Beloglazov's symptom) also occurs through mechanisms inherent in the eyes and muscles around them.
Pupil dilation
Under normal circumstances, enlarged pupils occur in the dark, in low light conditions, with the manifestation of strong emotions: joy, anger, fear, due to the release of hormones, including endorphins, into the blood.
Strong expansion is observed with injuries, drug use and eye diseases. A constantly dilated pupil may indicate intoxication of the body associated with exposure to chemicals and hallucinogens. With traumatic brain injuries, in addition to headaches, the pupillary openings will be unnaturally wide. After taking atropine or scopolamine, temporary dilation may occur - this is a normal side effect. In diabetes mellitus and hyperthyroidism, the phenomenon occurs quite often.
Dilation of the pupils during death is a normal reaction of the body. The same symptom is characteristic of comatose states.
Classification of pupillary reactions
The pupils in a normal physiological state are round and of the same diameter. When the light changes, a reflex expansion or contraction occurs.
Constriction of pupils depending on reaction
What do pupils look like when dying?
The reaction of the pupils to light during death occurs first through the mechanism of field expansion, and then through their narrowing. The pupils of biological death (final) have their own characteristics when compared with the pupils of a living person. One of the criteria for setting up a post-mortem examination is checking the eyes of the deceased.
First of all, one of the signs will be “drying” of the cornea of the eyes, as well as “fading” of the iris. Also, a kind of whitish film is formed on the eyes, called “herring shine” - the pupil becomes cloudy and matte. This occurs because after death, the lacrimal glands, which produce tears that moisturize the eyeball, stop functioning.
In order to fully verify death, the victim’s eye is gently squeezed between the thumb and forefinger. If the pupil turns into a narrow slit (a symptom of a “cat’s eye”), a specific reaction of the pupil to death is stated. Such symptoms are never detected in a living person.
Attention! If the above symptoms were found in the deceased, it means that death occurred no more than 60 minutes ago.
During clinical death, the pupils will be unnaturally wide, without any reaction to lighting. If resuscitation is successful, the victim will begin to pulsate. After death, the cornea, white membranes of the eyes and pupils acquire brownish-yellow stripes called Larche spots. They are formed if the eyes remain slightly open after death and indicate severe drying of the mucous membrane of the eyes.
Pupils at death (clinical or biological) change their characteristics. Therefore, knowing these features, you can accurately state the fact of death or immediately begin rescuing the victim, or rather, cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The popular phrase “The eyes are the reflection of the soul” perfectly describes the human condition. By focusing on the reaction of the pupils, in many situations it is possible to understand what is happening to a person and what actions to take.
Video
Ecology of health: Perhaps the most effective method of visually determining whether a person is taking drugs is determination by the pupils. The pupil is the dark hole in the iris of the eye. It limits the light flow going to the retina.
HOW TO KNOW THAT A PERSON IS A DRUG ADDICT?
Perhaps the most effective method of visually determining whether a person is taking drugs is determination by the pupils.
The pupil is the dark hole in the iris of the eye. It limits the light flow going to the retina.
A LITTLE THEORY:
Changes in pupil size occur in response to light stimulation of the retina, convergence of the visual axes of both eyes, eye strain to distinguish objects located at different distances from each other, as well as in response to stimuli of different nature. The size of the pupil changes thanks to two muscles of the iris: the circular muscle, which provides constriction of the pupil, and the radial muscle, which provides dilation.
A sober person's pupil is never completely calm. Constant movements of the pupil depend on numerous stimuli: increased human activity, pain, emotional stress, severe fear, a sudden sharp stimulus (shock, loud sound) lead to dilation of the pupils. This is how the human body tries to quickly obtain visual information about the stimulus. In a drug addict, the pupil is in one position (during the action of the drug), sometimes changing slightly by literally 1mm.
HOW TO IDENTIFY A DRUG ADDICT?
The pupil can indicate the type of drug taken. What it looks like is shown in pictures (photos) 1,2,3
FIGURE 1 NORMAL PUPIL (SOBER PERSON)
In moderate lighting it is in medium size, changing depending on the brightness of the light, the pupil is constantly in motion from constricted to dilated.
The sharpness of the change in lighting also affects the sharpness of the change in lighting, so if you shine a flashlight into the eyes, then in a sober person the pupil will immediately work to narrow; turning off the bright light, the pupil will dilate - this is a sign of normal pupil function; in a drug addict, after such manipulations, the pupil will be in the same position, in which ? narrowed or expanded, see Figures 2 and 3.
