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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Complete Educational Resources
Cocaine is a Drug
THE WORD COCAINE REFERS TO THE DRUG IN A WHITE POWDER OR CRYSTAL FORM.
In its crystal form, it is called crack cocaine. (See Crack Cocaine, What You Need To Know in this series of booklets.) The powder is usually mixed with substances such as corn starch, talcum powder, sugar or other drugs, such as procaine (a local anesthetic) or amphetamine.
What is Cocaine?
Extracted from coca leaves, cocaine was originally developed as a painkiller. It is most often sniffed, with the powder absorbed into the bloodstream through the nasal tissues. It can also be ingested or rubbed into the gums.
To more rapidly absorb the drug into the body, users inject it, but this substantially increases the risk of overdose. Inhaling it as smoke or vapor speeds absorption with less health risk than injection.
A DEADLY WHITE POWDER
Cocaine is one of the most dangerous drugs because once a person begins taking it, it is almost impossible to become free of its grip physically and mentally. Physically, it stimulates key receptors (nerve endings that sense changes in the body) within the brain that, in turn, create a euphoria to which users quickly develop a tolerance. Only higher dosages and more frequent use can bring about the same effect.
Today, cocaine is a worldwide, multibillion-dollar enterprise. Users encompass all ages, occupations and economic levels, even schoolchildren as young as eight years old.
Cocaine use can lead to death from respiratory (breathing) failure, stroke, cerebral hemorrhage (bleeding in the brain) or heart attack. Children of cocaine-addicted mothers come into the world as addicts themselves. Many suffer birth defects and a lot of other problems.
Despite its dangers, cocaine use continues to increase—likely because users find it so difficult to stop.
How It Is Used
Snorted
White powder snorted into nasal tissues
Injected
Dissolved in water and injected into veins
Smoked
Enters bloodstream through the lungs
THE COCAINE THAT YOU SEE IN THE MOVIES is a white powder that is snorted into the nasal tissues or dissolved in water and injected into the veins.
Injecting the drug is the most dangerous because the cocaine molecules are delivered to the brain more quickly and are in more concentrated form than when it is snorted.
These 3 methods of getting cocaine into the bloodstream are dangerous and lead to addiction. Each method varies in how long the high lasts. The faster cocaine is absorbed into the bloodstream and delivered to the brain, the more impact a user gets from the drug.
Usage Patterns
Often a person uses cocaine for one to three days, becomes exhausted from the drug's stimulating effects and then takes a break from its regular use for the same amount of time or longer.
However, if you track with the thinking of the cocaine or crack cocaine user after he has been on one of these cocaine "runs," you will see that he is compulsively thinking about the ways he can ensure he will have plenty of this drug in the future.
Many cocaine addicts will admit they became emotionally addicted to the drug after their first euphoric high.
International Statistics
#2
Most Trafficked Illegal Drug
in the World
COCAINE IS THE SECOND-MOST TRAFFICKED ILLEGAL DRUG IN THE WORLD.
The most recent statistics show that international seizures of cocaine have continued to increase and now total seven hundred and fifty six metric tons, with the largest quantities intercepted in South America, followed by North America.
Europe
- • Cocaine is the second-most commonly used illegal drug in Europe
- • Among young people (15-34 years): 7.5 million have used cocaine at least once
- • 3.5 million used it in the last year
- • 1.5 million used it in the past month
- • Roughly half of European dance club patrons have been high on cocaine
United States
- • Most frequently mentioned illegal drug in hospital emergency departments
- • About 500,000 people per year arrive at emergency rooms for cocaine abuse problems
- • Continues to be reported to Drug Abuse Warning Network
Identifying Cocaine Use
POWDERED COCAINE IS A FINE, WHITE POWDER THAT NUMBS THE TONGUE IF IT IS TASTED.
Cocaine may be sold in very small plastic bags or vials. Tightly rolled dollar bills have been used for snorting coke into the nose.
