• The person can be irritated, fidgeting, giddy or sleepy
• Sudden weight loss or not looking after their appearance – change in skin tone (pale, grey or yellowish colour), looking tired and run down
• Pupils may be really big or really small
• Materials used for drugs on them (tinfoil, small empty packets/ wrappers etc, rolling paper, needles, rolled up notes)

• Change in young Traveller’s mood or they are not acting like their usual self. They may be moody, standoffish, start fights, sad and they may be hanging around with different people outside the Traveller community
• Difficulty with daily life – they might be less interested in life going on around them, late/not showing up and their relationships with their family or other Traveller community members may be affected
• Money issues such as spending more money or asking for more money than usual, not paying bills, in debt, using money lenders.

Drug use can lead to mental health problems because drugs interfere with chemicals in our brains which can affect the messages your brain sends to our body. It is dangerous for young Travellers to use drugs as their brain is not yet developed, and so they are more at risk of developing serious mental health issues and becoming addicted to drugs.

Some ways in which drugs can affect mental health:

• Using drugs to feel better or cope with a situation may make young Travellers feel better in the short term but they can have a long-term effect on mood and/or mental health
• Using drugs might make young Travellers do or say things that are not like them
• Drug use can put young Travellers more at risk of self-harming and/or suicidal thoughts
• The ingredients in drugs can affect our bodies and minds and using them can bring on mental health issues such as anxiety, low moods/feeling depressed, thoughts going ninety, acting suddenly without thinking, paranoia and hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that are not there or real)
• If drugs are used for a long period of time, drugs can cause changes to the chemicals that help our brain function well or they could bring on a mental health condition we did not know about, like depression, anxiety or illnesses such as drug induced psychosis or drug induced schizophrenia

• They may be using in private or hiding their drug use from people
• They might need more and more of the drug to give them the same affect
• They continue to use even if their use is causing issues for them in daily life
• They might rely on drugs to cope with their feelings