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An Introduction to Drugs

Man has ransacked the worldin a desperate search for something to ease his pain. He has crumbled andblended the ores of the land. He has eaten strange barks and berries. Hehas eaten the symbolic parts of animals, and he has even eaten his fellowman. Nowhere has he found the answer he wants. He still, either knowinglyor unknowingly, fondles his dream of an all-powerful, all curing medicine:some drug which will ease all his suffering and fill him with well-beingand happiness from birth to the grave. Yet the best he has been able tofind is a few rare substances to hold close to him for his worst momentsof pain and sorrow. And sadly, because they take him from this dull andunhappy plane into a purer, painless place, they change him. And becausethey change him, they are usually illegal. Today, there are scores of drugswhich will ease man's pain in times of suffering and dim his visions ofharsh reality in times of stress. Yet none of these is what he is lookingfor.

Most drugs can be viewedas friends in time of need. Only when they are misused will they turn againstus.

The narcotic alcohol hascreated more drug addiction than any other alkaloid. It is one of the oldestdrugs known to man and was also the first to create social problems. Theearliest recorded drunk charge was found in a papyrus from around 1300B.C., during the reign of the Pharaoh Seti I in Egypt. A man was chargedwith being drunk from too much beer. Alcohol has been a curse to man, butit has also been a blessing. Scores of drugs have alcohol as a base. Usedmoderately, it has added to the joy of nations.
 

Coca Plant

Cocaine was isolatedin 1844 from the coca plant. It is one of the most vicious of all drugs.The deadly nightshade gave us belladonna, which produces other soothingdrugs. 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 wasthe fictitious Sherlock Holmes, who seems to have "joy-popped" (took itthrough the veins) after some of his more difficult cases. Oddly enough,the great sleuth, who shouted, "Quick, Watson, ... the needle!" was usingone of the few drugs which definitely inspire criminal actions.

Cocaine Powder

Opium is obtained todayby the same methods described by Dioscorides nearly 1,800 years ago. Afterthe petals have fallen, a cut is made in the seed pod, and the ooze thatappears is dried and then scraped off and cooked. For a while, medicinescontaining opium dominated the market of drug remedies in the United States.Babies were made addicts with soothing syrups, and Southern ladies werehooked by innocent- appearing tonics. "Laudanum" was one of the first andmost popular of the opium products. There are scores of remedies basedon opium, some of which include morphine and its derivatives.

Heroin, which comes frommorphine, produces a euphoria, called "on the nod" by addicts. It is oneof the easiest drugs to become addicted to, and its sole purpose is forillegal sales to addicts.

One of the most notoriousdrugs 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 hostof 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. Usersof this drug tend to move on to the "hard stuff," heroin.

Hassan Ben Sabbah, a boyhoodfriend of Omar Khayyam, the Arabian poet, gathered a group of warriorsand 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 wasselected for a kill, he was first given hashish and entertained royallywith all the most sensual and erotic delights of the Orient. He was toldthat he had been given a taste of things to come. After all this, the killerwas not only willing, but anxious, to die for his leader after this tasteof Paradise. From this ceremony came the name "hashshashin," meaning "hashisheater," from which came today's corruption, "assassin."

Sir John Hawkins getsofficial credit for bringing back both the potato and tobacco from Americain 1564. It was first believed that tobacco was one of those strange "Indiancure-alls," which were much discussed at the time. It was tried withoutsuccess as a syphilis remedy, but later, it was decided that it was moreof a painkiller.

All of the popular drinkstoday: coffee, tea, cocoa, and soft drinks, depend upon "caffeine" fortheir effects. Unlike alcohol, which depresses mental activity, caffeinestimulates it. The stimulant, cocoa, has all the cocaine removed.

The list of drugs thatrelieve pain or take men into a world of vision and fantasy grows withevery new need in medicine. There are barbiturates, atropine, avertin,cyclopropane, divinyl, Novocaine, paraldehyde, phenobarbital, PentothalSodium, phenobarbital, thiopentobarbital, tribomoethanol, and trimethaphancamphorsulfonate.

One recent addition tothe numerous store of drugs is the class known as "barbiturates", or sedatives.These chemical substances come from barbituric acid. These pills have variousnames, 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 moreconvenient methods of suicide. As they calm like the opiates, they attractthe unstable. Narcotics agents collect "goof balls," "red birds," and "yellowjackets" like candy from the pockets of delinquents. The addiction to barbituratesis as bad as with opiates. When under their power, the addict is sluggishand dull. