Crack Cocaine Research Paper

Crack cocaine has a shorter high, yet it is at an increased intensity, almost immediately after being smoked unlike cocaine. Crack is also considered a poor man’s drug while cocaine is usually considered to be associated with those of a upper class society.

In the summer of 1985, New York City was introduced to the drug crack. The ensuing seventeen years have culminated into some of the most turbulent, and crime ridden years in the history of New York City. Crack is the street name for a form of cocaine introduced in the mid-1980s. Crack is smoked, rather then sniffed through the nose, or injected, which are all other ways to use cocaine. Users of the drug inhale the vapors that are given off when the crack is heated (Berger pg.20). Crack cannot burn, and in order to give off the drugs vapors it must be heated to a very high temperature. After the crack has been heated the user will proceed to inhale the vapors. The drug will then pass

Cocaine works by temporarily blocking dopamine transporters in the brain, leaving the synaptic cleft built up with excess dopamine, causing the cell to get overstimulated. This effects the reward center of the brain, making the user feel a sensation of positive feelings for a short amount of time, therefore making it highly addictive. Moving onto methamphetamine (meth), in my opinion, by far the worst drug out off all the others in this experiment. Meth is introduced to the body through inhalation or injection, causing the dopamine transporters in the brain to start working in reverse. Due to this, dopamine floods the synapse causing the body to have intense sensations of happiness and pleasure for a short period of time.

Crack cocaine can be consumed by smoking the as much as 90% pure rocks in a glass water pipe. Once the crack fumes hit the lungs, it will only take 8-10 short seconds to meet the brain. The high or “rush” will only last a few minutes ranging from 3-5 minutes and then the crash can last up to 40 minutes.

The short term effects of the crack includes: higher breathing rate, elevated blood pressure, soaring heart rate, compressed blood vessels, lack of appetite, dilated pupils, extreme euphoria for both casual and heavy users. The long term effects are the following: depression, violent, fearful performances, hallucinations, bad temper, psychosis, heart attack/stroke, sterility (for both men and women), brain convulsion, respiratory malfunction and even death for heavy users! Since crack cocaine is exceedingly addictive, addicts can easily build up tolerance and become addicted in a short time by smoking it constantly. There are many ways to take crack cocaine. Users can smoke through a hand pipe or a water pipe, snort, infuse through vein, or they can combine crack with marijuana, heroin etc (University Of Maryland). While taking crack, users face plenty of risks like: coughing, respiratory bleeding, out of breath, paranoia, lung trauma and many more (“Crack cocaine facts”). Dealers shipped crack cocaine from the Bahamas and the Caribbean to Miami, where the dealers would sell it for lower incomes (“A Complete History of Crack Cocaine”). Anyone can be addicted to crack cocaine – from adults to teens. Crack cocaine is most rampant in urban regions but addicts from rural areas can also be seen. Crack is highly addictive because a user trying for the first time becomes addicted to it and he uses it many times throughout the day. A single dosage is inexpensive but a crack

Cocaine is one of the most destructive and addictive drugs in recent history. The use of cocaine and other narcotics often results in incarceration and even death. This is the story of a form of Cocaine called Crack and the results of one's affiliation with this highly addictive substance.

Cocaine is a stimulant drug that can be snorted, injected, or smoked. Cocaine comes from a Coca plant (Hart & Ksir, 2016). It can come from any of the four Erythroxylaceae plants, but it most commonly comes from the Erythroxylon Coca plant (Hart & Ksir, 2016). These plants are commonly grown in South America (Karch, 1998). Cocaine interacts with several neurotransmitters in the brain, such as “Dopamine, Serotonin, Gaba, and Glutamate” (Hart & Ksir, 2016). Upon consumption of the drug it also influences adrenaline reuptake and causes more to be released (Karch, 1998). Cocaine is a popular mainstream drug, it impacts the user positively and negatively, and has known stereotypes associated with it.

