Nose candy, snow, blow, this powder is so ancient that scientists have found
traces of it in millennia-old mummies. It even used to be a common ingredient
in over-the-counter medicine, but now it's worth billions on the black market and is
responsible for thousands of overdoses every year. It could only be cocaine.
Cocaine is one of the most popular recreational drugs,
but like with a lot of illegal substances, it can be hard to get straight answers about
it. What effect does cocaine have on your body? Where does cocaine even come from?
How does a cocaine high feel? And if you’re addicted to cocaine, how can you get better?
You’ve got the questions, we’ve got the answers,
and we recommend you listen closely - You don’t want to become another tragic statistic.
Let’s start off by answering the most important question. What is cocaine?
At its most basic level, it’s a type of naturally occurring chemical known as a tropane alkaloid,
derived from the leaves of the South American coca plant. Once it's extracted from the plant,
it's typically processed into a powdered form called cocaine hydrochloride. Cocaine
is a nervous system stimulant, a class of substances that also includes MDMA,
caffeine, nicotine, and prescription medications like Ritalin and Adderall.
Like all stimulants, its main effect is that it gives the user an energy boost
and stimulates the brain's reward pathway. This, as you might guess from the name,
is one of the parts of the brain that produces dopamine, a chemical that the brain releases as
a form of positive reinforcement. Normally, the reward pathway is activated by what the brain
deems to be positive actions- exercise, eating your favorite foods, finishing a complex task,
and listening to music- all things that cause your brain to produce dopamine.
But cocaine sends the reward pathway into overdrive, resulting in intense
excitement as well as an inflated sense of self-confidence. On the extreme end,
a cocaine user might also experience psychotic delusions, and all that excess energy can cause
heightened aggression. Other side effects of cocaine use include raised blood pressure,
raised body temperature, and photosensitivity due to pupil dilation. The high doesn't go on
for very long- on average, users start to come down after 15 minutes to half an hour.
Even after the high has worn off, the drug isn’t immediately flushed out of your system.
Traces of cocaine can be picked up in blood and saliva samples for up to two days after use and
in urine samples for up to four days after. Cocaine use can even be detected by testing
hair samples. Metabolized cocaine can be found in hair for up to three months after taking it,
which is just another reason to be suspicious of your boss if he asks you for a hair sample.
Before we get into some of the even more severe side effects of cocaine - some of which have
had extremely devastating consequences for huge swathes of the American population - let’s rewind
the clock to see how this prolific drug made its way into modern hands in the first place.
Cocaine has a long history as a medical treatment, going all the way back to the
indigenous people of the Andes Mountains in South America. Evidence recovered from
mummies in the region suggests that cocaine has been used in the area since at least 1000 BC.
The Wari and Inca people frequently used the coca leaf as a stimulant, painkiller,
and as treatment for altitude sickness when climbing up and down the Andes mountains. Coca
leaves are still used in the same way to this day by people who live in and around the Andes.
Typically, the leaves are chewed or boiled in a kind of medicinal tea. It can also be used to
treat mouth ulcers and toothaches by wrapping coca leaves around alkaline burnt ashes and placing the
sachet inside your mouth. Coca leaves were also consumed to lessen the effects of cold and hunger,
which are common problems for people living in remote high-altitude locations.
When the Spanish first invaded South America, they saw the locals using coca leaves and
immediately knew they wanted some of those magic leaves for themselves. When Fransisco
Pizarro conquered the Inca people in 1532, the Spanish empire began exploiting the coca plant,
forcing the natives to farm it in mass quantities so it could be exported back to Europe.
Cocaine really took off in the West in the 19th century after chemists figured out how
to isolate cocaine from the plant itself. In its new powdered form,
it became a very common ingredient in medicines to treat fatigue, depression,
chronic pain, and even poor sexual performance. In a totally crazy move that really could've
only happened during the 19th century, in 1863, a Corsican chemist called Angelo
Mariani started selling a drug called Vin Mariani, a mix of cocaine and wine.
And of course, cocaine was also an ingredient in Coca-Cola. Like a lot of soda fountain classics,
coke was originally sold as a 'patent medicine,' a type of brand-name over-the-counter drug that
was very popular in the 19th century and had dubious health benefits. In the early 1900s,
however, an FDA crackdown on quack medicine and a push for clearer labeling on consumer
products led to a lot of patent medicines disappearing from shelves. The ones that
did survive did so by drastically changing their formulas and rebranding as soft drinks,
including Coca-Cola, which was totally cocaine free by 1929.