Physical Signs
Dilated Pupils
Eyes sensitive to light
Runny Nose
From snorting
Fast Heart Rate
Increased cardiovascular activity
Burned Lips/Fingers
From smoking
Behavioral Signs
Additional Warning Signs
• Heart Attacks
• Nosebleeds (snorting)
• Depression
• Track Marks (injecting)
• Apathy
• Long Periods of Sleep
• Enlarged Heart
• Constricted Blood Vessels
• Cardiac Arrest
• Agitation
• Need for Higher Doses
• Intense Cravings
A cocaine user may also dissolve and inject the drug, in which case you might find needle marks on arms, legs, hands, feet or neck, as well as discarded syringes left around the place cocaine is used.
Cocaine Street Names
Of the dozens of street terms for cocaine in use today, the most common are these:
Aunt Nora
Bernice
Binge
Blow
C
Charlie
Coke
Dust
Flake
Mojo
Nose Candy
Paradise
Sneeze
Sniff
Snow
Toot
White
Common Drug Combinations
Cocaine and Marijuana:
Banano, Blunt, Primos, Bazooka, P-Dogs, 51, Sherman Stick, Tio, Splitting, Woo-Woo, Woo Blunt, Woolies, Woolas
Cocaine and Heroin:
Speedball, Belushi, Boy-Girl, H & C, Murder One, One and One, Smoking Gun, Snowball, Whiz Bang
Cocaine and Meth:
Shabu, Snow Seals
Cocaine and Ecstasy:
Bumping Up
Effects of Cocaine
COCAINE CAUSES A SHORT-LIVED, INTENSE HIGH THAT IS IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWED BY THE OPPOSITE—intense depression, edginess and a craving for more of the drug.
People who use it often don't eat or sleep properly. They can experience greatly increased heart rate, muscle spasms and convulsions. The drug can make people feel paranoid, angry, hostile and anxious even when they aren't high.
Short-term Effects
Long-term Effects
Regardless of how much of the drug is used or how frequently, cocaine increases the risk that the user will experience a heart attack, stroke, seizure or respiratory (breathing) failure, any of which can result in sudden death.
The phrase "dope fiend" was typically used 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 high.
As cocaine interferes with the way the brain processes chemicals, a person needs more and more just to feel normal. People who become addicted to cocaine (as with most other drugs) lose interest in other areas of life.
Coming down from the drug causes depression so severe that a person will do almost anything to get the drug—even commit murder. And if he can't get cocaine, the depression can get so intense it can drive the addict to suicide.
Health Risks
Brain Damage
A cocaine user is far more likely to suffer brain damage, although he will probably not know about the effects until the damage becomes severe. Until that time changes in the brain can be silent—in other words, not show symptoms while the problem advances.
Scans of the brains of cocaine users compared with the brains of nonusers show that arteries and veins in the brain become narrow after cocaine use. This is because of the well-known vascular (blood vessels) constriction associated with cocaine. It may only take a small amount of the drug to cause this change in occasional users.
Risk of Heart Attack
The use of cocaine can have serious effects on the user's heart, all the way up to and including cardiac arrest. Unfortunately this news is seldom broadcast to cocaine users, so they don't know what they are getting into when they use the drug.
Because of severe stresses placed on the heart and arteries, heart symptoms can show up even on the first use of the drug or as a result of infrequent use. Of course, chronic or heavy users stress their cardiovascular systems much more severely.
Cardiac Arrest Causes
• A cocaine-induced heart attack can be severe enough to kill
• A heart can be driven into a frantic fast rate of beating that won't stop until death occurs
• A thickened, less flexible heart (cardiomyopathy) can begin to beat irregularly or simply go into arrest
The most important thing a cocaine user should realize is the strain he is placing on his own body and the risk of sudden death. The risk exists for any cocaine user, with any amount of the drug, at any time, because there is no way of knowing who will develop serious symptoms and who will not.
Cocaine: A Short History
COCA IS ONE OF THE OLDEST, MOST POTENT AND MOST DANGEROUS STIMULANTS OF NATURAL ORIGIN.
3000 BC - Ancient Incas
Three thousand years before the birth of Christ, ancient Incas in the Andes mountains of South America chewed coca leaves to get their hearts racing and to speed their breathing to counter the effects of living in thin mountain air.
