2. What is cocaine/crack
Crack is simply another form of cocaine which comes from the coco
plant and after creating cocaine all you do is add baking powder or any
wheat base and you have created Crack. Crack has a lower melting
point (90) than cocaine which allows it to be smoked. To make cocaine
it involves 3 steps:
• The leaves are ground up in a laboratory and saturated with
a chemical liquid that removes the Cocaine alkaline crystals.
• This produces a damp grey mud-like paste.
• The chemical liquid must now be dried, and removed from
the cocaine crystals. It will become a dry white powder.
In the hands of poor farmers with no laboratory, dangerous
flammable fuels like deisel and gasoline and ammonia are
used.
3. The reason why you smoke
crack rather snorting cocaine
People smoke crack because getting something into the
lungs is an extremely quick way to get something to enter
your blood stream. When the smoke is inhaled it slips
through the membrane and straight to the brain in about 8
seconds. This is a lot faster than snorted cocaine which
takes around 10 minutes to reach the brain.
4. What encouraged the use of
cocaine
People may say that Hollywood glamorises the use of drugs by
allowing teens to view hard drug use. Many well known movies
have been made which are mostly about drugs for example “The
Wolf of Wall Street, Spring Breakers and Project X. These films
although are absolutely amazing and I highly recommend them,
involve characters doing drugs without any concquences.
5. The initial effects
Initialy the person feels energised, alert and much more aware
of their senses. In the brain crack acts releasing large amounts of
Dopamine which gives you pleasure and happiness. Dopamine
binds to neuron receptors causing pleasure.Dopamine is usually
brought back into the neuron by the transporter but crack
blocks it allowing more pleasure
6. The secondary effects of
cocaine
• Soon after the amazing high the Dopamine levels in the brain
fall causing an extreme low and a feeling of depression which
is why most uses snort/smoke it again in order to reach the
high again. Unfortuantely these Dopamine levels take a long
time to be created causing addiction, restlessness and
paranoia. In some cases crack can lead to something called
Delusional Parasitosis which is a feeling that insects are
crawling under your skin causing you to start to become
irritated causing scratching.
7. Parts of the body affected
The Nose
Mostly users snort cocaine and due to this they might suffer from
nosebleeds and runny nose. In harsh long-term use, cocaine will
corrode the cartilage between the nose and create a hole in the
cartilage that divides the nostrils.
The Heart
The nervous system, which is handled by the discharge of adrenaline,
powerfully affected by the use of cocaine. This system reacts with
cocaine and stimulates the heart rate, and decreases blood flow to the
heart. This can lead to a heart attack.
