Cocaine can produce both short and long-term effects when used. Cocaine has long been glamorized in movies, television, and music, however there is nothing glamorous about this drug. If you're looking for treatment, please browse the site to reach out to treatment centers directly.
- This form of cocaine is sometimes called crack, which refers to the crackling sound of the rock as it's heated.
- Some of the side effects of cocaine depend on how you take the drug.
- Another smokable and highly addictive form is cocaine paste, which is an intermediate stage in the processing of coca leaves into cocaine.
- The drug can also speed up the progress of an HIV infection.
Coca leaves
Cocaine is a powerful stimulant drug that’s extracted and processed from coca plant leaves in South America. Cognitive behavioral therapy may help people recover from cocaine use disorder. Can you help someone who is addicted to crack cocaine? Symptoms include a high heart rate and blood pressure, seizures, hallucinations, and trouble breathing.
Cocaine Complications
- Human studies also show that alcohol use increases the risk of transitioning from cocaine use to addiction.
- Cocaine is sometimes referred to on the street as blow, coca, coke, crank, flake, snow, or soda cot.
- A 2018 review found little evidence that chronic cocaine use causes widespread cognitive impairment.
The ventral tegmental area seems to act as a critical integration site in the brain that relays information about both stress and drug cues to other areas of the brain, including ones that drive cocaine seeking. Acute exposure to cocaine has many effects on humans, including euphoria, increases in heart rate and blood pressure, and increases in cortisol secretion from the adrenal gland. Potential risks of levamisole-laced cocaine include autoimmune disease, neutropenia, arthralgias, retiform purpura, skin necrosis, and fever. Some studies suggest that cocaine-exposed babies are at increased risk of birth defects, including urinary tract defects and, possibly, heart defects. Regardless of form, however, cocaine’s addictive qualities can cause people to use it repeatedly, which, over time, can cause changes in the brain that may affect how it functions.3 Cocaine is a highly addictive stimulant drug that comes in the form of a white, granular powder.2 People consume cocaine it by snorting it, rubbing it on their gums, or injecting it.1,3 Additionally, crack cocaine, which is simply cocaine that comes in rock form, can be smoked.1,3
Further minor metabolites of cocaine include norcocaine, p-hydroxycocaine, m-hydroxycocaine, p-hydroxybenzoylecgonine (pOHBE), and m-hydroxybenzoylecgonine. Snorting cocaine produces maximum physiological effects within 40 minutes and maximum psychotropic effects within 20 minutes. Onset of absorption after oral ingestion is delayed because cocaine is a weak base with a pKa of 8.6, and is thus in an ionized form that is poorly absorbed from the gastric acid and easily absorbed from the alkaline duodenum. The rate of absorption after nasal insufflation is limited by cocaine-induced vasoconstriction of capillaries in the nasal mucosa. The extent of absorption of cocaine into the circulatory system after nasal insufflation is similar to that after oral ingestion.
Cocaine production, seizures, and use all reached record levels in 2023, making it the world's fastest-growing illicit drug market. The provisions as to how much a coca farmer can yield annually is protected by laws such as the Bolivian Cato accord. Cocaine is sometimes referred to on the street as blow, coca, coke, crank, flake, snow, or soda cot. As a result, these illicit coca crops are a primary target of ongoing government-led coca eradication efforts. The test can easily generate false positives for common substances and must be confirmed with a laboratory test. Experts and drug charities criticized the devices, warning they can give false positives and waste resources, while police forces defended their use as a deterrent.
Stronger, more frequent doses cause long-term changes in brain chemistry. Your brain may become less responsive to other natural rewards, such as food and relationships. This can lead to a negative mood when you don’t take the drug. This can lead to a dangerous addiction or overdose. The more you use it, the more your brain adapts to it.
Psychiatric symptoms
Healthcare providers may occasionally use cocaine as anesthesia. WebMD does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Scientists don’t know exactly how it works to reduce cocaine use. Research to test new drugs is under way.
Adverse effects
It's possible to die from an overdose of crack or any other type of cocaine. If you or someone you know has problems with cocaine use, seek help from a doctor or mental health professional. The vaccine activates your immune system to create antibodies that attach to cocaine and stop it from making its way into your brain.
Because cocaine use can worsen health outcomes, adults with ADHD should be screened for cocaine use disorder and referred for treatment if needed. Illicit cocaine is frequently adulterated with substances such as fentanyl, levamisole, or local anesthetics, increasing its toxicity. Chronic nasal use may cause destructive damage to the nasal septum, including cocaine-induced midline destructive lesions (CIMDL). Individuals often engage in repeated use by either insufflating it intranasally or converting it to crack cocaine for vaporization. Insufflating (snorting) cocaine commonly causes increased mucus production due to irritation and inflammation of the nasal passages. Depression is modestly linked to current drug use in cocaine users but does not clearly predict treatment participation or future use.
Men died of overdose at 2-3 times greater a rate than women in the U.S. in 2020-2021
With cocaine use disorder, you may become both physically and mentally dependent on the drug. This makes you compulsively crave or use substances like cocaine. Cocaine, especially crack cocaine, is strongly addictive for several reasons. If you use cocaine regularly or to excess, you may have long-lasting and serious problems with your physical and mental health. Since it's an illegal drug, you can never be sure about the quality of cocaine.
