Cocaine is: a white powder, rock crystal, pure chemical cocaine hydrochloride. Cocaine is a drug, both used medically and illegally, primarily known for its euphoric effects. It essentially affects the physical and mental processes of the body and brain. Cocaine can be a dangerous drug to play with, and the influence of it changes lives. The use of cocaine is potentially taken to receive a “high” effect, which can last for up to fifteen minutes. Cocaine empowers the body to be mentally alert after a single dose, but misuse or abuse of cocaine, or any other drug, can lead to fatal and serious effects. Utilizing cocaine is a critical and life-threatening decision; regardless of the pleasure that the current spur of the moment brings, the drug will pay its cost (DEA).
Cocaine is found in South America, near Peru and Bolivia. It derives from the coca bush and is extracted from the leaf of Erythroxylon. Cocaine can be made in different forms; one of the most common forms is crack, which consists of crystals, or chunks. "Crack" is the street name given to cocaine once it has been processed from cocaine hydrochloride to a free base for smoking (Gold). The term "crack" refers to the "crackling" sound of the mixture being smoked or heated. Crack is free based, which means it can be smoked. Smoking involves inhaling cocaine vapor or smoke into the lungs where absorption into the bloodstream is as rapid as by injection. When cocaine is in the white powder form, it can be snorted; snorting is the process of inhaling cocaine powder through the nose where it is absorbed into the bloodstream through the nasal tissues. Mixing cocaine with water allows the powder to turn to a liquid to be injected, and injecting involves using a needle to rel...
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“It is synthesized from the leaves of the coca plant to form a paste. This paste is further synthesized and cut with adulterant substances to make it into street-level cocaine that can be injected, snorted or smoked. To make the paste, there is a process of extracting the cocaine that includes the use of toxic chemicals. There are two main ways that the cocaine paste is made: solvent extraction and acid extraction”.
Attention Material: Cocaine is mostly known as an illegal drug, but very few truly acknowledge it for its medical purposes and fully understand its history in the country. Cocaine is a tropane ester alkaloid ,which is extracted from the leaves of the coca (Erythroxylon coca) plant (Clayton, 1996). Cocaine is considered the most powerful and most dangerous drug of natural origin. Cocaine is illegal in the United States and is classified under the Schedule II medication which is contained in the Controlled Substance Act of the United States Constitution.
...y, H. (2008). Drug use and abuse: a comprehensive introduction (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.
Cocaine originated from South America, from coca leaves. Originally, the coca leaves were chewed by workers to decrease fatigue, improve endurance and have a greater resistance to the cold. This was to benefit the workers so they could work longer hours and be more productive. In 1855 the active ingredient in cocaine was isolated from the leaves, and in 1880 it was used as a local anesthetic (Nunes,2006). It was also used in coca cola. In 1855, coca cola was a soda beverage that contained sixty milligrams of cocaine for every eight ounces of the beverage. The idea behind this was to give people energy and a sense of well being (Nunes, 2006). By the late 1880s Sigmund Freud was using cocaine regularly and was even recommending it to others. This only lasted for less than twenty years, until he started discouraging it to others. Then by 1914 cocaine was banned for medical use and in beverages. This caused the use of cocaine and by the 1930s, the use had drastically decreased. It then became popular for recreational use in the 1980s (Nunes, 2006). It was often used and shown in movies such as Scarface, and is famous for the amount of cocaine that Al Pacino uses in one of the final scenes of the movie. Now it is still used recreationally and used by a ‘party crowd’. Although this is the primary category of people who use cocaine, people of all demographics use cocaine recreationally.
