Stimulants

Drugs that raise catecholamine signalling and, with it, arousal, heart rate and blood pressure. Most act at the monoamine transporters, either blocking reuptake as the phenidates and cocaine do, or reversing the transporter so it pumps outward as the amphetamines, cathinones and phenylmorpholines do. Two families arrive by another road: xanthines block adenosine receptors and nicotinoids act at nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, so dopaminergic and noradrenergic describes most of this subject rather than all of it.

Structure alone would put other things here. MDMA and methylone are an amphetamine and a cathinone by skeleton and are filed under Entactogens; the 2C and DOx series are phenethylamines and sit under Psychedelics — effect decides the path. The class harms are cardiovascular strain, hyperthermia, sleep loss and stimulant psychosis, and there is no reversal agent for a stimulant overdose in the way naloxone exists for opioids.