If you use crack regularly for a few weeks or months, it is likely that you don’t sleep well, don’t eat healthy food, often feel angry and hostile, experience physical convulsions, as well as episodes where your heartbeat inexplicably speeds up.

Cocaine is extracted from coca leaf. People started using it 3000 years before the birth of Christ. They chewed the leaf when they were on the mountain. Nowadays, cocaine is used as the drug, and it is banned in a lot of countries in the world.

It is widely known that drugs are bad. All drugs, whether it be something as simple as marijuana, or as deadly as methamphetamine, they are all equally dangerous. Each drug has the same dangerous effect on you as the the others. They destroy your brain. An example would be cocaine, what cocaine does is it ends up binding to the dopamine transporters, and so it prevents the removal of the dopamine from our synapses. Then as a result dopamine begins to build up in the synapse, which causes continuing stimulation of the receiving neurons, and is possibly responsible for euphoria described by cocaine

Cocaine is one of the most highly abused drugs in the world. It is extracted from coca leaves, and mixed with other substances such as: corn starch, talcum powder, and/or other drugs, that results in a powder stimulant. While many users snort cocaine, it can also be ingested or rubbed on the gums, generally for its euphoric effects.

When they are smoked or injected intravenously, both amphetamine and cocaine produce an intense, extremely pleasurable “rush” almost immediately, followed by euphoria, and referred to as a “high.” When snorted, they produce the high without the intense rush and the effects can be felt 3-5 minutes after ingestion. In both cases the pleasurable effects begin to disappear before the drug is fully metabolized, prompting some users to take more in order to maintain the high. Amphetamine’s high lasts anywhere from 8 to 24 hours, and 50 percent of the drug is removed from the body in 12 hours. Cocaine’s high lasts anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes, and 50 percent

Multiple brain functions can be altered also. Cocaine affects pathways that respond to stress which can lead to relapse and continual use to numb the stress. Continual use causes desensitization, which makes someone less likely shock or distress at scenes of cruelty, and violence. Cocaine alters the function of the Limbic system which controls the ability to feel pleasure. “Feeling pleasure leads us to repeat behaviors” (Cocaine).

Physical effects are many. There are constricted blood vessels, increased temperature, increased heart rate, and an increased blood flow. Cocaine is a drug that hurts the body instantly after intake. It messes up almost every internal organ, and just slowly corrodes it. There’s also a form of enhanced senses. There are things such as greater alertness, more energy, and increased self-confidence. There’s also a sense of increased power in one’s body. Cocaine produces its high affect by activating the nerve cells in the brain that releases dopamine. The dopamine lasts for a while until the user becomes aware of the high. Dopamine causes a chemical that can be traced to that of pleasure and mental alertness. What happens with the dopamine is that parts of the brain receives bits of it and stores it in the brain in this reservoir type of thing. This is why it’s pretty dangerous to take a heavy dose of cocaine. The effects of cocaine may go away temporarily, but due to that reservoir the affects can come and go at any moment, which can cause some mental deterioration. Obviously, the bigger the dose, the longer the effects of the dopamine. The end result is that after intake, the body of the user starts getting

Crack is the smokable form of cocaine, and can only be taken into the body by smoking it. Smoking crack cocaine introduces it into the system faster than other methods (Zonderman and Shader, 660. To smoke it, the crystalline chips are either put into a glass pipe and smoked, or crushed and smoked in a marijuana joint. The chips change to smoke when heated, which is inhaled, drawn into the lungs, and then diffused rapidly into the bloodstream (Edwards, 77). The little sacs of the lungs are lined with fatty tissue that readily absorbs the fat soluble crack (Mickey, 2). Circulating blood transports the dissolved cocaine to the brain where it has immediate effect (Edwards, 77). Crack reaches the brain within seven seconds (Mickey, 2). The effect, called a rush, is caused by the almost pure cocaine's assault on the brain and central nervous system. The central nervous system responds by involuntary movement of the muscles, increased body temperature, and an overstimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain. The high