Cocaine Research Paper

As a coach, I had a player, who was very polite and worked hard in practice. She was very timid around other teammates. She would stop in to talk to me and never had friends that I could see her relate to. Trying to fit in desperately, she was happy to be included in the “social” activities in college. She got pregnant and her boy friend and her were arrested for conspiracy to deliver cocaine and both sentenced to prison. This course states cocaine can cause an initial rush of pleasure that makes you alert, talkative and confident. With prolonged exposure to meth and cocaine, it can destroy up to 50% of dopamine – producing neurons in certain parts of the brain. This can lead to irreversible symptons of Parkinson’s disease. (Cocaine handout) After several letters from her in prison, she thanked me for being a good listener. I know her family closed their eyes thinking it’s not an addiction, but a social activity that they can quit at any time. This course explains how a higher level of dopamine on a regular basis is needed just to keep you feeling normal. Cocaine can make people feel paranoid, angry and hostile even when they are not high. Prolonged use causes sleep deprivation and loss of appetite. A person can become psychotic and experience hallucinations. It increases the risk that the user will experience a heart attack, stroke, or respiratory failure which can result in sudden death. (Foundation for a Drug-Free

Cocaine is a drug that is derived from the coca plant. It is a powerful stimulant that is very addictive. The freebase form of this drug that can be smoked is often referred to as crack. This drug first hit the streets during the 1980s.

They must use cocaine in a binge pattern by taking the drug repeatedly in a short period of time at incrementally higher doses. This leads to chronic changes in the neurotransmitters synapses in the brain that results in abuse and addiction (Cocaine). Cocaine will cause long-term changes to the brain’s reward system that will eventually change the amount of dopamine needed to reach that initial euphoria. Tolerance will develop and will result in an increasing dose to reach that same initial high, but could result in psychological or physiological effects

The effects that cocaine has on the body differentiate between users, but process in which it is able to give off an effect is the same in every person. Cocaine mainly effects the striatum (part of the brain that produces feelings

Multiple brain functions can be altered also. Cocaine affects pathways that respond to stress which can lead to relapse and continual use to numb the stress. Continual use causes desensitization, which makes someone less likely shock or distress at scenes of cruelty, and violence. Cocaine alters the function of the Limbic system which controls the ability to feel pleasure. “Feeling pleasure leads us to repeat behaviors” (Cocaine).

The drug that this article discusses is cocaine. Cocaine is a very strong agonistic stimulant that is often used as a recreational drug. The second most frequently used illegal drug, cocaine is commonly administered by intravenous injection, snorting and inhalation. Some of the symptoms of the physiological toxicity that may come from consuming cocaine include a fast heart rate, sweating, and large pupils, as well as very high blood pressure or body temperature when consuming high doses. These effects usually begin within seconds of consumption and usually last between five minutes and ninety minutes. The symptoms of the behavioral toxicity often disillusion from reality, mood swings, an intense feeling of bliss, or anxiety. Withdrawals may result in dysphoria, physical aches and pains, depression, cravings and anxiety. The neurotransmitter that is affected by cocaine is dopamine ("How Cocaine affects the Brain").

In fact, snorted cocaine usually lasts anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes. As you can imagine, because the buzz is there and then gone in such a short time frame, this leads to a high potential for abuse as the user immediately wants more and seemingly never has enough.

Cocaine’s mechanism of action includes delaying the neurotransmitters dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin from reuptake following their release. This contributes to these three neurotransmitters having extended effects and causing a large amount of stimulation. Cocaine can be absorbed at different rates depending on the route of consumption. Specifically, the chewing or sucking of leaves causes gradual absorption and onset of effects. Snorting cocaine contributes to fast absorption and onset of effects. Absorption and the onset of effects occur the fastest when crack is smoked. Outcomes of consuming cocaine include feeling alert, competent, and an increase in energy. However, there are negative effects which include paranoia, restlessness,

From then on cocaine took off and was a daily part of the average American’s life, even being so prevalent as being a main ingredient of the soft drink Coca Cola. Cocaine is generally snorted or injected and acts as a stimulant of the central nervous system. Instead of having a calming, relaxing affect like that of opium, cocaine brings the user up with increased energy and inflated self-esteem. Cocaine also produces feelings of euphoria and elevated mood, these symptoms are wanted by the user, and are the primary reason the drug is

