Cocaine

Analyzing Drugs

Cocaine can be called the most harmful drug that has ever existed. It could be compared only with heroin, although heroin makes you sleepy and dopey, this drug is considered to be a depressant. Cocaine is different as it makes people hyper, selfish, cruel and violent. It is a stimulant that blocks the brain’s natural dopamine recycling system. The chemical dopamine produces the feeling of pleasure in the brain. After blocking the dopamine recycling process in the brain, an excess of this chemical accumulates and produces extreme happiness called euphoria. The person feels wildly happy; he/she seems to love everybody and everything. This drug brings a lot of harm all over the world. This paper covers the characteristics, key data of using this drug, personal opinion and conclusion made after collecting and analyzing the information.

Prevalence of the Topic

Cocaine is a white crystalline powder that is often diluted with sugar or cornstarch. This drug can also be called C, coke, snow and nose. People take cocaine in three ways: it can be sniffed, smoked or injected. This narcotic is extracted from coca leaves in South America. Firstly, these leaves were chewed or brewed into the tea by workers. It helped them have more energy, feel less hungry and they were able to work longer hours. Nowadays, it is used as a surface anesthetic, but most people started taking it just for pleasure. The problem is that this drug is highly addictive and if a person begins to use it, he/she can never stop. Cocaine was created to help doctors in medicine and became one of the greatest disasters for the humanity. Surely, no one knew the consequences of inventing such a drug, except for prominent progress in medicine it also brought a lot of harm and disaster. A cocaine addicted person ruins not only his/her life, but also the lives of his/her relatives and close people. Cocaine addiction is considered to be an issue number one all over the world and should be paid close attention to by the society.

Key Data

Cocaine is potent and dangerous. The effects of using cocaine are deterrent: they are insomnia, loss of appetite, high anxiety, nose bleeding, sweating, twitching, hallucinations, vomiting, chest pain, heart attacks, etc. The street price of cocaine varies from 20 to 100 $ per gram, depending on the area and the quality of the product. According to the statistics, 25% of 26-34 years old Americans have used cocaine at least once in their life (Cocaine Statistics). All these people are adults who know that cocaine can be harmful, that it is addictive and almost impossible to give up. All these facts did not prevent them from trying it though. Moreover, 26-34 is the age of starting a family and having a baby for the majority of people. Needless to say, this drug can have irreversible effects on the person’s body and health. Using cocaine causes the birth of sick and disabled children. According to the latest data, every year near 400000 infants are born addicted to cocaine and this number is constantly growing (Cocaine Basics). What is more, babies born from cocaine addicted mothers have low births weights, are born untimely and usually suffer from brain damage.

Also, the research has found that 5000 adults try cocaine for the first time in the USA every day. These numbers surprise and shock the society as it says a lot about complete cachexia of the humanity. Unfortunately, the annual number of new cocaine users is increasing constantly. In 1975 there were 30000 new users of cocaine, then this number grew up to 300000 for 20 years and now we have more than 361000 people who start to take cocaine for the first time every year and become addicted (Cocaine Statistics). It is worth noticing that men use cocaine more often than women: according to the research held in 2008, there were 700000 males who started to use this drug and 500000 new female users of cocaine in the USA (Cocaine Statistics). This could be because men feel the effects of cocaine faster than women; their period of euphoria after taking a drug lasts longer. It is necessary to add that the most frequent cases of death are connected with cocaine. From 30 to 60% of cocaine users combine it with alcohol and it often leads to fatalities (Cocaine Statistics). It happens because the body changes the two substances into coca ethylene. Such a toxic combination stimulates a greater duration of drug effects and it results in more deaths than any other drug combination.

It is worth mentioning that after marijuana and amphetamines, cocaine is supposed to be the most widely available drug at the high school and college campuses in the USA. Moreover, America is considered to be the biggest importer and user of cocaine in the world. This drug is the most addictive of all existed drugs and its frequent users generally require more and more hits to produce the same high.

Cocaine is quite expensive, so sometimes crack is used instead of it. Crack is the powdered cocaine that is dissolved in a mixture of water or baking soda. This combination is boiled until solid substance forms, then it is dried and broken into rocks. They are usually sold as crack cocaine and are used for smoking. Crack is more available, cheaper and makes the more intense effect on a person than the pure cocaine, so the popularity of it has considerably grown for the last decades. When the drug is smoked, the addiction develops more quickly. Over 600000 Americans are currently addicted to crack cocaine and it makes this form of drug one of the most habit-forming within the country (Cocaine Basics).

A personal Critique of the Topic

I strongly support the idea that cocaine is extremely dangerous for our health and starting to use this drug means to ruin not only personal life but also the lives of people who are around you, who love and care about you. I hardly understand people who try this drug and become addicted to it as their goals and expectations remain unclear to me. Surely, they would like to feel constant euphoria, although I do not see the reason of blasting their life and health for one minute of pleasure. Our life is so valuable and interesting that nothing can replace it, especially drugs. To my mind, there are a lot of other ways to forget about routine problems and relax except cocaine.

Conclusion

To sum it up, all data and collected information provide us a clear view of the negative influence of cocaine on the society. This drug was supposed to be useful in medicine and help people, unfortunately, the results were not possible to predict. Nowadays, this issue became of the greatest importance for the humanity. This drug seems to control not only the big percentage of people; it also leads to cachexia of the humanity. If we do nothing now, later the consequences will be irreversible. Undoubtedly, both people and government should not ignore this issue. It is important to remember that cocaine addiction is a problem not only of a particular person but also of the society as a whole.