Effects on your body may include that:

• your heart beats faster
• you breathe faster
• you feel less hungry
• your blood pressure rises
• the pupils in your eyes get bigger
• you move more quickly
• it is hard to sleep.

Large amounts
If you take a large amount of speed you might:

• get headaches
• feel dizzy
• feel restless
• shake
• have irregular breathing
• have a very fast or irregular heartbeat
• become pale
• feel very powerful or better than others
• become hostile or aggressive
• have psychosis — a serious psychological problem where you hear voices, imagine things, fear that others want to hurt you.

Long-term effects
If you use speed often and for a long time you may:

• become dependent on speed (see ‘Tolerance and dependence’, page 3)
• often become violent for no reason
• get sick more often because your body can’t resist disease properly
• be upset or depressed
• have periods of psychosis
• have relationship, work, money, legal or housing problems.

The way a person takes speed over a long time can also cause some problems such as:

• Snorting speed can lead to nosebleeds, sinus problems and damage inside the nose.
• Injecting speed with used or dirty needles or other equipment makes you more likely to get infected with hepatitis C, hepatitis B and/or HIV, get blood poisoning (septicaemia) and skin abscesses (sores with pus).
• Injecting speed over a long time can result in:– blocked blood vessels (caused by the things sometimes mixed with speed) leading to serious damage to the body’s organs such as the liver, heart etc.– inflamed blood vessels and abscesses.
• Injecting speed also increases the risk of becoming dependent on the drug and of getting other health problems.

Overdose
Overdose of speed can happen to anyone. Even small amounts may cause overdose with some people who have an especially strong reaction to it.
When a person overdoses, it may cause:

• amphetamine psychosis
• faster, irregular or weak heartbeat
• heart attack
• bleeding blood vessels in the brain
• very high fever
• death (rarely).