This is because cocaine enters the brain via the bloodstream and blocks the dopamine transporters that typically bring dopamine back into the presynaptic terminal. This causes dopamine to remain the synaptic cleft and cause repeated action of the receptors on the postsynaptic neuron, which causes the pleasurable feeling. Cocaine, though it feels good at first, can cause the brain’s chemistry to change detrimentally as tolerance develops. This happens because cocaine’s impact on dopamine is much more pleasing that any natural stimulus that produces dopamine. Because of this, continued use causes the brain to begin to produce less dopamine naturally and reduce the number of receptors so that the brain’s ability to feel pleasure is decreased. This tolerance, which can receive additional reinforcement from a regular use environment via a physiological anticipatory response, causes the user to need more cocaine to achieve the same high, increasing the risk for overdose. Immediately after the drug wears off, the user has a feeling of “crashing” as the euphoria goes away, not to return until more cocaine is provided. As withdrawal sets in, users feel anxious, agitated, fatigued, and a lack of pleasure because their reward system has been changed. This change occurs because cocaine has targeted impact on the reward areas of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the Nucleus Abduces

According to a national survey performed in 2011 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, approximately 35.9 million Americans aged 12 and older have tried cocaine at least once in their lifetime and approximately 2.1 million Americans are regular users (Substance Abuse & Mental Health, 2012). Cocaine is a highly addictive stimulant drug that has gratifying yet dangerous short term physical effects, devastating long term physical effects, and intense psychological effects. Cocaine is a crystalline atropine alkaloid that is produced from the leaves of the coca plant. Cocaine was first introduced into the United States in the 1880’s, where

What Is Cocaine and its effect to the society? Cocaine is a coca leaf from a coca tree, the leaf is dried before it is used as the main ingredient to create cocaine. Cocaine is an illegal drug made famous by a Colombian drug cartel, Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria in the early 90’s. This drug also known as coke is used as an ingredient on coca-cola in the early 90’s but later then removed. This drugs mental effect is known to relieve stress, help people forget their problems, experience happiness for no reason, escape reality and many other psychological effects. This drug’s physical effects are heavy sweating, fast heart beat or rate and large pupils. Cocaine is sometimes used especially when the situation is dire during nasal operations to

The primary mechanism by which cocaine exerts an effect is through the blockade of dopamine transporters, or the increase in dopamine signaling in the nucleus accumbens. Dopamine transporters are the molecules which reside in the presynaptic membrane. Their prime function is to remove dopamine from synapses and transfer it back into presynaptic neurons. (Pinel, 2014) The need or feelings that motivate cocaine drug abuse occur by the raising dopamine concentrations through the activity of one particular set of dopamine receptors, called D3 receptors. The neurotransmitter dopamine is released into the nucleus accumbens and produces pleasure, this serves as a “signal that the action promotes survival or reproduction, directly or indirectly. The system is called the reward pathway.” (Harvard Health Publications , 2004)

What causes cocaine to be so addictive? The white powder happens to be a physiological addiction since it stimulates areas of the brain that gives a person feel euphoria and a person will build up resistance to the drug quickly. This in turn has the drug consumer requiring additional amounts of the substance with each subsequent practice. Because of this a person will be “chasing the dragon” the high that they first experienced each time that they snort, shoot, freebase or smoke. That first experience with cocaine will never be repeated. Nevertheless the beneficial news happens to be that cocaine addiction has fewer physiological effects and once the psychological addiction have been addressed the client has a greater chance for

Cocaine is the drug I think that has the biggest impact on someone’s behavior because of the intense ‘rush’ or ‘high’ that the user typically experiences. My main concern with cocaine is that the user goes from such a Euphoric feeling to feeling depressed. The dramatic change as the effects wear off makes a person change substantially. The user becomes irritable and despondent, which lead the user craving for another dose (Levinthal, 2012, pg. 170). The after effects can induce someone into the thought of suicide and that effect to me makes it a serious threat to whoever is using the drug. The effect that cocaine has on your brain with the loss of dopamine receptors is something that is permanently gone. Your dopamine receptors are what allow