Introduction to Psychoactive Substances
Guidelines for Assessment 1

Formatting: APA 6th ed., with 12pt Times New Roman font and 1.5 line spacing.
Citing & Referencing: APA 6th ed. Include one Reference list at the end of your assignment.
One of the basic requirements for this unit is that students are able to correctly classify specific psychoactive drugs into three major categories, and know what substances do not fit the typology well.
A further requirement is to have some understanding of both the short-term (i.e., acute toxicity) and long-term (i.e., chronic toxicity) effects of these substances, from the perspective of their intoxicant effects and their long-term physiological impact.

This assessment will reflect your knowledge in this area.
This assessment has three parts. All three must be completed:
PART 1
Using the table of Effects of Drugs, available in the Module 3 online materials, and referring to the Living with Drugs (Gossop, 2013) textbook, in addition to other resources on drug effects, complete the following exercise:

List three short-term effects and three long-term effects for each of the substances below:
- Select the effects that you consider to be most important.
- Qualify these effects in terms of dose where relevant.
- Consider only the effects of pure substances, and only the drug effects. i.e., consider the physical and psychological effects of the drugs, not the effects of illegality, route of administration (except for nicotine and cannabis, where you will consider smoking), or situations in which they are used.

 Nicotine (smoked in cigarettes)
 Cannabis (smoked)
 Caffeine (pure substance)
 Alcohol (pure substance)
 Diacetylmorphine or Heroin (pure substance)
 N-Methylamphetamine or Ice (pure substance)
 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine or MDMA (pure substance)
 Lysergic Acid Diethylamide or LSD (pure substance)

This section should be presented in the form of an APA-style table with 3 columns:
1) Substance, 2) Short-term effects, 3) Long-term effects.
The effects should be listed as bullet points, but cited according to APA standards.

PART 2
Having completed Part 1, rank the substances in terms of their harm potential, from most to least harmful.
That is, of the eight substances, which, in your informed opinion, has the greatest potential to cause harm? This will be ranked 1.
Then, the next most potentially harmful will be ranked 2, and so on.

Again, base your rankings on the effects of pure substances.
Consider only the physical and psychological effects of the drugs, not the effects of illegality, route of administration (except nicotine and cannabis, where you will consider smoking), or situation in which they are used.
Note: A useful paper that demonstrates how this might be conducted is: Nutt, D., King, L. A., Saulsbury,
W., & Blakemore, C. (2007). Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse. Lancet, 369, 1047-1053.

PART 3
With reference to the Modules that you have studied so far, and additional research, justify in 500 words or less, why you have ranked the drugs in this way, providing at least three justifications for how you went about making your ranking decisions.

Your ideas must be appropriately cited, drawing upon evidence from a wide range of sources (i.e., beyond the Modules and text books).
The word limit must be strictly adhered to.

Introduction to Psychoactive Substances Guidelines for Assessment...