..." American Journal On Addictions 19.3 (2010): 212-214. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
Cocaine is a drug derived from the leaf of the Erytroxylon cocoa bush, which grows primarily in Peru and Bolivia. Cocaine also known as coke, C, snow, flake, nose candy, blow, or crack is generally sold on the street as a hydrochloride salt( a water-soluble salt). Cocaine is a fine, white crystalline powder often diluted with similar-looking substances such as talcum powder, sugar, or amphetamines. The powder can be snorted into the nostrils, also may be rubbed onto the mucous linings of the mouth, rectum, or vagina. To experience cocaine's effects quickly, and to heighten their intensity, users sometimes dissolve it in water and injects into a vein. The drug may be smoked in a purified form through a water pipe (freebassing) or in a concentrated form (crack) shaped into pellets or rocks and placed in special smoking gear. Despite today's abuse of the highly addictive drug, cocaine was intended for medical purposes. Pure cocaine was first extracted and identified by the German chemist Albert Niemann in the mid-19thcentury, and was introduced as a tonic/elixir in patent medicines to treat a variety of real or imagined illnesses. Later, it was used as a local anesthetic for eye, ear, and throat surgery and continues today to have limited use in surgery. Cocaine is a powerful central nervous system stimulant that heightens alertness and provides intense feelings of pleasure. Because of it's potent euphoric and energizing effects, many people
Cocaine is a classified ‘Schedule II’ drug, also known as “crack”, and “coke” it is a powerful drug, and addictive stimulant well known as a psychoactive substance. That comes from a plant called coca leaf that has been around since the mid-1800s and throughout the 20th century. “In the mid-1980s, addiction to the drug was seen as exaggerated or dismissed as psychological and not addiction” (Miller, Gold, Smith, 1997, p.62). In the past, cocaine’s original use was for medical purposes as local anesthetic for surgeries. Now its usage is illegal and this drug is immersed into the body through various ways. However,...
It has provided those in South America an aid in dealing with the hard life associated with living in the Andes. It has seen its use in the medical field for helping patients with pain and has been used for recreational enjoyment. The outlook on this drug varies depending on who and where you ask about cocaine. The drug can be highly addictive and cause serve damage through continued use on both the mental and physical aspects of someone. History has taught us that cocaine can lead to violence as well as the personal downfall of someone’s personal life and it should be treated accordingly. Education is the best form of explaining the consequences of cocaine and through that a nation can only strive for their citizens to be
...te an artificial high. Cocaine can cause serious damage to the nervous system, as it eats away chunks of the brain and increases blood pressure, heart rate and body temperature, often for the rest of the addict¡¯s life.
Cocaine (C17H21NO4) comes from the leaf of an Erythroxylon coca bush. It is a drug that effects the central nervous system. It causes feelings of euphoria, pleasure, increased energy and alertness. People under the influence of cocaine often do not feel the need for food or sleep. They also feel energetic and may talk a lot. However, depending on factors such as environment, dosage, and the manner in which the drug is taken, cocaine can have adverse effects such as violent, erratic behavior, dizziness, paranoia, insomnia, convulsions, and heart failure to name a few. Long- term effects of cocaine include, but are not limited to strokes, heart attacks, seizures, loss of memory, and decrease in learning capability (1).
Gwinnell, Esther, and Christine Adamec. "drug addiction." Health Reference Center. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 20 Jan. 2014.
Cocaine is a powerful addictive drug that affects the whole body in different ways. This drug has been around in America since 1855. In this year there were products that the average person used that had amounts of cocaine in it. The products that had cocaine in it were the beverage coke cola and medicine for numbing your gums. But before manufactures’ were using cocaine in things we use, three thousand years before the ancient Inca people use to chew coca leaves, which is one of the ingredients of making cocaine. They chewed coco leaves to get there heart racing and to speed up their breathing so they can work longer hours and because they lived where there was thin air. Also by them chewing the coco leaves it would tell their body that they aren’t hunger because they didn’t have enough food to eat. Cocaine was really popular between 1970s and 1980s in New York City. It was a large amount of people that died from this drug around this time.
The use of cocaine in the United States has declined over the last twenty years while the use of crack has increased. Many people avoided the use of crack because of the harmful chemicals used in creating the drug. One of the reasons why crack became popular is because of not needing to inject the drug hence less risks of being infected by the AIDS virus. Carroll (2000) states cocaine is the most powerful stimulant of natural origin. Most users snort or inject the drug to enable a quicker “high.” Cocaine use brings on many health problems. Fatal complications occur from regular use, for example, liver damage, seizures, elevated blood pressure causing stroke, heart failure, or heart attack.
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