1532 - Spanish Invasion
Native Peruvians chewed coca leaves only during religious ceremonies. This taboo was broken when Spanish soldiers invaded Peru in 1532. Indian laborers in Spanish silver mines were kept supplied with coca leaves because it made them easier to control and exploit.
1859 - First Extraction
In 1859, cocaine was first extracted from coca leaves by German chemist Albert Niemann. It was not until the 1880s that it started to be popularized in the medical community.
1884 - Freud's Promotion
Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who used the drug himself, was the first to broadly promote cocaine as a tonic to cure depression and sexual impotence. In 1884, he published an article entitled "Über Coca" (About Coke) which promoted the benefits of cocaine, calling it a "magical substance."
Freud kept promoting cocaine to his close friends, one of whom ended up suffering from paranoid hallucinations with white snakes creeping over his skin. One of Freud's patients died from a high dosage he prescribed.
1886 - Coca-Cola
In 1886, the popularity of the drug got a further boost when John Pemberton included coca leaves as an ingredient in his new soft drink, Coca-Cola. The euphoric and energizing effects on the consumer helped to skyrocket the popularity of Coca-Cola by the turn of the century.
1850s-1900s - Widespread Use
From the 1850s to the early 1900s, cocaine and opium-laced elixirs, tonics and wines were broadly used by people of all social classes. Notable figures who promoted the miraculous effects of cocaine tonics included inventor Thomas Edison and actress Sarah Bernhardt.
1903-1922 - Growing Awareness
Public pressure forced the Coca-Cola company to remove the cocaine from the soft drink in 1903. By 1905, it had become popular to snort cocaine and within five years hospitals started reporting cases of nasal damage. In 1912, the US Government reported 5,000 cocaine-related deaths in one year and by 1922, the drug was officially banned.
1970s - Resurgence
In the 1970s, cocaine emerged as the fashionable new drug for entertainers and businesspeople. At some American universities the percentage of students who experimented with cocaine increased tenfold between 1970 and 1980.
1980s-1990s - Drug War Era
In the late 1970s, Colombian drug traffickers began setting up an elaborate network for smuggling cocaine into the US. By the late 1980s, cocaine was no longer thought of as the drug of choice for the wealthy. By then it had the reputation of America's most dangerous and addictive drug, linked with poverty, crime and death.
2008 - Present
As of 2008, cocaine had become the second-most-trafficked illegal drug in the world. In the early 1990s, Colombian drug cartels produced and exported 500-800 tons of cocaine a year. The large cartels were dismantled by law-enforcement agencies in the mid-1990s but were replaced by smaller groups—with more than 300 known active drug-smuggling organizations in Colombia today.
What Are Drugs
DRUGS ARE ESSENTIALLY POISONS.
The amount taken determines the effect.
Small Amount
Acts as a stimulant (speeds you up)
Greater Amount
Acts as a sedative (slows you down)
Even Larger Amount
Poisons and can kill
This is true of any drug. Only the amount needed to achieve the effect differs.
But many drugs have another liability: they directly affect the mind. They can distort the user's perception of what is happening around him. As a result, the person's actions may be odd, irrational, inappropriate and even destructive.
Drugs also block off all sensations, the desirable ones along with the unwanted. So while providing short-term relief from pain, they also wipe out ability and alertness and muddy a person's thinking.
About Medicines
Medicines are drugs that are intended to make your body work better by speeding up, slowing down or changing something about the way the body works. Sometimes they are necessary. But medicines are still drugs: they act as stimulants or sedatives and too much can kill you. If medicines are abused, they can be as dangerous as illegal drugs.
About Narconon
NARCONON (MEANING "NO NARCOTICS") drug- and alcohol-rehabilitation program is open to all who desire to end their addictions and lead productive, drug-free lives.
The Narconon program not only addresses the debilitating effects of drug abuse on the mind and body, but also helps resolve why a person turned to drugs in the first place. As a result, tens of thousands have graduated from the Narconon Program to new lives free from drug use.
Beyond drug rehabilitation, Narconon's drug-prevention staff have educated millions of school children. Narconon has more than fifty years of drug-education experience with demonstrated effectiveness in keeping young people off drugs.
