Cocaine

COCAINE: The Great Addicter and Deceiver

Cocaine is a potent and extremely dangerous and addicting drug made from the leaves of the coca plant. It is a central nervous system stimulant that can cause aggressive behaviour and personality changes. Because of its biological properties, cocaine impairs brain mechanisms required for the exercise of free will and reason.

Cocaine is packaged for street sale as a white powder in foil strip or white folded paper.

Street Names: caine, blow, crack, coke, toot, rock, snow, snort, freebase, blow candy, C, White lady, Dust, Nose candy, Flake, coco puffs, crack, flight right

When absorbed into the blood stream, it is a very potent drug: a tiny amount (1-3 milligrams) produces profound stimulating effects on the brain by releasing a chemical, norepinephrine, from the nerve endings.

Cocaine provokes a considerable mood elevation marked by a surge of excitement and a sense of expanded mental and physical power. Fatigue disappears, and mental acuity enhanced...

And it can kill you!

This state of excitation and euphoria is followed within 30 to 60 minutes by a "let down feeling" of depression and dullness.

Cocaine and amphetamines are the only drugs which animals will self-administer until they die. This self-administration is the best example of the behavioural dependence created by cocaine which has been called the great addicter because of the profound craving that it creates in the brain of the user.

Cocaine Impairs Blood Flow to the Brain

With the discovery of a new scientific imaging technique called position emission tomography (PET), it is now possible to study the biochemical functions in living brains.

A group of 20 chronic cocaine users were examined with this new PET to measure cerebral blood flow. There were areas of decreased blood flow, especially in the frontal part of the brain, which persisted 10 days after withdrawal of cocaine use. Other special techniques of imaging (CT & MRI) performed on these subjects showed areas of cerebral atrophy and demyelinisation (loss of the protective part of the sheath of the nerve cell).

The mechanism of the narrowing of brain blood vessels by cocaine is presumed to be the same as the mechanism which narrows the blood vessels to the heart, resulting in myocardial damage. It is due to the release of adrenalin-like substances from body stores as documented by the studies on the non-human primate by Nahas et al who defined an antidote (nimodipine) which prevents the release of the adrenalin-like substances.

Coca Paste

Coca Paste is highly addictive and causes serious health problems. It is frequently smoked in combination with tobacco and/or marijuana producing an intense effect similar to cocaine or amphetamine injections.

Freebase

By far the most dangerous form of absorption of cocaine is by smoking the freebase. Freebase is a form of cocaine which is made by chemically converting "street" cocaine hydrochloride to a purified altered substance that is then made suitable for smoking. Smoking freebase produces a shorter and more intense "high" than most other ways of using the drug because smoking is the most direct and rapid way to get the drug to the brain. Because larger amounts are getting to the brain more quickly, an intense rush is produced, with rapid development of severe psychological and psychiatric symptoms requiring hospitalization.

Crack

Crack is cocaine. It comes in the form of small "rocks" of a creamy colour that are like pieces of rock salt. When it is smoked, it reaches the brain in 4 to 6 seconds. The drug's impact begins immediately. Addiction takes place faster than any other drug.

Effects of Cocaine Use

Physical symptoms: cold sweats, pallor, uncontrolled tremors, heaviness of the limbs, aggressive behaviour, insomnia and weight loss, increased alertness, euphoria, dilated pupils, increased pulse rate and blood pressure, insomnia and loss of appetite.

Psychological symptoms are characterized by intense anxiety, depression, confusion, hallucinations and paranoid delusions. These latter symptoms often require hospitalization in a psychiatric ward.

Physiological effects are associated with an increase in heart rate and blood pressure, and an increase in breathing rate and a decreased appetite.

Chronic effects: The frequent snorting of cocaine produces burns and sores of the membranes which line the interior of the nose, Ear and nose specialists see more and more frequently, in chronic cocaine users, perforation of the septum, the cartilage separating from the nostrils.

Rapid and marked tolerance develops to cocaine use.

Effects of Cocaine Overdose

The effects of cocaine overdose are severe, resulting in agitation, increase in body temperature, hallucinations, convulsions, and frequently, death. Death can occur when the drug is injected, smoked or even snorted. It occurs as a result of multiple seizures followed by respiratory and cardiac arrest.

All of these damaging effects of cocaine, and their resulting destructive influences in Western society were first observed 100 years ago. They led to the establishment of strict legal, national and international controls to limit the use of this drug to medical applications only. For fifty years, from 1910 to 1960, such regulations, coupled with social disapproval, were sufficient to curtail cocaine use to a very small group of high class society.

Now, cocaine is used by all levels of society. It may be found in the executive suite, the suburban living room for the cocktail hour, the college dorm and the high school locker room.

What Price Deception?

The huge potential for profit explains the blossoming cocaine trade (mostly from Colombia). Furthermore, a lot of the cocaine is cut, short weighed and contains a number of adulterants. No more than 25% of the cocaine sold illicitly is pure. The rest is cut with innocuous substances such as sugars or cheaper drugs such a procaine, lidocaine, benzocaine and more dangerous ones such as amphetamines or quinine. These last two drugs may produce dangerous side effects.