2.5 Types of substances

A Family Guide to Concurrent Disorders - Part 1: What are concurrent disorders?

This section describes three major types of substances¹:

• Depressants : drugs that slow the central nervous system (CNS) functions (e.g., make people feel more relaxed and less conscious of their surroundings)
• Stimulants : drugs that increase CNS activity (e.g., speed up mental processes to make people feel more alert and energetic)
• Hallucinogens : drugs that alter perceptions and sense of time and place; drugs that can produce hallucinations.

The following drug classification chart shows drugs that fall into each of these categories.

¹The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health has published 20 brochures describing substances in the Do You Know... series. For more information, click here.

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