Surely, when someone hears the word cocaine, all he/she could think of is 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 substance addiction, cocaine addiction can harm lives. It changes anyone, his perspectives, his motives, perception, and behaviors.
Cocaine is a powerful and extremely addictive drug. It is extracted from the leaves of coca bush. Cocaine consists of two primary forms. The first one is the. 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 word for the smokable form of cocaine. Crack is the street name given to the type of cocaine that has been processed into a smokable drug. Smoking crack cocaine propels large quantities of the drug to the lungs, producing an quick and extreme euphoric feeling. The high is usually very intense, but does not last very long. The rocks of crack cocaine are ignited in a crack pipe and the resulting vapors get deeply inhaled.
A person abuses the use of cocaine when he takes in the drug for pleasure purposes and in inappropriate dosage. With repeated use, the person becomes lenient 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 constantly craving for the drug although the negative consequences of cocaine to the person’s body and mind. The physical signs of cocaine abuse can vary, depending on the person. For one, cocaine acts 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 addiction often involves not only habitual cocaine use but also a wide range of dysfunctional behaviors. This can frequently interfere with normal functioning in the family, workplace and community. Cocaine addiction also can place people at greater hazard 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 accompany the lifestyle of an addict and the toxic effects of the cocaine itself.
Medical studies have focused their attention to one drug that could have possibly treat cocaine addiction. The compound GBR 12909 was initially tested as a potential antidepressant. With GBR 12909, the patients’ cocaine-seeking attitudes were gone within a few 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 inhibiting the transporter, both GBR 12909 and cocaine raise the levels of the pleasure-inducing chemical messenger dopamine outside the nerve cells, a process that increases and prolongs dopamine’s pleasurable effects. However, GBR 12909 works more slowly and elevates dopamine levels less than does cocaine. By attaching to the dopamine transporter, GBR 12909 also stops cocaine from binding there. GBR 12909′s chemical beauty 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 has no access to the transporter, so the cocaine can no longer act to induce euphoria. The treatment using GBR 12909 should be prolonged so that 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.
