Drugs and Their Effects Class of Drug Examples Effects on the Body Effects When Used Psychologically Addicting? Stimulants Cocaine, amphetamines (including some ADHD medications such as Adderall), methamphetamines, MDMA (“Ecstasy” or “Molly”) Increased heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature Increased alertness, mild euphoria, decreased appetite in low doses. High doses increase agitation, paranoia, can cause hallucinations. Some can cause heightened sensitivity to physical stimuli. High doses of MDMA can cause brain toxicity and death. Yes Sedative-Hypnotics (“Depressants”) Alcohol, barbiturates (e.g., secobarbital, pentobarbital), Benzodiazepines (e.g., Xanax) Decreased heart rate, blood pressure Low doses increase relaxation, decrease inhibitions. High doses can induce sleep, cause motor disturbance, memory loss, decreased respiratory function, and death. Yes Opiates Opium, Heroin, Fentanyl, Morphine, Oxycodone, Vicodin, methadone, and other prescription pain relievers Decreased pain, pupil constriction, decreased gut motility, decreased respiratory function Pain relief, euphoria, sleepiness. High doses can cause death due to respiratory depression. Yes Hallucinogens Marijuana, LSD, Peyote, mescaline, DMT, dissociative anesthetics including ketamine and PCP Increased heart rate and blood pressure that may dissipate over time Mild to intense perceptual changes with high variability in effects based on strain, method of ingestion, and individual differences Yes Table 4.2

Insomnia, a consistent difficulty in falling or staying asleep, is the most common of the sleep disorders. Individuals with insomnia often experience long delays between the times that they go to bed and actually fall asleep. In addition, these individuals may wake up several times during the night only to find that they have difficulty getting back to sleep.

Interestingly, individuals who have increased levels of alpha brain wave activity (more often associated with wakefulness and transition into stage 1 sleep) during stage 3 often report that they do not feel refreshed upon waking, regardless of how long they slept (Stone, Taylor, McCrae, Kalsekar, & Lichstein, 2008).

We spend approximately one-third of our lives sleeping. Given the average life expectancy for U.S. citizens falls between 73 and 79 years old (Singh & Siahpush, 2006), we can expect to spend approximately 25 years of our lives sleeping.

However, those individuals that tested positive for syphilis were never informed that they had the disease. While there was no treatment for syphilis when the study began, by 1947 penicillin was recognized as an effective treatment for the disease. Despite this, no penicillin was administered to the participants in this study, and the participants were not allowed to seek treatment at any other facilities if they continued in the study. Over the course of 40 years, many of the participants unknowingly spread syphilis to their wives (and subsequently their children born from their wives) and eventually died because they never received treatment for the disease.

Often, psychologists develop surveys as a means of gathering data. Surveys are lists of questions to be answered by research participants, and can be delivered as paper-and-pencil questionnaires, administered electronically, or conducted verbally (Figure 2.9). Generally, the survey itself can be completed in a short time, and the ease of administering a survey makes it easy to collect data from a large number of people.

This type of observational study is called naturalistic observation: observing behavior in its natural setting.

To illustrate this point, a study investigating a smartphone app targeting surgery residents (graduate students in surgery training) found that the use of this app can increase student engagement and raise test scores (Shaw & Tan, 2015). Conversely, another study found that the use of technology in undergraduate student populations had negative impacts on sleep, communication, and time management skills (Massimini & Peterson, 2009).

But most stark in the report is research that cites innocent defendants who agree to falsely plead guilty, sometimes on the advice of their own lawyers. An Innocence Project database of exonerations includes dozens of people who falsely pleaded guilty.

The deals also exacerbate racial inequality, with Black defendants more often subject to prosecutors' stacking of multiple charges in drug and gun cases.

The prevalence of plea bargaining exploded in the last several decades as a way to save money and time and to promote more certainty in outcomes.

Aside from the paltry number of trials in the federal system, states including Pennsylvania, Texas and New York have trial rates of less than 3%. In Santa Cruz County, Ariz., there were no trials from 2010 to 2012, the report said.

“In this area, nobody feels too safe,” she said. “We’re all here surviving.” The idea of five days in which police refer 911 calls unsettles her. “It’s like they left us without protection,” she said. “It doesn’t give me peace.”

Residents had complained that officers had become aggressive, grabbing men off the street to arrest them for minor offenses. The neighborhood was reeling from the 2019 shooting of Kwesi Ashun, a T-shirt vendor with paranoid schizophrenia, killed as he swung at an officer with a chair at a nail salon.

The effort mirrors others that have sprung up after demonstrations swept New York and much of the country to protest the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. They are meant to modulate the use of officially sanctioned force, using a neighborhood’s innate desire for order as a tool.

The civilians have no arrest powers. But they have persuaded people to turn in illegal guns, prevented shoplifting, kept a man from robbing a bodega and stopped a pregnant woman from hitting a boyfriend who had not bought a car seat and a stroller as he had promised.