Man has ransacked the world in a desperate search for something to ease his pain. He has crumbled and blended the ores of the land. He has eaten strange barks and berries. He has eaten the symbolic parts of animals, and he has even eaten his fellow man. Nowhere has he found the answer he wants. He still, either knowingly or unknowingly, fondles his dream of an all-powerful, all-curing medicine: some drug which will ease all his suffering and fill him with well-being and happiness from birth to the grave. Yet the best he has been able to find is a few rare substances to hold close to him for his worst moments of pain and sorrow. And sadly, because they take him from this dull and unhappy plane into a purer, painless place, they change him. And because they change him, they are usually illegal. Today, there are scores of drugs which will ease man's pain in times of suffering and dim his visions of harsh reality in times of stress. Yet none of these is what he is looking for.
Most drugs can be viewed as friends in time of need. Only when they are misused will they turn against us.
The narcotic alcohol has created more drug addiction than any other alkaloid. It is one of the oldest drugs known to man and was also the first to create social problems. The earliest recorded drunk charge was found in a papyrus from around 1300 B.C., during the reign of the Pharaoh Seti I in Egypt. A man was charged with being drunk from too much beer. Alcohol has been a curse to man, but it has also been a blessing. Scores of drugs have alcohol as a base. Used moderately, it has added to the joy of nations. Cocaine was isolated in 1844 from the coca plant. It is one of the most vicious of all drugs. The deadly nightshade gave us belladonna, which produces other soothing drugs. The user of cocaine a few decades ago often inhaled the powder, known as "nose candy." One of the few users to handle cocaine well was the fictitious Sherlock Holmes, who seems to have "joy-popped" (took it through the veins) after some of his more difficult cases. Oddly enough, the great sleuth, who shouted, "Quick, Watson, ... the needle!" was using one of the few drugs which definitely inspire criminal actions.
Opium is obtained today by the same methods described by Dioscorides nearly 1,800 years ago. After the petals have fallen, a cut is made in the seed pod, and the ooze that appears is dried and then scraped off and cooked. For a while, medicines containing opium dominated the market of drug remedies in the United States. Babies were made addicts with soothing syrups, and Southern ladies were hooked by innocent- appearing tonics. "Laudanum" was one of the first and most popular of the opium products. There are scores of remedies based on opium, some of which include morphine and its derivatives.
Heroin, which comes from morphine, produces a euphoria, called "on the nod" by addicts. It is one of the easiest drugs to become addicted to, and its sole purpose is for illegal sales to addicts.
One of the most notorious drugs of history is hashish, which serves no really useful medical purpose. It has been used by all peoples for centuries and is known under a host of names. It is the darling of drugs under the formal name of marijuana, but is also called "pot," "junk," "weed," and a variety of more lurid aliases. As with opiates, there is much myth connected with marijuana smoking. Users of this drug tend to move on to the "hard stuff," heroin.
Hassan Ben Sabbah, a boyhood friend of Omar Khayyam, the Arabian poet, gathered a group of warriors and captured the powerful Persian fort of Alamut. To maintain his power, Hassan formed a society of murderers to secretly kill all his enemies. The killers were known as "Fedais," or Devoted Ones. When one of them was selected for a kill, he was first given hashish and entertained royally with all the most sensual and erotic delights of the Orient. He was told that he had been given a taste of things to come. After all this, the killer was not only willing, but anxious, to die for his leader after this taste of Paradise. From this ceremony came the name "hashshashin," meaning "hashish eater," from which came today's corruption, "assassin."
Sir John Hawkins gets official credit for bringing back both the potato and tobacco from America in 1564. It was first believed that tobacco was one of those strange "Indian cure-alls," which were much discussed at the time. It was tried without success as a syphilis remedy, but later, it was decided that it was more of a painkiller.
All of the popular drinks today: coffee, tea, cocoa, and soft drinks, depend upon "caffeine" for their effects. Unlike alcohol, which depresses mental activity, caffeine stimulates it. The stimulant, cocoa, has all the cocaine removed.
The list of drugs that relieve pain or take men into a world of vision and fantasy grows with every new need in medicine. There are barbiturates, atropine, avertin, cyclopropane, divinyl, Novocaine, paraldehyde, phenobarbital, Pentothal Sodium, phenobarbital, thiopentobarbital, tribomoethanol, and trimethaphan camphorsulfonate.
One recent addition to the numerous store of drugs is the class known as "barbiturates", or sedatives. These chemical substances come from barbituric acid. These pills have various names, some 2,500 different patents, about fifty of which are on the market - generally as sleep inducers. They have also proven to be one of the more convenient methods of suicide. As they calm like the opiates, they attract the unstable. Narcotics agents collect "goof balls," "red birds," and "yellow jackets" like candy from the pockets of delinquents. The addiction to barbiturates is as bad as with opiates. When under their power, the addict is sluggish and dull. Deprived of them, he often goes into a reaction like that of an epileptic fit. This is followed by hallucinations similar to those of delirium tremens.
Over all the long centuries, men have found no adequate escape from reality. They can numb themselves, exalt their thinking, dull the drab and gray world that exists around them, or even sink to the depths of unconsciousness. They can find temporary relief from pain and, sometimes, move into a world of brief ecstasy and wonder. But, when they return, the world is usually as bad or worse than when they left it. And, as we all know, they must always return.
Long before cocaine was extracted from the coca plant, the leaves were chewed by the Indians of Peru and other South American countries. This practice began before recorded history, so our knowledge is derived totally from archaeological sources. Line drawings on pottery found in northwestern South America show evidence that coca chewing was part of the culture before the rise of the Incan Empire, perhaps as early as 3,000 B.C., and that its effects on mood and behavior were very profound and much appreciated by the Indians.
