Q: What is cocaine?
A: Cocaine is a powerful stimulant made from the leaves of the coca plant. The plant is found mostly in South America and its leaves produce a paste. The paste is purified to produce a white powder. Mixing it with sugar, cornstarch or talcum powder often weakens the powder. Some street names for cocaine are: “snow”, “C” and “flake”.
Q: What is Crack?
A: Crack is the street name for a type of smokable Cocaine, which is sold in the form of small rocks. The risk of overdose and death is greatest with crack because so much of the drug reaches the brain that brain seizures or heart attacks can occur.
Q: Is crack more dangerous than cocaine?
A: Because it is smoked, crack reaches the blood and brain very quickly. Smoking it causes the most intense and addictive high. The sudden increase in cocaine in the blood may mean a greater chance of seizures, heart attack and stroke.
Q: What are some of the effects of cocaine?
A: Because it increases the activity in the nervous system, cocaine produces increased alertness, high energy and euphoria. These effects are followed by agitation, anxiety and decreased appetite.
Cocaine also causes higher blood pressure, rapid heart rate, rapid breathing and sweating. With a large amount of cocaine people can also experience shallow breathing, unpredictable or violent behavior, twitching, paranoia, hallucinations, chest pain, blurred vision, vomiting seizures, convulsions and even heart attacks. All forms of cocaine have the same effects.
Q: How long do the effects of cocaine last?
A: Cocaine high can last from 5 minutes to 2 hours. When users come down or “crash,” they feel very depressed, anxious and irritable. Many users take repeated doses to maintain the high and avoid the crash. Others try to modify the effects or stop binges with drugs like alcohol, tranquilizers or heroin.
Q: What happens to people who use cocaine for a long time?
A: Using cocaine regularly over a long time can leave users agitated and cause mood swings and depression. It can also result in a loss of appetite, not being able to sleep properly and sexual problems. When cocaine is snorted, it can damage tissue in the nose. Chronic snorting causes stuffed, runny, chapped or bleeding noses, and holes in the barrier separating the nostrils. People who smoke it can develop lung and breathing problems and some cough up black phlegm or even blood. People who inject – especially if they share needles – are at risk of infectious diseases including hepatitis and HIV (the virus that causes AIDS).
Q: Do people get addicted to cocaine and crack?
A: Yes because cocaine actually changes people’s brain chemistry and creates a craving that makes it very difficult for them to stop using cocaine.
Crack addiction can develop very rapidly. That is because crack reaches the brain quickly causes a brief high that is followed by a severe low. That low leads people to use more crack to get back to the high and that pattern leads to addiction.
Q: What is cocaine psychosis?
A: Several abused drugs mimic schizophrenia and psychosis, producing symptoms, which can be easily misdiagnosed. Cocaine especially when used to excess, will cause a toxic psychosis almost indistinguishable from a true paranoid psychosis.
© Watari Youth Day Treatment Program
Adapted from 2001-2002 AADAC – Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission, corp.aadac.com
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