How Drugs Work - Season 1
Season 1
Episodes
Cannabis
This series uses visual effects and CGI and, for the first time ever, takes the viewer on an entire trip from start to finish inside the human body. With testimony from people who enjoy using the drug and those who have become addicted, the programme reveals how cannabis takes over the inner workings of the brain, creating mind-warping and heart-racing effects.
With exclusive access to cutting edge scientific research, it confronts the myths and controversies that surround cannabis, reveals whether it is addictive, if it destroys our memories and finds out if it can even lead to psychosis.
Ecstasy
Using groundbreaking CGI this episode follows the effect of ecstasy on the human body. Over the past 30 years ecstasy has become one of the world's most notorious drugs. No other illegal substance has had such an effect on fashion, music and how we party. This film follows two recreational ecstasy users over one night .Through graphic effects the viewer is taken on a journey deep inside the human body and the programme explains exactly how this powerful substance takes effect on the user's vital organs. Through the tour of the human body, we learn about the fascinating and often surprising scientific reasons for how these drugs work and also the damage they can cause.
The programme features interviews with toxicologists, neuro-scientists and medical pharmacologists who explain what actually happens in your body when you indulge, exploding a few myths in the process.
With access to cutting edge research at the University of Chicago, we find out how ecstasy creates empathy in the user and how this could one day lead to the drug being used as a life-saving prescription medicine for use in therapy.
The series also follows young people who use drugs recreationally and interviews former users who tell their cautionary tales. Whilst ecstasy is an enjoyable high for some, there are those for whom ecstasy is agony and the film tells their story too - a young woman who had to have a liver transplant after using the drug and a father whose 18-year-old daughter died from drinking too much water after taking ecstasy.
Cocaine
Cocaine, once a drug exclusively for the rich and famous, is now the most popular class A drug in Britain, with more than 1.2 million people taking it in the UK in 2009. The film follows three users on nights out on coke and uses cutting-edge computer graphics to journey inside their bodies and brains to find out how the drug creates its highs and its lows.
For some cocaine is the ideal addition to a night out, but for others taking it became a life-changing event, including the young man that needed a pacemaker fitted at just 17 after cocaine gave him a heart attack and a patient undergoing surgery to repair a nose torn apart by too many lines of coke.
Britain's leading experts help explain the truth behind cocaine's controversial reputation - the perfect pick-me-up or a killer class A?
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