FIGURE 2 EYES OF A DRUG ADDICT
The pupil of a drug addict - Heroin, morphine, poppy drugs, codeine-containing medications (Terpincode, Codelac, Nurofen, etc.) - cause constriction.
The pupil of the eye is constricted (small), does not respond to changes in lighting, if you shine a flashlight for a few seconds and turn it off, the pupils will remain in one, constricted position; for people who understand such situations, the eyes of a drug addict with a constricted pupil arouse suspicion already from a distance of 1-2 meters.
For information, the duration of action of drugs such as opiates (opioids), heroin, morphine, codeine, etc. is about 5 hours, by this time the pupils of the eye begin to gradually function, the reaction of the pupil to light is slow, almost imperceptible, but it is still present. As the active substance (drug) leaves the body, this happens after 5 hours after use, the drug addict sobers up and the functionality of the pupil is gradually restored.
FIGURE 3 EYES OF A DRUG ADDICT
The pupil of a drug addict - Cocaine, amphetamine, ecstasy, LSD, perevintin (screw in slang) causes noticeable dilation of the pupils.
The pupil in this position is immediately noticeable, usually the effect of such drugs lasts about 24 hours (except for cocaine, which has an effect of 1-1.5 hours), and the pupil can be dilated after a day or more, sometimes coming to the middle position, then expanding again, this happens as the person sobers up.
In some cases, after consuming perevintin ("screw" in slang), the pupil remains dilated for two days. When checked with a flashlight, the pupil remains dilated and large, changing slightly by literally 1 mm, depending on the time spent taking the drug.
Marijuana, hemp, hashish, etc. can cause both constriction and dilation of the pupil. After taking this drug, the whites of the drug addict’s eyes become pink or red, inflamed (swollen) blood vessels are visible, and most importantly, the drug addict’s eyes become “glassy” (glare in the light).
The color of the iris (eye color: blue, gray, brown, etc.) does not matter, but the darker it is, the more difficult the diagnosis.
If you see a person very often with non-standard pupils, then this is the first sign of drug use.
Usually a person uses one drug. When a child or relative returns home, look closely at the eyes; if the pupil is constantly not standard and the same size, or large or small, this is a sign of drug use.
Do not forget, a small or large pupil is a reaction to lighting, darkness or in the sun, but a constantly small or large pupil is a sign of use. Change the lighting or turn the flashlight on and off while shining it into their eyes. In a sober person, the pupil will constantly change, in bright light it will narrow, in darkness it will expand, while the pupil of a drug addict will be in one position (in which? see photos, Figures 1,2,3).
This might interest you:
If a person has been observed using opiates (heroin, codeine, poppy, tramal, zaldiar, etc.), such drug addicts use some tricks to disguise the pupil. The trick is that pharmacies sell a lot of drugs that dilate the pupils on purpose or not.
A dilated pupil also indicates withdrawal syndrome (withdrawal, withdrawal, drug hangover). published
Answered by Anna Babkina, medical optician
Usually, people's pupils are round, but when the iris of the eyes is distorted, they take on an angular shape. This phenomenon is called coloboma.
Most often, only one pupil has an unusual shape, the second remains normal, round. But there is also a two-way effect. Moreover, it is not at all necessary that the pupils will have the same, albeit angular, shape. For example, one may well be triangular, and the second may resemble an irregular quadrangle.
Most often, those with irregularly shaped pupils have them since birth. About one newborn out of 10,000 is “lucky” in this way. The anomaly occurs due to intrauterine disorders, which result in improper closure of the embryonic fissure in the optic cup. Usually, coloboma does not “come” alone and is combined with a cleft lip, cleft palate or some other malformations, but sometimes it is not associated with them.
It happens that the shape of the pupil changes even in adulthood. For example, after an eye injury or as a result of complications after surgery. Thus, coloboma sometimes appears as a result of treatment for glaucoma.
The anomaly itself is not dangerous. Simply due to the fact that the area of the pupil increases, the flow of light entering the retina also increases. To limit it, it is recommended to wear tinted contact lenses that are clear in the center. You can also get perforated glasses, but they are allowed to be worn for no more than two hours a day.
If the defect is small and the affected eye sees normally, coloboma may not be treated. However, it is often combined with other eye diseases, and together they lead to decreased visual acuity. In this case, the deviation is corrected through surgery.
Coloboma also occurs in animals, most often in cats. Persian and Siamese cats are most susceptible to the disease. Among dogs, coloboma occurs in Basenji and Collie. It is noteworthy that in animals it is inherited more often than in humans. Therefore, owners try to prevent their unusual pets from giving birth to offspring.