Cocaine was phased out of a lot of medicines over the course of the 20th century,
though its effectiveness as a numbing agent and vasoconstrictant means that it's still
used as a topical anesthetic to this day. It's most common in nose, eye, and throat surgery,
where the blood vessels are very delicate and need to be shrunk to avoid damage.
In terms of its recreational use, cocaine exploded in popularity in the 1970s and 1980s,
when it became associated with clubbing culture and gained a
glamorous reputation for being the drug of choice for rich playboys and rock stars.
Cocaine is pretty versatile as far as drugs go, and it can be taken in a number of ways.
Most commonly, the powder is rubbed onto the gums or inhaled through the nose,
but it can also be dissolved in water and taken via injection. In its free base form,
known colloquially as 'crack cocaine' - we'll talk about crack again later- it can also be smoked.
Cocaine usually isn't taken orally, though. With a pKa of 8.6, cocaine is a weak base,
which interacts with digestive acid in a way that makes it absorb poorly through the stomach.
You can still get high from ingesting cocaine, but the effect is weaker and takes longer to kick in.
Conversely, absorption of cocaine through the gums or nostrils means the chemical crosses the
blood-brain barrier faster than through other methods. When taking it this way,
the cocaine high will hit within only a couple of minutes of taking the drug.
The quick-fix nature of cocaine is what leads to one of the biggest drawbacks of taking it- it's
addictive. Like we said earlier, the high only tends to last up to about 30 minutes,
and you begin developing a tolerance to the drug's effects from the very
first dose. On top of this, as is the case with a lot of stimulants,
users experience an unpleasant mood and energy crash when its effects start wearing off.
So, in order to delay the comedown, users might keep taking bumps to prolong the high, even though
each bump will have less and less of a positive effect each time, meaning that more and more doses
are required to reach the desired high. Given what cocaine does to your blood pressure, this can have
extremely deadly consequences. Cocaine overdose can cause heart attacks or a stroke, and habitual
cocaine use can lead to all kinds of serious heart conditions as well as the onset of stress-related
disorders and psychosis. 'Coke bugs' is a common delusion suffered by cocaine users going
through psychotic episodes, where the sufferer believes that bugs are crawling under their skin.
Most people who use cocaine only do so casually, in no small part because of
how expensive the purer strains of cocaine can get. They might try it once or twice,
while at a party or a club, and may never do it again. But that doesn't
mean they're totally off the hook, as even casual cocaine use can have its negative
effects. Snorting cocaine can cause damage to your nasal passages in the short term - a
blocked or runny nose on the mild end, and nosebleeds on the more severe end.
Remember when we said that cocaine will shrink the blood vessels where it's applied? Well,
when you combine that with a rise in blood pressure it means that more
blood is trying to get through veins that are becoming thinner and thinner,
leading to the blood vessels in the nose rupturing and leaving you with a bloody nose.
The damage done by infrequent cocaine use can heal on its own, but habitual users can often suffer
from a constantly runny nose, chronic nosebleeds, complete loss of their sense of smell, and a
weakened immune system. In extreme cases, people who regularly snort cocaine can contract something
called invasive fungal sinusitis, a nasty infection that causes parts of the nose to rot.
Even if you don't catch invasive fungal sinusitis, cocaine abuse can still make parts of your nose
rot off. The powdered form of cocaine is cocaine hydrochloride, so when you absorb the cocaine,
you're left with the hydrochloride. If too much hydrochloride builds up in your nose,
it can form hydrochloric acid, which breaks down the cells in the nose over time. Ouch.
Cocaine isn't very good for your teeth, either. Much like taking it through the nose, taking it
via your gums can leave you open to infections. Like all stimulants, it has a dehydrating effect
and can lower the production of saliva, which leads to a loss of tooth enamel. Cocaine use
can also cause involuntary tooth grinding, which can further damage the teeth and gums.
Taking cocaine intravenously is probably the most dangerous way to take it, as on top of the risk of
stroke, heart attack, and psychotic breakdowns, you also have to worry about fun things like
embolism and needle contamination. Incidentally, Sherlock Holmes, the famous detective from the
novels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was a periodic user of injected cocaine. It goes without saying
that this was a little more normalized during the Victorian era than it is now.
Strangely enough, people who consume cocaine this way also often report getting tinnitus
straight after injecting, which usually lasts for a couple of minutes. Those who
inject cocaine are also more likely to overdose, as the high wears off a
lot faster than it does when taken through the nose or gums. Cocaine is also sometimes
mixed with heroin to create something called a speedball, which is extremely dangerous as
the complementary effects of the two drugs together make it hard to recognize symptoms
of overdose. A lot of poeple have died as a result of a speedball overdose, including a
number of celebrities such as John Belushi, River Phoenix, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
Combining cocaine and alcohol is also a pretty bad idea, since the chemicals combine and
form a substance called cocaethyelene in your liver. Cocaethylene produces a more
euphoric high, but it increases your risk of developing heart problems significantly.
