Cocaine is a powerfully addictive stimulant drug that directly affects the brain. The powdered, hydrochloride salt form of cocaine can be snorted or dissolved in water and injected.
Cocaine is not a new drug. In fact, it is one of the oldest known drugs. The pure chemical, cocaine hydrochloride, has been an abused substance for more than 100 years, and coca leaves, the source of cocaine, have been ingested for thousands of years.
Crack is cocaine that has not been neutralized by an acid to make the hydrochloride salt. This form of cocaine comes in a rock crystal that can be heated and its vapors smoked. The term “crack” refers to the crackling sound heard when it is heated.
Regardless of how cocaine is used or how frequently, a user can experience acute emergencies, such as a heart attack or stroke, which could result in sudden death. Cocaine-related deaths are often a result of cardiac arrest or seizure followed by respiratory arrest.
Street Names For Cocaine:
Birdie Powder, Blow, Boy, Cotton Brothers, Crank, Dynamite (cocaine mixed with Heroin), El Diablito (Spanish), El Diablo (Spanish), Flamethrowers (Cigarette laced with cocaine and heroin; cocaine and tobacco), Foolish Powder, Girl (Cocaine, Crack Cocaine), Gold (Crack Cocaine), Goofball (cocaine mixed with Heroin), H&C (Heroin and Cocaine), Heaven, Heaven Dust, Joy Powder, Junk, Mayo, Mojo, Nose, Nose Candy, Number 3, Perico (Spanish) Powder, Primo (Cocaine mixed with Marijuana or tobacco), Quill, Racehorse Charlie, Rane, Sandwich (two layers of Cocaine with a layer of Heroin in the middle), Smoke (Crack Cocaine), Smoking Gun (Heroin & Cocaine), Snow, Snowball, Speedball (Cocaine mixed with Heroin), Sugar, Sweet Stuff, Thing (Cocaine, Crack Cocaine), Tornado, Whack (Crack Cocaine), White Boy (powder Cocaine), White Girl, White Lady, Wicky Stick, Whiz Bang, Wings
Health Hazards:
Cocaine is a strong central nervous system stimulant that interferes with the re-absorption process of dopamine, a chemical messenger associated with pleasure and movement. The buildup of dopamine causes continuous stimulation of receiving
neurons, which is associated with the euphoria commonly reported by cocaine abusers.
Cocaine’s effects appear almost immediately after a single dose, and disappear within a few minutes or hours. Taken in small amounts (up to 100 mg), cocaine usually makes the user feel euphoric, energetic, talkative, and mentally alert, especially to the sensations of sight, sound, and touch. It can also temporarily decrease the need for food and sleep. Some users find that the drug helps them perform simple physical and intellectual tasks more quickly, while others experience the opposite effect.
Short-Term Effects:
Physical effects of cocaine use include constricted blood vessels, dilated pupils, and increased temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure. Large amounts (several hundred milligrams or more) intensify the user’s high, but may also lead to bizarre, erratic, and violent behavior.
These users may experience tremors, vertigo, muscle twitches, paranoia, or, with repeated doses, a toxic reaction closely resembling amphetamine poisoning. In rare instances, sudden death can occur on the first use of cocaine or unexpectedly thereafter. Cocaine-related deaths are often a result of cardiac arrest or seizures followed by respiratory arrest.
Some users of cocaine report feelings of restlessness, irritability, and anxiety. A tolerance to the “high” may develop Many addicts report that they fail to achieve as much pleasure as they did from their first exposure. Some users will increase their doses to intensify and prolong the euphoric effects.
While tolerance to the high can occur, users can also become more sensitive to cocaine’s anesthetic effects and tendency to cause convulsions without increasing the dose taken. This increased sensitivity may explain some deaths occurring after apparently low doses of cocaine.
Binge use of cocaine, during which the drug is taken repeatedly and at increasingly high doses, may lead to a state of increasing irritability, restlessness, and paranoia. This can result in a period of full-blown paranoid psychosis, in which the user loses touch with reality and experiences auditory hallucinations (hearing voices).
Other complications associated with cocaine use include:
- Disturbances in heart rhythm
- Heart attacks
- Chest pain
- Respiratory failure
- Strokes
- Seizures
- Headaches
- Gastrointestinal complications
- abdominal pain and nausea
Because cocaine has a tendency to decrease appetite, many chronic users can become malnourished.
Ingesting (swallowing or absorbing) cocaine can cause severe bowel gangrene due to reduced blood flow. People who inject cocaine can experience severe allergic reactions. Snorting (horning) is the process of inhaling cocaine powder through the nose, where it is absorbed into the bloodstream through the nasal tissues. This method of use can lead to loss of the sense of smell, nosebleeds, problems with swallowing, hoarseness, and a chronically runny nose.
When people mix cocaine and alcohol consumption, they are multiplying the danger each drug causes and, unknowingly, are forming a complex chemical experiment within their bodies. Researchers have found that the human liver combines cocaine and alcohol and manufactures a third substance, cocaethylene, that intensifies cocaine’s euphoric effects, while potentially increasing the risk of sudden death.
Parties are favorite places to find lines of cocaine just waiting for the users already drinking alcohol, to begin chemical experiments in their livers.
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Pat Graham is the author of the eBook: “Child Drug Addicts – Save Them While You Can”
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© 2011 by Pat Graham – All Rights Reserved
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