The Effects Of Cocaine

More than forty million Americans have tried the drug cocaine, it is the drug of choice not only by those in the inner city, but it is also the drug of choice in the middle, and upper classes (“Cocaine: History Between the Lines”). Other names commonly used for cocaine are crack (the crystal form of cocaine), coke, blow, rock, and snow (“Drug Abuse”). The drug cocaine is derived form the coca leaf which is grown in South America. Cocaine is manufactured in Columbia and brought into the United States through the Mexican borader (Drug Enforcement Administration). The type of drugs that cocaine is categorized with are stimulants. This drug is used by being snorted in the powder form, injected into the skin by a needle when diluted in water, and

Cocaine can be used as a local anesthetic for some eye, ear, and throat surgeries (“Drug Abuse”). The immediate medical bodily effects are increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, insomnia, and loss of appetite. It can cause sudden cardiac arrest, convulsions, strokes, and even death (Drug Enforcement Administration). In a study lead by researcher David Nutt, scientists calculated the variables surrounding the harm a drug causes to the individual, and the harm that a drug causes to society. The calculated individual harm of cocaine is twenty and for crack the harm is thirty-eight out of a one hundred scales. The social harm of cocaine is thirty-five and the social harm of crack is fifty-five on a one hundred scale (Lopez, 2015, 2). The risk of cocaine in the rock form has a higher harm factor because of the bigger risk of mental impairment that is causes (Lopez, 2015, 4). Both forms of the drug are ranked considerably high on the scale of the most dangerous drugs, and it is assumed that if these drugs were legal the harm would be

The theory is based off of the model of reward and punishment (“Theories of Drug Use”). This is the idea that the rewards or punishments that we have received for certain actions will determine our future actions. The rewards and punishments that you receive have to do with the people around you approving of your behavior as well as the perceived positive effects on your body (“Theories of Drug Use”). This means that while interacting with social groups we begin to learn what is good behavior verses bad behavior (“Theories of Drug Use”). This means that use and abuse of drugs, including cocaine, happen in a social group where the use of drugs is rewarded as a positive activity, and it is not defined as bad behavior by the group. The mixture of the drug rewarding your brain by releasing dopamine, known as the happy hormone, and the social climate that a user is in, where the behavior of taking drugs is seen as positive, creates greater chances for abuse and addiction (“Theories of Drug Use”). As cocaine is often used as a party drug, and in other social climates, it is easy to see that there are groups in which cocaine use is accepted and