The fact that cocaine is a social drug also means that it's often associated
with blood-borne illnesses like hepatitis C. People tend to do cocaine in groups,
and when they snort lines with the same straw or inject with the same needle,
it greatly increases the likelihood of illnesses spreading from person to person.
Now that we've covered the effects of cocaine, let's circle back to its free base form- crack.
Cocaine in its powdered form can't be smoked, as it burns up too completely
and too quickly. But in its solid or 'free base' form,
it has a melting point of 98 degrees Celsius (208.4 degrees Farenheit), which means that it
can be sublimated and inhaled as a vapor. Crack cocaine is made by boiling cocaine powder in
water over constant heat and mixing in a base, such as baking soda. The mixture then cools
into a brittle 'crack rock' that can be broken into smaller pieces and smoked using a pipe.
Like any drug taken by smoking, crack can cause long-term lung damage, to the point that crack
users may cough up blood. Crack comes with its own unique side effects compared to, say,
cigarettes or marijuana, due to the unique way it has to be smoked. Unlike weed and cigarettes,
the vapor produced from melting a crack rock loses its potency very quickly. Crack pipes
are typically very short to reduce the time it takes for the substance to travel from the pipe
to the user's lungs as much as possible. And since crack pipes are normally made of glass,
they tend to get very hot very quickly. Because of this, people who smoke crack
will develop blisters on their lips and fingers from touching the hot glass too much.
Crack became such a hot-button issue in American culture that in its heyday,
bizarre public service announcements featuring a wide range of public figures,
such as movie star Clint Eastwood and children’s entertainment character Pee Wee
Herman were televised across the US, hoping to discourage people from taking the drug.
During the moral panic around crack cocaine in the 1980s and 1990s,
when the drug became popular in low-income neighborhoods across America, concerns were
raised about the health of children born to parents who smoked crack. The term 'crack
baby' arose as part of that moral panic, and many anti-drug groups argued that crack usage
in pregnant people would lead to a generation of children with poor health, low intelligence,
and underdeveloped social skills. This turned out to be a greatly exaggerated fear based mainly
on racism and classism. Studies done since have shown that, compared to the effects of nicotine
and alcohol use during pregnancy, the effects of cocaine use on fetal development were negligible.
However, cocaine abuse during pregnancy can cause a miscarriage and can,
in some cases, trigger premature labor.
Crack is also cheaper than powder cocaine, which means it's more likely to be cut with other drugs
and potentially poisonous substances. This is not to say that powdered cocaine is never cut
with any hidden nasties, though. Cheap cocaine is often cut with baking soda, quinine, or sugar,
which can cause blockages in blood vessels when injected or respiratory infections when inhaled.
It can also be cut with a drug called levamisole, which heightens the drug's effects but has been
associated with the development of autoimmune diseases. Cocaine is also increasingly being
contaminated with Fentanyl—an extremely potent synthetic opioid. While many have
speculated that drug manufacturers combine the two drugs intentionally,
tests done on seized cocaine by police suggest that fentanyl is usually only present in
trace elements. Fentanyl has become a very popular drug in the past decade,
and it's likely that cross-contamination occurs simply as a result of the two drugs
being processed in the same lab or from them being stored in the same places.
But because of how potent fentanyl is, consuming drugs with even trace
elements of it can have noticeable negative consequences. Like a speedball, the mix of
fentanyl and cocaine can have deadly effects if the signs of overdose aren't spotted quickly.
Given that cocaine addiction can lead to all of those horrible effects, it might give you
some comfort to know that the physical effects of cocaine withdrawal are fairly minor. Cocaine
withdrawal can cause disturbed sleep schedules, increased appetite, slowed reaction time,
and fatigue. These physical symptoms usually start to go away a few days after quitting.
However, the psychological effects can be much more severe- cocaine withdrawal can
often cause severe depression and anxiety, as the brain's reward pathway needs time to
repair itself from overstimulation. Therapy can help alleviate these psychological symptoms,
but the process of recovery can take years, and during that time, the person may feel
compelled to relapse and start taking cocaine again. That's why it's important for people
trying to quit cocaine to have a social support network and why group therapy is so important in
cocaine addiction rehab. Because while many have survived and moved on from cocaine use,
it only takes one unlucky session for things to take a turn for the worst.
Now watch “What Happens To Your Body When Smoking Weed” Or check out this video instead!