Why is Cocaine so Addictive?

Of all drugs, cocaine creates the greatest psychological dependence. It stimulates key pleasure centers within the brain and causes extremely heightened euphoria. However, an individual quickly develops a tolerance to the drug, requiring higher dosages and more frequent use in order to get the same effect. Cocaine cravings can be so strong that just the memory of the euphoria associated with use of the drug can trigger the desire to use it again, even after long periods of abstinence.

Deadly combinations of drugs.

Cocaine is sometimes taken with other drugs, including tranquilizers, amphetamines, marijuana and heroin. Such combinations greatly magnify the danger of using cocaine. In addition to the likelihood of developing a two-drug habit, one can easily create a mixture of narcotics that proves fatal.

Hashish: A dangerous road toward cocaine addiction

A hashish or marijuana user is ten times more likely to become a cocaine or heroin addict than a cigarette smoker is to develop lung cancer.

“I had no more future. I did not see how I could escape my cocaine dependence. I was lost. I was ‘exploding’ and unable to stop myself from continuing to seriously abuse cocaine. I had hallucinations that animals were crawling under my skin. I felt them each time that I shot up and scraped myself with the point of my syringe until I started bleeding in order to make them leave. I was once bleeding so heavily from this I ended up in the hospital.”

What are the sort-term effects of cocaine? All drugs are poisons. The amount you take determines how a drug will effect you. A small amount can make you feel euphoric, energetic, talkative and mentally alert. Larger doses put you to sleep. An even larger dose can kill you. This is true of cocaine or any drug.

Initially, a cocaine high may last from 15 to 30 minutes, but as one’s tolerance to the drug increases, the high may last only 5 to 10 minutes, requiring increasingly larger and larger amounts of the drug to get the same effect.

Quantities of several hundred milligrams or more intensify the user’s high, but lead to bizarre, erratic and violent behavior. A person on the drug can experience tremors, dizziness, muscle twitches and paranoia. The drug can react on the heart, resulting in heart attack, seizures and failure in breathing.

What are the long-term effects of cocaine?

The phrase “dope fiend” was originally coined many years ago to describe the negative side-effects of constant cocaine use. As tolerance to the drug increases, it becomes necessary to take greater and greater quantities to get the same effects. Prolonged daily use causes sleep deprivation and loss of appetite. A person can become psychotic and begin to experience hallucinations.

Coming down from the drug causes severe depression, a state that becomes deeper and deeper with each repeated use of the drug. In this condition, a person will do almost anything to get it, including commit murder. And if one cannot get cocaine, the depression can deepen to such a degree that he or she becomes suicidal.

“Don’t touch cocaine. I spent two years in jail because I took this drug. And when I got out, life was so hard I started taking the drug again. I know ten girls who became prostitutes because of coke. It’s much more extreme and degrading than we believe. At the time we take it, we don’t realize to what degree it is destroying us.”

The effects of cocaine and crack

Physiological Effects

• increased heart rate and breathing
• increased blood pressure
• heart palpitations
• weight loss, loss of appetite
• uncontrollable tremors
• insomnia
• rapid breathing
• muscle twitches
• fever
• pale, sickly complexion
• impotence
• dilated pupils
• cold sweats
• fatigue
• constipation
• headaches
• blurred vision
• seizures
• nasal congestion

Changes in Personality/Behavior

• lying
• stealing
• loss of ambition
• short temper
• irresponsibility
• inability to hold a job
• depression
• feeling confused
• prone to accidents
• hallucinations
• anxiety
• paranoia
• fits of panic
• poor concentration
• loss of interest in sex
• dulled emotions
• suicidal tendencies

Read The Truth About Cocaine Booklet

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