Glossary of Terms
Abscess
An area on the skin or in the body that is swollen and full of pus (thick yellow liquid that forms in infected tissue).
Andes
A large mountain system extending north and south about 4,500 miles in western South America.
Auditory
Of or relating to the sense of hearing.
Cardiac arrest
A complete failure of the heart to pump blood, resulting in a loss of consciousness, an absence of pulse and breathing.
Cardiovascular
Relating to both the heart and the blood vessels.
Cartel
A criminal organization that supplies drug distribution and dealing operations.
Compulsively
In a way that is caused by an impulse that cannot be resisted or controlled, even when it is contrary to one's own will.
Convulsion
Uncontrollable violent shaking of the body or part of the body.
Debilitating
Making someone physically or mentally weak.
Delirium
A state of extreme mental restlessness, confused speech and altered perceptions.
Dilated
With the pupil widened or expanded so that more light is admitted into the eye.
Elusive
Difficult to achieve.
Enterprise
Any systematic purposeful activity or type of activity, especially one that is undertaken with an economic or commercial end in view.
Euphoria
A feeling of great happiness and well-being.
Euphoric
Characterized by euphoria (a feeling of great happiness and well-being).
Fiend
Someone who is completely obsessed with a particular thing or idea.
Infertility
The condition of not being able to have children.
Invulnerability, strong sense of
A feeling that one is in a state of being incapable of being damaged, hurt or affected by anything.
Kidney
One of two organs in the lower back that separate waste products from the blood and make urine. The kidneys also produce several types of chemical substances in the body, including one that helps balance salt and potassium levels.
Malnutrition
A lack of healthy foods in the diet or an excessive intake of unhealthy foods, leading to physical harm.
Muddy up
Make something confusing or less clear, figuratively as if stirring mud in water and making it less clear.
Painkiller
A drug that relieves pain. Mild painkillers like aspirin do not require a prescription, but stronger painkillers like morphine are only prescribed by doctors. Nonprescription use is illegal.
Paranoid
Irrationally and obsessively believing that other people cannot be trusted and want to cause harm.
Potion
A liquid to be drunk that is supposedly medicinal, magical, poisonous, etc.
Psychological
Of the mind, mental.
Psychosis
A severe form of mental illness in which someone cannot handle himself or his environment well enough to survive and must be cared for to protect others from him or to protect him from himself.
Rational
Thinking in a sensible, reasonable way.
Sedative
A drug used to cause sleepiness and temporarily relieve pain and nervousness or agitation.
Seizure
A sudden attack or spasm consisting of violent movement, convulsive jerking of a muscle, group of muscles or other parts of the body.
Stimulant
Any substance that temporarily increases the activity of some vital process or of some organ.
Stroke
A blockage or bursting of a blood vessel leading to the brain that causes an inadequate supply of oxygen and depending on the severity, can cause such symptoms as weakness, paralysis of parts of the body, speech difficulties, etc.
Taboo
Something prohibited or forbidden by tradition or convention.
Tactile
Of or related to the sense of touch.
Tonic
A medicine taken to give a feeling of energy or well-being.
Wipe out
Remove or eliminate something completely.
Withdrawal symptoms
Unpleasant physical and mental reactions that someone with an addiction experiences when he stops using drugs.
Discover more educational articles about coacaine
The Cocaine Crash: What Happens After the High
Cocaine and Anxiety: A Vicious Cycle
Cocaine and Confidence: Why It’s a Trap
❓ FAQ – Cocaine Education
What are the real effects of cocaine on the body and mind?
Cocaine speeds up the nervous system, leading to short-term energy but long-term damage to the heart, brain, and emotional stability.
Can a person become addicted after just a few uses?
Yes. Cocaine can create psychological and physical dependence very quickly—even with casual or party use.
Is it true that cocaine makes you more productive or focused?
That’s a myth. While it may create a short-lived boost, it disrupts sleep, judgment, and motivation in the long run.
How can I talk to someone who may be using cocaine?
Start with calm, non-judgmental questions. Share real facts. And always offer help—not blame.