What is Cocaine?

What is Cocaine and How Is it Made?

South America

What Is Cocaine?

In the modern world, cocaine is a powerful psycho-stimulant drug, prepared from the leaves of the coca plant. Coca is native to the continent of South America, originally found in Peru and Bolivia.

Of over 200 plants in the Erythroxylum family, only 17 are capable of producing cocaine. Of these, 15 produce cocaine at such low levels that they are not cultivated. Two types of coca plant E. Coca Species and E. novogranatense Species (and 2 varieties of each species ) are used for cocaine production, to meet a worldwide demand. The cultivated coca leaves contain about 2% cocaine.
(Source: druglibrary.org)

Chemically, cocaine is methyl-benzoyl-ecgonine, an ester of benzoic acid with a nitrogenated base that as a tertiary amine gives cocaine it's topical (local) anesthetic properties. Cocaine is an alkaline, most commonly used in the form of cocaine hydrochloride, a crystal powder, although sulphate and nitrate forms of cocaine are sometimes found. (Source: drugtext.org)

How is Cocaine Made?

Dried coca leaves

Cocaine hydrochloride is produced by chemically treating the leaves of the coca plant. From the farms in countries where coca bushes are grown, the coca leaves are harvested, dried and then made into a coca paste, usually close to the farm. The paste is then converted to base, and then to cocaine hydrochloride for stability. The powder form of cocaine as cocaine hydrochloride is snorted or diluted and taken intravenously.

Cocaine can be heated and used as a free base, known as crack, which can be smoked. Whereas all crack is cocaine base, not all base is crack.

There are different ways of growing the coca leaf, and different methods of creating paste and base. Different stamps might be used by different illicit producers on their tablets or blocks of cocaine, to distinguish between them in the illicit drug market.

Synthetic Cocaine

Synthetic cocaine is advertised and offered as an illicit drug today, but should be avoided. Processed coca and synthetic cocaine are both toxic to the body, potentially lethal and addictive. Products marketed as synthetic cocaine are not cocaine but could be anything by way of chemical substances that create a cocaine-like "high", often one of the many methamphetamine variations that enjoy popularity in illicit drug circles.

Cocaine in the Medical Field

In the medical field, cocaine has for many years been synthesized, using the coca leaf molecule, as a "base'. Manufacturers of synthesized cocaine add substances such as epinphrine that constricts blood vessels, as does natural cocaine, to enhance the anesthetic effects of medicinal synthetic cocaine.

Cocaine is now little used for medical purposes although it's many synthetic variants continue to be used in modern medicine as topical anesthetics. Local anesthetics such as benzocaine, and lidocaine often enter the illegal drug market, sometimes as an additive to cocaine powder.

Due to its limited medicinal usefulness, as an anesthetic, cocaine is listed as a Schedule II drug in the USA and a Schedule 1 drug in Canada, illegal to use otherwise than in the licensed practice of medicine.

Cocaine Appearance and Effects

Powder cocaine is a salt, soluble in water that when being used illicitly is inhaled by snorting or smoking, or diluted and delivered intravenously. Pure cocaine is white but when sold illicitly, it is often cut with substances such as baking soda, or sugars such as mannitol, dextrose and lactose and local anesthetics such as lidocaine or benzocaine.

As a medication, cocaine (and its synthetic substitutes) acts by inhibiting the capacity of nerve cells to conduct impulses recognizing pain and the transmission of impulses that forward to the brain the sensation of pain. At low levels there is insensitivity to temperature, then to impact and pressure, with higher concentrations also inhibiting motor impulses. Systemic and general analgesic effects are obtained if cocaine is introduced directly to the bloodstream.

Illicit use of cocaine produces stimulation of the central nervous system. Cocaine users feel energized, perhaps restless, empowered, euphoric, talkative, amorous and excited. Although users rarely re-experience the exquisite euphoria of the first cocaine "high", the memory of it, and intense stimulatory effects of cocaine tempt cocaine users to continue with cocaine use, that can rapidly become a habit, and lead to an addiction. The anesthetic effects of cocaine intensify the cocaine high.

Street Names for Cocaine

Cocaine on the street is known as:

• angie
• blow
• C
• Charlie
• coke
• nose candy
• snow
• stardust
• and many more names

Source: Health Canada

Cocaine's Popularity

Although since 1850, the popularity of cocaine has waxed and waned, it has remained a constant in the field of illicit drugs. Today, cocaine statistics reveal cocaine to be maintaining a sustained popularity.

A $33.m cocaine "bust" in the Caribbean Sea, by a multinational task force, including military personnel from Canada in February 2011, and many other recent seizures of cocaine indicate that as an illicit recreational drug, cocaine is currently going through a phase of renewed popularity.

Narconon: a Solution to Cocaine Addiction

Cocaine users concerned about addiction, and cocaine addicts will find an effective cocaine treatment program at Narconon drug rehab centers. Narconon provides complete addiction recovery for all substance abuse, including crack and cocaine.

The basis of the Narconon program Is a complete chemical detoxification from the body, using a dry heat sauna, and supplemental nutrients to restore good health and vitality. Complete detox from crack or cocaine is followed with a comprehensive series of courses that assist drug users to resolve the issues that cause them to abuse drugs.

Graduates of the Narconon program for addiction recovery are clean of drugs and alcohol, free of all addictive cravings and ready to return to their community as contributive members.