Cocaine Substance Abuse Case Summary

After the first few weeks of being addicted, the original dosage no longer helps. The desire for a stronger pill or more medication causes patients to crush their pills and snort it. This allows for the oxycodone to enter the bodies system rapidly. Ultimately, snorting the crushed pills result in overdose, which creates the high feeling for the user. After snorting the crushed oxycodone, the next step the users in the study took was injecting the crushed pills into their bodies.

When tobacco smoke is inhaled, it takes only a matter of seconds for it to circulate through the bloodstream and into the brain, a part of the central nervous system (CNS). The drug stimulates the release of several pleasure-inflicting neurotransmitters; hence the reasoning behind why smokers find it so hard to quit. The effects of nicotine wear off within a few minutes, causing some long-term smokers to use up to several packs of cigarettes per day. The bare few minutes of stress-free pleasure makes the brain want more and more until they begin to show withdrawal effects without a daily (or hourly)

In most cases in life this tolerance is a good thing, but when it comes to using drugs in order to get high it can be very deadly. As the human body becomes more tolerant, it becomes tougher to get high so the user must use more of the drug to obtain the same high. This is the key reason crack cocaine is more dangerous than powder cocaine. This severe addiction added with the increasing use of the drug makes this one of the deadliest

Methamphetamine and cocaine are both in the same category of drugs known as stimulants. Meth is completely man-made and is manufactured using common household and industrial ingredients such as over-the-counter cold/allergy medicines, drain cleaner, battery acid, gun cleaner, gasoline additives, muriatic acid, ammonia, lye, acetone and litter. Cocaine on the other hand is naturally occurring and is harvested from the leaves of the cocoa plant. While they are two entirely different drugs, both meth and cocaine have risks associated with their use, and have very high rates of dependence, abuse, and addiction. However, there are very distinct differences between cocaine and meth, in terms of how these drugs affect the individual both physically and psychologically.

The War on Drugs also contributed massively to high incarceration rates. New York, who has mostly ended their War on Drugs, have seen incarceration numbers plummet. In Oklahoma however, drug offenders share about 30 percent of their prison population. Ending the War on Drugs will not end mass incarceration alone. The federal government and a handful of states have successfully reduced their incarcerated populations by reforming their drug policies, and these can also work with other policies as

Reagan started his own war on drugs during his presidency. During the years of his presidency, cocaine especially crack cocaine became an epidemic. Crack cocaine differs from regular cocaine because it is cheaper and because it is mostly purchased in crystallized form. Crack cocaine was found in more urban communities, while powdered cocaine was found iron suburban areas. Matthew D. Lassiter explains this throughout his book Impossible Criminals:

This was the commencement of the war on drugs, this war has lasted to this day and has been a failure. On average 26 million people use opioids. The U.S. leads all nations in opioid usage. Another 8 million use cocaine in the U.S. this number is 3rd overall across all nations. These statistics have lead me and many others to believe the war on drugs is anything besides a success.

Drug use also increased, replacing alcohol. In addition to that, the desire to increase workers’ productivity failed and instead of reducing the consumption of alcohol, which succeeded in the early 1920’s, people actually started to consume more alcohol towards the end of the Prohibition. This excess consumption of alcohol lead to alcoholic poisoning, one side effect of the Prohibition. Since bootleg alcohol was carelessly made, its quality was never pure and often contained creosote, lead toxins and even embalming fluid. This caused paralysis, blindness and painful death to consumers, who were then forced to turn to drugs and other dangerous substances to avoid such

Underlying Causes: The increase in the sale of opioids is considered to be the root of the opioid crisis, as the drugs have been proven to be highly addictive. An addiction to prescriptive opioids, however, can lead to an addiction to synthetic, illegal opioids, such as heroine or fentanyl, which are less expensive and easier to acquire. In fact, in their journal article, “Associations of nonmedical pain reliever use and initiation of heroin use in the United States” Pradip Muhuri and associates discovered that “the recent (12 months preceding interview) heroin incidence rate was 19 times higher among those who reported prior nonmedical prescription pain reliever (NMPR) use than among those who did not (0.39 vs. 0.02 percent)” (Muhuri et. al). In other words, abusing prescription opioids significantly raises the chances of abusing illicit drugs, such as heroin.

Many reports have been issued based on the evidence regarding the devastating health affecs of smoking and the expose of second hand smoke. Unfortunatly, cigarette smoking has reportedly caused about 480,000 deaths anually in the United States with an account of 41,000 deaths due to second hand smoking. It is indicated that America has the greatest heath issues from smoking. Neverless, it has been declining due to the rise on taxes and the promotions to cut down tabacco use advetisement. Smoking can be very addictive but there are many ways to help stop that I’ll get to soon.