Drug of the Week: Cocaine

Even though cocaine is not an extremely popular drug in this area, we felt like we would highlight a few basic points in case anyone was to ever run across it.

Cocaine is a local anesthetic, which means it can numb certain areas of the body. If you have ever noticed police officers on television putting an unknown drug in their mouth, this is what they are trying to find. They do not actually taste the drug, they are just seeing if it will numb their tongue to decipher whether cocaine is present in the white powder or not.

Since cocaine has this effect, usually drug dealers will use other local anesthetics such as Benzocaine or Lidocaine to “cut in” with cocaine to make more money. They could also use any white powder to dilute the actual drug and spread it out further to sell it to more people. This is something drug users should think about since they could be buying a very weak version for a long time and begin to inject large amounts at once and then switch dealers to someone who makes pure cocaine and then have an overdose.

Cocaine’s effects leave the user after only 30 minutes. Therefore, the user will typically inject or snort more cocaine within the same hour to keep its effects lasting in the body. This can lead to large amounts of the drug remaining in the body at one time (potential for overdose) and can get extremely expensive. (To give you an idea, one gram of cocaine - about the size of a packet of sugar - can range from $20-$100 depending on the dealer.)

According to the material in our Drug Abuse Education course, 50% of cocaine users will become addicted. One half. That means if you and your friend start using cocaine, one of you will become addicted.

Something to think about.