Stimulants are medications that increase your heart rate, breathing, and brain function. They can also increase your attention, alertness and energy. Stimulants were once used to treat illnesses. Some stimulants are actually legal in the United States, for example caffeine, guarana, nicotine, and Adderall. But illegal stimulants, like cocaine, methamphetamine and MDMA (ecstasy), are the most dangerous. These illegal stimulants have a negative effect on the human body, especially the brain, and therefore should never be used. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay Cocaine is an illegal stimulant made from the leaves of a coca plant that grows in South America. It produces large amounts of energy and chatter, but can also produce dangerously high heart rate and blood pressure. It has many other repercussions on the human body. As the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) states, With repeated use, cocaine can cause long-term changes in the brain's reward system as well as other brain systems, which can lead to addiction... Cocaine affects the body in a variety of ways. It constricts blood vessels, dilates pupils and increases body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure. It can also cause headaches and gastrointestinal complications such as abdominal pain and nausea. Because cocaine tends to decrease appetite, chronic users may also become malnourished. (DrugFacts: Cocaine 2013) A malnourished person is severely lacking nutrients in their body, which can become fatal. Additionally, when blood pressure reaches a very high level, the risk of heart attack increases significantly. A rapid heartbeat can cause not only constant dizziness and fainting, but also heart failure. MDMA, more commonly known as ecstasy, is another illegal stimulant. It was originally developed by Merck, a pharmaceutical company, in 1912. It was used by the US military for psychological warfare testing in 1953. Then used in the 1960s as a drug to reduce shyness in psychotherapy. Once used as a party drug in the early 1980s, the government banned it for safety reasons. Ecstasy causes an elevated mood, but side effects from a single use include nausea, cramps, blurred vision, chills and sweating. Long-term use may cause irritability, aggression, depression, insomnia, anxiety, memory loss, difficulty concentrating, and decreased appetite. One of the biggest problems with ecstasy is that the user may not realize that it is a mixture of drugs and poison. According to the Foundation for a Drug-Free World, although MDMA itself can produce harmful effects, what we now call ecstasy can contain a wide mix of substances - LSD, cocaine, heroin, amphetamine and methamphetamine, rat poison, caffeine, dogs. deworming substances, etc. Despite the cute logos that dealers put on the pills, this is what makes ecstasy particularly dangerous; (Drug-Free World 1) Although ecstasy may seem harmless to some people, it is far more dangerous than one might expect. One person.