Cocaine

Cocaine is a stimulant drug which means that it speeds up the messages travelling between the brain and the rest of the body. Cocaine comes from the leaves of the coca bush (Erythroxylum coca), which is native to South America.

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Cocaine Variants

The leaf extract is processed to produce 3 different forms of cocaine.

Cocaine hydrochloride: a white, crystalline powder with a bitter, numbing taste. Cocaine hydrochloride is often mixed, or ‘cut’, with other substances such as lactose and glucose, to dilute it before being sold.

Freebase: a white powder that is more pure with less impurity than cocaine hydrochloride.

Crack: crystals ranging in color from white or cream to transparent with a pink or yellow hue, it may contain impurities.

Common Names

  • C
  • Coke
  • Nose Candy
  • Snow
  • Charlie
  • Blow
  • White
  • Flake

How is it used?

Cocaine hydrochloride is most commonly snorted. It can also be injected, rubbed into the gums, added to drinks or food. Freebase and crack cocaine are usually smoked. Indigenous people of South America have traditionally chewed the leaves of the coca bush, or brewed them as a tea, for use as a stimulant or appetite suppressant.

Cocaine Overdose

Dangerous Signs

If you take a large amount, you could overdose. If you have any of the symptoms below, call an ambulance straight away by dialing 999 or 112:

  • Nausea and vomiting
  • Extreme anxiety
  • Chest pain
  • Panic
  • Extreme agitation and paranoia
  • Hallucinations
  • Tremors
  • Breathing irregularities
  • Kidney failure
  • Seizures
  • Stroke
  • Heart problems

Coming Down

In the days after cocaine use, you may feel:

  • Tension and anxiety
  • Depression
  • Mood swings
  • Total exhaustion

But Coke will sober me up

It’s a myth that cocaine sobers you up. Your brain is still switching off from the effects of the alcohol, but your physiology is being pumped because cocaine is a sympathomimetic. It stimulates that fight or flight response. In evolutionary terms, if a lion comes towards you, your body pumps itself up and gets ready to fight or run away. That’s what the cocaine is doing!

Side Effects of
Cocaine

There is no safe level of drug use. Use of any drug always carries risk.

The effects of taking Cocaine with other drugs including over-the-counter or prescribed medications can be unpredictable and dangerous.

Cocaine affects everyone differently, based on:

  • A person’s size, weight and health
  • Whether the person is used to taking it
  • Whether other drugs are taken around the same time
  • The amount taken

The strength of the drug varies from batch to batch. You may experience:

  • Happiness and confidence
  • Talking more
  • Feeling energetic and alert
  • Quiet contemplation and rapture
  • Feeling physically strong and mentally sharp
  • Reduced appetite
  • Dry mouth
  • Enlarged (dilated) pupils
  • Higher blood pressure and faster heartbeat and breathing (after initial slowing)
Higher body temperature Unpredictable, violent or aggressive behavior Indifference to pain / Increased sex drive

Long-term effects:

Regular use of cocaine may eventually cause:
  • Insomnia and exhaustion
  • Depression
  • Anxiety, paranoia and psychosis
  • Sexual dysfunction
  • Hypertension and irregular heartbeat
  • Heart disease and death
  • Snorting cocaine regularly can also cause:
  • Runny nose and nose bleeds
  • Nose infection
  • A hole in the tissue separating the nostrils
  • Long term damage to the nasal cavity and sinuses
High doses and frequent heavy use can also cause ‘cocaine psychosis’, characterised by paranoid delusions, hallucinations and out of character aggressive behavior. These symptoms usually disappear a few days after the person stops using cocaine.
Injecting cocaine and sharing needles may also cause:
  • Increased likelihood of overdose
  • Tetanus
  • Hepatitis B
  • Hepatitis C
  • HIV/AIDS

COCAINE + ALCOHOL

Increases heart rate and blood pressure, which further heightens the risk of a heart attack.

Cocaine and alcohol also react within the liver to form a chemical known as Cocaethylene, which has toxic effects on the heart, liver and other organs. This can happen even if cocaine and alcohol are used separately on consecutive days.

COCAINE + HEROIN

Sometimes known as a “Speedball”.

Heroin and cocaine have opposing effects on the central nervous system –heroin depresses it and cocaine stimulates it. Both heroin and cocaine can cause breathing difficulties and the use of them together can adversely affect a person’s heart rate.

COCAINE + MDMA

Increases heart rate and body temperature.

COCAINE + ANTIDEPRESSANTS

Increases the risk of “serotonin syndrome” — a condition when the brain is overloaded with serotonin. This can lead to excessive sweating, tremors, increased heartbeat and could also lead to seizures, shaking and shivering and death.

Mixing Cocaine with other Drugs