Alcohol Rehab

Cocaine and crack are stimulants that are extremely addictive and produce intense euphoria. A powerfully addictive stimulant, cocaine directly affects the brain, causing quick highs and triggering intense cravings. Since the high these drugs produce is short-lived, users typically use repeatedly. They are often taken to “level off” the effects of downers, and to allow drinkers to consume increased quantities for long periods. One of the oldest known drugs, pure cocaine is extracted from the leaves of the coca plant, the Erythroxylon bush, which grows primarily in Peru and Bolivia. It is powdered and usually mixed with other substances.

Coca leaves have been ingested for thousands of years, and the pure chemical—cocaine hydrochloride—has been an abused substance for more than a century. The hydrochloride salt, or powdered form of cocaine, can be taken intranasally, or through the nose (“snorted”), or when dissolved in water can be injected. On the street it may be diluted with such substances as cornstarch, talcum powder, sugar, or with such active drugs as the anesthetic procaine or stimulants like amphetamines.

Short-term effects include increased heart rate, blood pressure, and metabolism; feelings of exhilaration, energy, increased mental alertness, and increased temperature. Once used widely as medication, it is still used as specialized anesthetic and high-altitude remedy in mountainous countries. Its abuse or continued use produces insomnia, hyperactivity, anxiousness, agitation, and malnutrition. Overdoses can be lethal, often from heart attacks.

Freebase refers to a compound that has not been neutralized by an acid to make the hydrochloride salt. Crack is the street name given to the freebase form of cocaine that has been processed into a smokable substance. The term crack refers to the crackling sound heard when the mixture is smoked. Because crack is smoked, the user experiences an immediate high. This fact and the relatively low cost of the drug made it popular, but addiction is extremely powerful and triggers almost constant use, so long-term costs are high and withdrawal difficult. Smoking crack cocaine can produce a particularly aggressive paranoid behavior in users. In addition, it carries the same risks as any kind of smoking.

The duration of cocaine’s immediate “upper” effects is short, and the faster the absorption, the more intense the high. Snorting it may create a 30-minute high; smoking, a five- or 10-minute one. Long-term effects include rapid or irregular heartbeat, reduced appetite, weight loss, heart failure, chest pain, respiratory failure, nausea, abdominal pain, stroke, seizure, headache, and malnutrition. Because it can severely inhibit the brain’s production of dopamine, long-term cocaine use can cause serious depression.