Basics of Cocaine Use

Cocaine is a potent, stimulant narcotic that comes from the coca plant which grows in the Andes. The first “coke heads”, if you can go so far as to regard them as that, were the Incas who began to regularly chew on the leaves of the coca plant in an effective attempt to deal with a condition known as altitude sickness. Altitude sickness is a condition unique to people living at higher elevations that aren’t exposed to enough oxygen. The symptoms of this condition are fatigue, headaches, nausea, swollen hands and face and difficulty with sleep.  The Incas’ physical work seemed to only make this unfortunate condition worse and therefore they resorted to the leaves of a plant which was discovered to increase energy, cut appetite and work longer hours. Sound familiar? As you can see, this particular stimulant has appealed to people since it came into existence.

However, this version of cocaine, if you can call it that, wasn’t nearly as potent as what it ended up evolving into when chemist Albert Neimann extracted cocaine from the coca leaves in 1860. He published a book on his invention called On a New Organic Base in the Coca Leaves. This was only the beginning of a very long, drawn out game of tug and war between addicts who advocated the drug and people who naturally recognized the disastrous effects that came along with using cocaine. Cocaine soon became significantly popular, rising to the number one illicit drug used in America by the late 80’s. It was the common trendy drug of choice in party scenes throughout the country at the time, up until the mid 90’s when law enforcement cracked down on some major Columbian drug cartels. However cocaine abuse remains a major cause for concern today with countless addicts struggling to get their next fix.

Cocaine Adulterants

With cocaine’s progression there have been major changes to the drug for the sake of profit. If you think about it cocaine has to go through a series of people before it reaches the hungry hands of the urban nightclub goers who make a majority of cocaine users these days. It’s extracted in a lab where its purity is still high (about 90 to 100 percent), then passed over to drug smugglers and finally sold over to distributors. The distributors have their dealers and those dealers are just thinking up ways to increase the volume of this drug in order to make more money with no regard to the quality of their product. When it comes to illegal drugs, these dealers can afford that type of mentality and so they end up diluting cocaine by utilizing all kinds of adulterants in order to further their means. So by the time some group of club rats are snorting lines of this ambiguous white powder off a table in the dark corners of their regular club scene, under the misguided impression from their dealer that it is in fact very pure cocaine, they can’t be sure what it is exactly that’s going into and up those nasal passages. There have been a variety of adulterants found in cocaine, a versatile list of anything from talcum powder to amphetamines. The possibilities, in retrospect, are quite endless.

Types of Cocaine Administration

Cocaine is used in a few different ways depending on what kind of high the user is looking for. When cocaine is snorted, the high can last for up to thirty minutes. When it’s smoked, as in crack cocaine, the high only lasts five to ten minutes. However with crack cocaine, the drug hits the user a bit faster and with a drastically more intense high. This intensified high is probably what makes crack the more addictive type of cocaine. Injecting cocaine via a needle takes the cake as the most intense way to use. The way it’s injected is by dissolving the powder in water and then injecting it from there, where it can hit the bloodstream directly like that. The most common use of cocaine is snorting it though.

What Precisely Is Crack?

Crack is a processed type of cocaine that’s smokeable. The reason why it’s called crack is because it makes a cracking sound when you light the drug to smoke it. This type of processing is called “freebasing”, and it makes the drug more potent. The process of freebasing is done by dissolving cocaine in water and baking soda or ammonia and then boiling this solution until it’s solid. Then it’s sifted from any remaining liquid. After that it’s dried and broken into chunks which are known as “rocks”. These are then sold to users by weight in small glass containers or small plastic bags. Crack is both cheaper and stronger than cocaine which makes it particularly attractive to people of lower income brackets or high school students.

What Cocaine Does To You

This high from cocaine is reported to give users a heightened sense of confidence, increased alertness, being on a power trip, feeling euphoric, being more talkative and being provided with a lot of energy to stay up for hours on end which is probably why it strongly appeals to night owls that go to clubs to dance and socialize into the wee hours of the night. Though the high from cocaine is reported as pleasurable, usually the crash replaces that euphoria with an intense depression known as the “low”. Like every drug, cocaine’s effects don’t stop at the desired ones. This powerful drug can also cause a whole set of unwanted effects as well. Some of these unwanted effects are:

•    Anxiety

•    Paranoia

•    Restlessness

•    Fidgety

•    Irritability

•    Jaw clenching

Then, on top of this, there are worse effects which can occur when using cocaine. These effects aren’t only unwanted but also very dangerous. Some of these dangerous effects are:

•    Seizure

•    Stroke

•    Stomach ulcers

•    Violent and/or aggressive behavior

•    Kidney damage

•    Increased heart rate

•    Increased blood pressure

•    Heart attack

•    Hallucination

•    Rise in temperature

•    Severe allergic reaction

•    Suicidal depression

•    Tremors

•    Bizarre behavior

•    Cold sweats

•    Convulsions

•    Nausea

•    Vomiting

•    Loss of appetite/malnutrition

•    Damage to lungs

•    Damage to nasal cavaties

•    Insomnia

•    Vertigo

•    Coma

•    Sudden death

Over time, it has become increasingly clear that this drug is nothing short of harmful. There are countless stories out there in regards to the dangers of this drug.

Cocaine Street Names

Due to the fact that cocaine is illegal, it’s referred to by different street names (or nicknames). The various slang words which are used to refer to cocaine are: Coke, Blow, Dust, Nose Candy, Powder, Soda, Big C, Big Flake, Bump, C, Caine, Candy and Charlie.

Who Is The Target Market For Cocaine?

Generally, the type of people who use cocaine reside in metropolitan areas and are of the middle class. Surveys have shown that people between the ages of 18 to 25 use cocaine the most and a majority of cocaine users happen to be male. This might have to do with the fact that men respond to cocaine effects faster. Cocaine isn’t necessarily that expensive but it isn’t on the cheap end either. When it first started circulating the country in the late ’80’s it was known as the rich man’s drug. Now most middle class people can afford a cocaine habit, depending on the extent of their habit.

By Robert O. Newman II, ICDAC, ICPS, CIP