Addiction project. Cocaine. Interview with ex cocaine addict included!!!

Essay by ZlobnicaHigh School, 12th grade July 2004

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What is addiction?

Addiction: 1. drug dependence: a state of physiological or psychological dependence on a drug liable to have a damaging effect 2. devotion: great interest in something to which a lot of time is devoted

If you cannot "live" without any kind of mind altering substances , for an absolute minimum of one year, then you are a mind altering substance addict! No exceptions!! And excuses like "Oh, I am not an addict, I just like to .... Because it helps me.... Or makes me feel better, etc." are simply baloney!

What is cocaine?

"Cocaine is an alkaloid found in leaves of the South American shrub Erythroxylon coca. It is a powerfully reinforcing psychostimulant. The drug induces a sense of exhilaration in the user primarily by blocking the reuptake of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the midbrain."

In pre-Columbian times, the coca leaf was officially reserved for Inca royalty.

The natives used coca for mystical, religious, social, nutritional and medicinal purposes.

Coca was initially banned by the Spanish.

Crack-cocaine delivers an intensity of pleasure completely outside the normal range of human experience. It offers the most wonderful state of consciousness, and the most intense sense of being alive, the user will ever enjoy. (S)he will access heightened states of being whose modes are unknown to chemically-naïve contemporaries. Groping for adequate words, crack-takers sometimes speak of the rush in terms of a "whole-body orgasm".

Cocaine is made of the leaves of the coca plant. Coca plant is originally coming from South America. During 2000, the majority (approximately 75%) of the coca was grown in Colombia, then Peru and then Bolivia.

Cocaine is a powerfully addictive drug of abuse. . "Crack" is the street name given to cocaine. Once having tried cocaine, an individual cannot predict or control the...