Cocaine is one of the worst drugs on the streets today.
It has destroyedmillions of lives and will hurt many more in the years to come. The Partnershipfor a Drug-Free America is a group that is concerned. They created a web site(located at http://www. drugfreeamerica. org.
cocaine. html) that gives straightinformation on cocaine and every other known illicit drug. This information isinvaluable to parents. With an enemy like cocaine people need all theinformation that they can get. The web site explains every thing about Cocaine. Cocaine is distributed in two main forms.
Powder cocaine is a white crystallinesubstance. It is usually snorted through the nose, or in can be mixed with waterand injected. This causes high that lasts for about 15 to 30 minutes. Crackcocaine is cocaine hydrochloride. Cooking cocaine with baking soda producescrack. The high from crack lasts about 5 to 10 minutes.
Some people use itoccasionally and others use it many times a day. No matter how much it isextremely addictive. The high produced by cocaine is a surge in energy, anextreme feeling of pleasure. If used heavily it can cause its victim to sufferfrom paranoia, aggression, insomnia, and depression associated withdrawal. Onceit is out of the user’s brain the user may experience depression, irritability,and fatigue.
One of the main reasons people use cocaine is achieve an alteredstate of perception (the process of selecting, organizing, and interpretingsensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events Text125). When the brain is under the influence of cocaine it will perceiveinformation from the environment differently. The main people use cocaine try toget a feeling of euphoria, this is when the mind perceives everything aspositive. The feeling of euphoria only takes place while cocaine is in theuser’s brain once it leaves the brain; the mind perceives almost everything asnegative.
Another issue with the altered state of perception produced by cocaineis people hurting themselves or others while under the influence of cocaine. Aperson driving under the influence of cocaine has the extreme possibility ofbeing overconfident (the tendency to be more confident than correct– tooverestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs and judgments text page 274). Anoverconfident driver not under the influence of cocaine can be a great danger. That danger is multiplied by ten when that person is on cocaine. One of the mainproblems with getting a user off cocaine is withdrawal (the discomfort anddistress that follow discontinuing the use of an addictive drug text page 191). The symptoms of withdrawal associated with cocaine are paranoia, aggression,insomnia, and depression.
These symptoms are one of the main reasons that it ishard for people to stop using cocaine. Another problem associated with cocainewithdrawal is that after a while of heavy cocaine use the user can only achievehappiness while under the influence of cocaine. To counteract the problems posedby cocaine withdrawal there are support groups to teach people how to live theirlives without cocaine. Despite the odds everyday people beat their cocaineaddiction.
The psychological perspective that is very important to the purposeof this article is the social-cultural (investigates the connection betweensociety and behavior text page 5) perspective. The goal of the web site is togive parents the information needed to protect their kids from drug abuse. Thisperspective studies what influences people have to start using drugs in thefirst place. Psychologists from this field are involved marketing anti-druginformation to people especially the youth. One thing that research in thisfield is information on who uses the drug and why.
The Federal Drug EnforcementAdministration (DEA) has commissioned many studies on why youths begin to usecocaine. The have found what people have known for years. Teenagers tend to beoverconfident and they will try it, and before they know it they are hooked. This information has helped spawn the “just say no” anti-drugcampaign. Another important perspective to this article is the biological (Howthe body and the brain create emotions, memories, and sensory experiences textpage 5) perspective. Psychologist from this perspective study how cocaineeffects the brain.
Their research is very important, since they might find adrug that will alleviate the withdrawal symptoms of cocaine. If a drug like thiswas found it would be a great help to people who are addicted to cocaine. Whatcocaine does to the brain is terrible. It kills brain cells like beach killsgerms. After a long period