How Common Is Cocaine Use?
An overdose often leads to a stroke or heart attack. Withdrawal can be difficult, so it may be best to do it with the help of a medical professional. That means it takes less of it to cause negative effects like anxiety and convulsions. At the same time, you might develop what's called sensitization to the drug. That means you have to use more and more of the drug to get high.
Crude cocaine preparation intermediates are marketed as cheaper alternatives to pure cocaine to local markets while the more expensive end product is exported to United States and European markets. Coca paste (paco, basuco, oxi, pasta) is a crude extract of the coca leaf which contains 40% to 91% cocaine freebase along with companion coca alkaloids and varying quantities of benzoic acid, methanol, and kerosene. Historically, snuff spoons were used for cocaine in the 20th century, hence the names "cocaine spoon" and "coke spoon". The cocaine typically is poured onto a flat, hard surface and divided into "bumps", "lines", or "rails", and then insufflated. Snuff spoons, hollowed-out pens, cut straws, pointed ends of keys, long fingernails or artificial nails, and tampon applicators are also used to insufflate cocaine. Most banknotes have traces of cocaine on them; this has been confirmed by studies done in several countries.
In the United States, cocaine is regulated as a Schedule II drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning that it has a high potential for abuse but has an accepted medical use. Chronic use may result in cocaine dependence, withdrawal symptoms, neurotoxicity, and nasal damage, including cocaine-induced midline destructive lesions. Street cocaine is commonly snorted, injected, or smoked as crack cocaine, with effects lasting up to 90 minutes depending on the route. The prolonged or compulsive use of cocaine in any of its purified forms can cause severe personality disturbances, inability to sleep, and loss of appetite. In the 1980s a new preparation of cocaine appeared, called crack; the smoking of crack produces an even more intense and even more short-lived euphoria that is extremely addicting. The euphoric effects of sniffing cocaine are relatively transitory and wear off after about 30 minutes.
The FDA hasn't approved any medicine to treat cocaine addiction. Counseling and other types of therapy are the most common treatments for cocaine use disorder. Many people who are addicted to cocaine go through a phase called withdrawal when they first do this. Many people start to build a tolerance after their first use of cocaine. Another reason cocaine can lead to substance use disorder is that each time you use it, your body builds a tolerance. That same year, about 24,486 people died from an overdose that involved cocaine.
Reduced drug use is a meaningful treatment outcome for people with stimulant use disorders
Animals that have received cocaine repeatedly are more likely to seek the drug in response to stress, and the more of the drug they have taken, the more stress affects this behavior. Although researchers have focused on adaptations in the brain’s reward system, drugs also affect the brain pathways that respond to stress. Animal studies show that cocaine exposure can cause significant neuroadaptations in neurons that release the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate.10,11 Animals chronically exposed to cocaine demonstrate profound changes in glutamate neurotransmission—including how much is released and the level of receptor proteins—in the reward pathway, particularly the nucleus accumbens. Use of cocaine can induce long-term changes in the brain.
Research has shown that both acute and chronic cocaine use can lead to significant reductions in cerebral blood flow, disrupt neurovascular interactions, and impair brain function. Cocaine- and levamisole-induced vasculitis (CLIV) is often used as an umbrella term for the vasculitic and necrotic complications seen with levamisole-adulterated cocaine, including both LINES and CLAAS. Levamisole is known to cause an acute condition involving a severe and dangerous lowered white blood cell count, known as agranulocytosis, in cocaine users, and may also accentuate cocaine's effects. Under the former FDA pregnancy category system, cocaine was classified as a Category C drug. Cocaine hydrochloride can also be chemically converted into its free base form, crack cocaine, which can be vaporized.citation needed
The glutamate system may be an opportune target for anti-addiction medication development, with the goal of reversing the cocaine-induced neuroadaptations that contribute to the drive to use the drug.10 This dopamine surge, simultaneous with the euphoric effects of the drug, teaches the brain that this reward is desirable and to seek it again. When people smoke cocaine (inhalation), they inhale its vapor or smoke into the lungs, where absorption into the bloodstream is almost as rapid as by injection. When snorted (intranasal use), cocaine powder is inhaled through the nostrils, where it is Cocaine and Alcohol Mix absorbed into the bloodstream through the nasal tissues.
Nasal insufflation (known colloquially as "snorting", "sniffing", or "blowing") is a common method of ingestion of recreational powdered cocaine. Recreational cocaine is typically not taken by mouth due to its poor bioavailability, instead it is usually snorted or injected. However, apraclonidine has largely replaced cocaine as the first-line pharmacologic agent for the diagnosis of Horner syndrome in routine clinical practice. Karl Koller's groundbreaking discovery of cocaine as a local anesthetic is regarded as the second most significant advance in the history of anesthesia. Ypadú or ypadu (also known as mambé) is an unrefined, unconcentrated powder made from toasted coca leaves and the ash of various other plants.