Crack Cocaine Recovery
12 questions
( 7
topic questions + 5 basic questions )
94 participants answered the first question.
39 of 94 ( 41% )
answered all survey questions.
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This survey is for those addicted to crack cocaine or know someone addicted to crack cocaine. Crack cocaine is a form of cocaine. Crack cocaine, often nicknamed "crack" or "rocks", is believed to have been created during the early 1980s. Cocaine is a natural product extracted from the leaves of Erythroxylon coca Lam (coca leaves). This tropical shrub is cultivated widely on the Andean ridge in South America and is the only known natural source of cocaine. Normally produced as the hydrochloride salt, it has limited medical use as a topical anaesthetic. The free base, sometimes known as crack, is a smokable form of cocaine. Coca leaves have been used as a stimulant by some indigenous people of South America since historical times. Purified cocaine has been misused as a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant since the early years of the twentieth century. Cocaine is under international control. Crack is unique because unlike other forms of cocaine, which tend to be extremely expensive, it comes in small and low-priced packages. In the United States, crack cocaine is often sold in small, inexpensive dosage units frequently known as a “blast“ (equivalent to one hit or a dollar's worth), “nickels”, “nickel rocks”, or “bumps“ (referring to the price of $5.00), and also “dimes”, “dime rocks”, or “boulders“ and sometimes as “twenties”, “dubs“, “doves“, “solids", “slabs“ and “forties.” Crack cocaine was extremely popular in the mid- and late 1980s in a period known as the crack epidemic, especially in inner cities, though its popularity declined through the 1990s in the United States. There were major anti-drug campaigns launched in the U.S. to try to cull its popularity, the most popular being a series of ads featuring the slogan "The Thrill Can Kill". There has been an increase in popularity within Canada in recent years, where it has been estimated that the drug has become a multi-billion dollar industry. While insufflated powder cocaine has an associated glamour attributed to its popularity among mostly middle and upper class whites (as well as musicians and entertainers), crack is perceived as a skid row drug of squalor and desperation. The U.S. federal trafficking penalties deal far more harshly towards crack when compared to powdered cocaine. Possession of five grams of crack (or over 500 grams of powder) carries a minimum sentence of five years imprisonment in the US. There are several competing theories regarding the origins of crack cocaine in the United States. One leading theory is that crack cocaine abuse was influenced by the use of coca paste in South America, particularly in Peru during the 1970’s. A study of coca paste smoking in Peru was conducted by General F. Raul Jeri, M.D in the 1970’s, the contents of which may have influenced cocaine users in the United States, though there is not any direct proof showing the Peruvian coca-paste smoking to be the causal event in American crack consumption and abuse. Cocaine has a similar psychomotor stimulant effect to that of amphetamine and related compounds. It increases transmitter concentrations in both the noradrenergic and the dopaminergic synapse and also acts as an anaesthetic agent. Like amphetamine, it produces euphoria, tachycardia, hypertension and appetite suppression. Cocaine has a strong reinforcing action, causing a rapid psychological dependence, an effect even more pronounced in those who smoke cocaine base. Cocaine is a powerfully addictive stimulant drug. The powdered, hydrochloride salt form of cocaine can be snorted or dissolved in water and injected. Crack is cocaine that has not been neutralized by an acid to make the hydrochloride salt. This form of cocaine comes in a rock crystal that can be heated and its vapors smoked. The term "crack" refers to the crackling sound heard when it is heated.* Regardless of how cocaine is used or how frequently, a user can experience acute cardiovascular or cerebrovascular emergencies, such as a heart attack or stroke, which could result in sudden death. Cocaine-related deaths are often a result of cardiac arrest or seizure followed by respiratory arrest. |