Cocaine verus Crack Cocaine

Cocaine originated from South America, from coca leaves. Originally, the coca leaves were chewed by workers to decrease fatigue, improve endurance and have a greater resistance to the cold. This was to benefit the workers so they could work longer hours and be more productive. In 1855 the active ingredient in cocaine was isolated from the leaves, and in 1880 it was used as a local anesthetic (Nunes,2006). It was also used in coca cola. In 1855, coca cola was a soda beverage that contained sixty milligrams of cocaine for every eight ounces of the beverage. The idea behind this was to give people energy and a sense of well being (Nunes, 2006). By the late 1880s Sigmund Freud was using cocaine regularly and was even recommending it to others. This only lasted for less than twenty years, until he started discouraging it to others. Then by 1914 cocaine was banned for medical use and in beverages. This caused the use of cocaine and by the 1930s, the use had drastically decreased. It then became popular for recreational use in the 1980s (Nunes, 2006). It was often used and shown in movies such as Scarface, and is famous for the amount of cocaine that Al Pacino uses in one of the final scenes of the movie. Now it is still used recreationally and used by a ‘party crowd’. Although this is the primary category of people who use cocaine, people of all demographics use cocaine recreationally.

Cocaine started to be first cut with baking soda in the early 1880s. This was done because of the price drop that drug dealers were facing. They decided to mix it with baking soda and make a hard piece of rock, and sell it in smaller quantities. This made it cheap, simple to produce, ready to use, and highly profitable for dealers to develop (Kornbluh,...

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Caulkins, J. P. (1997). Is crack cheaper than (powder) cocaine? Addiction, 92(11), 1437-43. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/199547049?accountid=11233

Nunes, E. V., M.D. (2006). A brief history of cocaine: From inca monarchs to cali cartels. The New England Journal of Medicine, 355(11), 1182. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/223930661?accountid=11233

Volkow, N. (2013). Cocaine. National Institute of Drug Abuse: The science of drug abuse and addiction, Retrieved from http://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/directors-page

Holman, B. (1994). Biological effects of central nervous system stimulants. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.subzero.lib.uoguelph.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pd fviewer?sid=118723c1-a0ab-413a-ace1