Drugs of Abuse

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Drugs of Abuse
Drug abuse is a big problem in the community today facing the public health. Each year in the U.S, drug abuse results in some severe illness and injuries. It also plays an integral role in many social problems that include violence, child abuse, and stress. Drug abuse can lead to increase of crime level, difficulties in keeping a job and homeliness. There are so many types of drugs that are abused globally that includes Marijuana, Heroin, Cocaine and Methamphetamine (Freye 33). In this paper, I choose to discuss more Cocaine since it is one of the most abused drugs, especially among the youths.
Cocaine is a stimulant that is made from the leaves of a plant known as coca mainly found in South America. Coca is among the oldest and most powerful and dangerous stimulant of natural origin. The use of cocaine dates back to thousands of years ago. It was used back in 3000 BC by the Incas people. The Incas used coca to speed up their breathing since they used to live in the mountains. Air present at the top of the mountain is thicker and tends to slow up the breathing process. Because of this, the Incas would chew the leaves that acted as a stimulant to help them speed up their breathing (Karch 97). In 1551, the Catholic Church in South America viewed the use of coca as undermining spread of Christianity. That is when the bishop urged the Peruvian government to burn its use. Ultimately, Coca was burned but this was done in terms of land that was used to grow it.

Albert Niemann who was a chemist from Germany was the first person to be able to extract cocaine from the coca plant. This was done back in the year 1859. After it was extracted, it started to gain more popularity especially in the medical field in the 1880s. Albert noticed that whenever he used cocaine, it made his tongue to become numb. Two decades later, cocaine was tried by an Australian ophthalmologist known as Carl Koller to perform a surgical operation (Barbaro 47). Carl noticed that patients did not feel any pain whenever their eye was soaked in cocaine solution during operation. Soon after this discovery, pharmaceuticals all over the world started to use cocaine as a means of controlling pain during surgery. Cocaine was later discovered to cure sexual impotence as well as depression (Karch 103).
Cocaine is a very addictive stimulant that tends to create increased energy to users. The feeling of highness that users get from cocaine only lasts for a short period, so they tend to use it repeatedly and in significant patterns (Barbaro 56). The way people take cocaine affects the feeling of highness they get and the rate of addiction. Some people inject it into their blood while others sniff it. Sniffing the drug produces the sensation of highness almost immediately that lasts for 15 to 30 minutes. This is because sniffed cocaine can easily pass through the nasal cavity and get absorb to the blood within a very short time.
The use of Cocaine is very prevalent, according to the “United Nations on Drugs and Crime” (UNODC), 14 to 21 million people around the world were addicted to cocaine by 2012. Over 500,000 thousand of these addicts came from the U.S. During the manufacturing process of cocaine; some harmful substances are used as solvents to extract it from the coca plant that includes hydrochloric acid, sodium bicarbonate and methyl (Ghodse 72). Over the past years, the government has involved itself in the fight against drugs. It has done this by formulating some anti-drugs fighting units and has been prosecuting people that traffic drugs. However, the use of cocaine is still rampant, and the government still needs to do more.
Cocaine has very adverse effects on the body. It increases the risk of heart attack and can even result in sudden death. It also leads to some complications such as muscle control and anxiety. Cocaine treatment is done in a way that it addresses both physical and psychological needs. The physical treatment is done through detoxification of the drug out of the body. The psychological phase is mainly done through counseling.
Work Cited
Barbaro, Giuseppe. Management of Medical Disorders Associated with Drug Abuse and Addiction. Nova Science Publishers, 2007.
Freye, Enno. “Pharmacology of Cocaine.” Pharmacology and Abuse of Cocaine, Amphetamines, Ecstasy and Related Designer Drugs, 2009, pp. 49-60.
Ghodse, Hamid. International Drug Control into the 21st Century. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd, 2008.
Karch, Steven B. A Brief History of Cocaine: From Inca Monarchs to Cali Cartels: 500 Years of Cocaine Dealing. CRC Press, 2006.