What is
speed?
Speed is amphetamine, a stimulating drug that triggers the brain’s reward system giving the user feelings of pleasure.
Speed also goes by the street names “
Ice, Crystal
meth and Shabu”
2 The drug works using Dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is used in all matters of the brain from learning to attentiveness. However, the most prominent usage of dopamine is to incite the brain’s reward system. Dopamine is released in the brain naturally when
people eat, drink and have sex. 1 Dopamine is released into the synaptic space in between the pre and postsynaptic neurons. Here is where speed comes in. Speed’s goal (Speed doesn’t really have a goal it merely exists, but this is the reason
people use it) is to
trigger a buildup of Dopamine. Speed first enters the Terminal Button in one of several ways. Speed is very similar on a molecular level to Dopamine so Speed can enter the Dopamine transporter or speed can diffuse into the neuron. The amphetamine then expels the dopamine out into the synaptic space. It does this through a process that forces the Dopamine transporters to go in reverse. Under natural circumstances Dopamine is brought back into the terminal button through the Dopamine reuptake pumps. These pumps do not
work as well when speed is present in the brain and the Dopamine remains longer as a result. “Speed also inhibits monoamine oxydase A (MAO-A).”1 Speed also forces glutamate to come into the synaptic space.