Cocaine Hydrochloride is a powerfully addictive stimulant drug made from the leaves of the coca plant native to South America. It produces short-term euphoria, energy, and talkativeness in addition to potentially dangerous physical effects like raising heart rate and blood pressure.
How Is Cocaine Used?
The powdered form of Cocaine Hydrochloride is either inhaled through the nose (snorted), where it is absorbed through the nasal tissue or dissolved in water and injected into the bloodstream.
Crack is a form of this drug that has been processed to make a rock crystal (also called “freebase”) that can be smoked. The crystal is heated to produce vapors that are absorbed into the blood-stream through the lungs. (The term “crack” refers to the crackling sound produced by the rock as it is heated.)
The intensity and duration of cocaine’s pleasurable effects depend on the way it is administered. Injecting or smoking cocaine delivers the drug rapidly into the bloodstream and brain, producing a quicker and stronger but shorter-lasting high than snorting. The high from snorting coke may last 15 to 30 minutes; the high from smoking may last 5 to 10 minutes.
In order to sustain their high, people who use cocaine often use the drug in a binge pattern—taking the drug repeatedly within a relatively short period of time, at increasingly higher doses. This practice can easily lead to addiction, a chronic relapsing disease caused by changes in the brain and characterized by uncontrollable drug-seeking no matter the consequences.
Where does cocaine come from?
Cocaine is smuggled to the US mainland by many routes and by many drug smuggling organizations. One such organization starts the progress in Peru, South America where a kilo of pure cocaine can be purchased for around $1000. The cocaine is smuggled from the west coast of Peru to the north coast of Venezuela by Peruvian traffickers where it is further transferred to the Dominican Republic, approximately 500 miles distant on small fishing boats. The value of the one kilo of cocaine on the north coast of Venezuela is now $10,000. Fishing boats move the cocaine to the Dominican Republic and from there across the northwest coast of the Dominican Republic and across the Mona Passage to Puerto Rico approximately 90 miles distant and the gateway to the US mainland. The value of one kg of cocaine is now approximately $20,000. Using multiple methods, air, land, and Sea, the cocaine is transferred to the Miami region where the value of the one kilo of Cocaine is now approximately $40,000.
Because of the cocaine trafficking thru Puerto Rico, homicide rates are up six times that of the United States. About 30 percent of the cocaine that reaches Puerto Rico is trafficked in Puerto Rico mostly because traffickers are paid in cocaine rather than currency by their bosses.
Speedball” = mix of cocaine and heroin.
“Bulked” cocaine is cut or diluted cocaine.
“Solid” cocaine if pure cocaine
For more information and photographs of coke and crack cocaine, get the crack brochure or the Drug Identification Guide.
Other Sources:
Stimulant (National Library of Medicine)
Coke is a white powder. It can be snorted up the nose or mixed with water and injected with a needle. Coke can also be made into small white rocks, … Crack is smoked in a small glass pipe. Cocaine speeds up your whole body. You may feel …
Stimulant intoxication
Intoxication may be caused by taking too much cocaine or too concentrated a form of coke Using cocaine when the weather is hot, which …
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000946.htm – Medical Encyclopedia
Stimulant From the National Institutes of Health (National Institute on Drug Abuse)
… to-Read Web site Citation Site Map Print Street names: Blow, Coke, Crack Home / Drug Facts / What Is Cocaine? Also known as: “coke,” “Coca,” “C,” “snow,” “flake,” “ …
https://teens.drugabuse.gov/drug-facts/stimulants – External Health Links
Stimulant From the National Institutes of Health (National Institute on Drug Abuse)
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Other Sources:
Drug Identification Guide
MANUFACTURER LIST