Cocaine Abuse

The word cocaine is seen as synonymous to the word addiction. Cocaine seems to connote a negative idea and even more, a negative emotion towards people. Indeed, it is a substance known to be easily abused and thus, users eventually become addicted to it and the cycle goes on and on. Like any other drugs, cocaine addiction destroys one’s life. It changes the individual in many ways, his perspectives, his motives, perception, and behaviors.

The substance cocaine is a very potent substance. It is extracted from the leaves of coca bush. Cocaine consists of two primary forms. One is the powdery type. It is used for snorting up the nose. The second is freebase, better known as crack cocaine, used for smoking. A small percentage of cocaine addiction is done intravenously. When cocaine is snorted, the cocaine powder gets inhaled up into the nose where it is readily absorbed into the bloodstream. Once cocaine reaches the brain, dopamine gets released, stimulating pleasurable feelings. Crack cocaine, known as crack, is the term for the smokable form of cocaine. Crack is the street name given to the form of cocaine that has been processed into a smokable drug. Smoking crack cocaine sends large quantities of the drug to the lungs, giving you an immediate and powerful euphoric feeling. The rush is usually very intense, but does not last very long. The rocks of crack cocaine are ignited in a crack pipe and the ensuing vapors get deeply inhaled.

Dosage for pleasure reasons crates an individual who will sooner or later turned into a cocaine addict. With frequent use, the individual becomes tolerant with the drug and then becomes dependent with it. The person seemed to be yearning for the drug every now and then. Cocaine addiction is characterized as regularly craving for the drug in spite of the negative costs of cocaine to the person’s body and mind. The physical signs of cocaine abuse can vary, depending on the person. For one, cocaine works as an appetite suppressant so cocaine abusers often aren’t hungry and end up losing considerable amounts of weight.

With cocaine addiction, the person’s life becomes controlled by the drug. Cocaine addicts are normally not interested with ordinary activities because they only focus on obtaining and taking the drug. Thus, people around these addicts are affected because they act together every day. Cocaine dependence often involves not only compulsive cocaine use but also a wide range of dysfunctional behaviors. This can often interfere with normal functioning in the family, workplace and community. Cocaine addiction also can put people at higher risk for a wide variety of other illnesses. These illnesses can be brought on by the addiction type behaviorswhich includes poor living and health habits that often come with the lifestyle of an addict and the toxic effects of the cocaine itself.

Experts in the field of medicine is focusing their time on the certain drug that can cure cocaine addiction. The compound GBR 12909 was initially tested as a potential antidepressant. With GBR 12909, the patients’ cocaine-seeking behaviors were eliminated within two hours without affecting food-seeking behavior. Studies have shown that both GBR 12909 and cocaine slow down the action of a protein called the dopamine transporter. By slowing down the transporter, both GBR 12909 and cocaine raise the levels of the pleasure-inducing chemical messenger dopamine outside the nerve cells, a procedure that increases and prolongs dopamine’s pleasurable effects. However, GBR 12909 acts more gradually and elevates dopamine levels less than does cocaine. By attaching to the dopamine transporter, GBR 12909 also blocks cocaine from binding there. GBR 12909′s chemical attractiveness for the transporter is 500 times that of cocaine, so it binds to the transporter and stays there for a long time. While it’s sitting on the transporter, cocaine cannot enter to the transporter, so the cocaine can no longer act to bring on euphoria. The therapy using GBR 12909 should be extended in order for the medication to have time to transport the dopamine transporter levels back to where they were before the patient started taking cocaine. The breakthrough in the discovery of GBR 12909 could be a gateway to help cocaine addiction victims in dealing with the problem they are so afraid to face.

When you find yourself or anyone in the condition of cocaine dependency, get medical help fast.