The coca plant was considered to be a gift of the gods and was used during religious rituals, burials and for other special purposes. By the time the Spaniards arrived in the 16th century, the Incan Empire was in decline. By this time, coca was no longer used only by the ruling class or only in association with ritual. The Spaniards, at first, tried to prevent the Indians from using coca, because they believed it was a barrier to conversion to Christianity. Later, it became a practice to pay the Indians in coca leaves for their work. The Spaniards could thereby force enormous amounts of work from them in the gold and silver mines despite difficult conditions in the high altitudes.
Coca leaves, along with coffee, tea, and tobacco, were brought to Europe from South America by the explorers in the 16th century, but unlike the others, coca leaves were unpopular until the 19th century. This may have been due to deterioration of the leaves during the journey, causing a great loss of potency. In 1862, Albert Niemann finally extracted a purified cocaine from a crystalline substance derived from coca leaves.
Cocaine was highly regarded in the 1880's and 1890's, and many prominent figures advocated the therapeutic use of cocaine: Pope Leo XII, Sigmund Freud, Jules Verne, and Thomas Edison all endorsed its use and in 1888, Coca-cola, which originally contained cocaine, advertised itself as "the drink that relieves exhaustion." (Coca-cola has since removed cocaine from the contents of their drink and replaced it with caffeine.)
The abuse of cocaine was largely non-existent in the United States until the 1960's, except among entertainers and jazz musicians. The use of the drug has been prohibited, both in patent medicines and for recreational use, since 1914.
The natives of the Andes still chew the unprocessed leaves for their stimulating effect. They often mix these with ashes or lime and, it is said, they can go for days without feeling hunger or fatigue. The habitual chewer, however, has an unsteady gait, green-crusted teeth, incurable insomnia, and general apathy.
Cocaine can be introduced into the body by sniffing, swallowing, or injecting it to produce its characteristic effects. Only pure cocaine or crack can be smoked however. Outside of South America, where cocaine is chewed and absorbed by the membranes of the mouth, stomach and intestines, cocaine is most frequently used in the form of powder. Powder is readily absorbed from all mucous membranes such as the lining of the mouth, nasal passages, and gastrointestinal tract.
Powder is the preferred form, because it is easier to smuggle across the national borders than coca leaves. To increase profits, cocaine hydrochloride is diluted with sugar and other drugs, thus exposing the user to other unknown and potentially dangerous substances.
"Snorting" is the most popular way to take cocaine today. Within seconds, there is a numbing sensation in the nose which lasts about five minutes. Then there is a gradual sense of exhilaration, euphoria and increased energy, and then a "high" that peaks in ten to twenty minutes and then subsides. In an attempt to maintain their highs, users will continue to snort every thirty minutes or so until their supply is gone.
Many frequent and more experienced cocaine users administer the drug through the veins. An intense "rush" is experienced within just a minute or two. The rush wears off within thirty minutes, and as with snorting, the users will repeat the injections as long as the drug is available. Smoking of coca paste is widespread in Peru, Ecuador, Columbia, and Bolivia, where this form is in easy access. The effects derived from smoking are short-lived and users sometimes continue to smoke the paste for several hours. In 1985, coca paste was not being imported to the United States on a large scale basis, but since the crude processing of paste is cheaper to produce than cocaine hydrochloride, this situation may change.
Users of cocaine have said that the using the drug was more important than food, sex, friends, family, or jobs. Their main concern was how to ease the undesirable physical effects of being without the drug, and that, in itself, tells us why we shouldn't use it.
Cocaine produces anesthetic effects by interfering with the transmission of information from one nerve cell to another. Although used as a local anesthetic in eye surgery, it was soon found to damage the cornea and had other unwanted side effects.
Cocaine is a potent vasoconstrictor, which narrows (or constricts) the blood vessels. It increases the respiration rate and body temperature, and also induces vomiting. At high dosages, tremors and convulsions may result. These stimulating effects can rapidly lead to a collapse of the central nervous system, which may then lead to respiratory failure and/or cardiac arrest and finally to death.
After repeated exposure to cocaine, certain areas in the limbic system (a group of structures of the brain that are concerned with emotion and motivation) are more susceptible to a type of seizure that resembles an epileptic fit.
Cocaine causes profound loss of appetite, leading to severe weight loss and nutritional imbalance. It also causes sleep loss. The symptoms of cocaine psychosis usually include paranoia; delusions of persecution; visual, auditory, and tactile (touch) hallucinations; an increase in irrationality; restlessness; suspiciousness; depression; and a lack of motivation.
Because of increased demands on the heart during cocaine use, people with heart problems, such as hypertension or cardiovascular disease, are more prone to fatal reactions. There are rare cases of cerebral hemorrhages (bleeding from the brain) occurring from acute increases in the blood pressure.
If cocaine is taken through the veins, unsterile syringes can cause infections and disease. These infections can include Hepatitis B, blood poisoning, inflammation of the lining and valves of the heart and, of course, AIDS.
Smoking cocaine paste produces severe complications: bronchitis, persistent coughing, blurred vision, and pulmonary dysfunction of circulation. Chronic and compulsive cocaine use leads to depression, anxiety, irritability, and other psychological complaints along with those previously mentioned. Despite the fact that continued use may not reduce the undesirable effects of withdrawal, as long as the drug is available, users find it very difficult to do without cocaine.
Copyright © 1998
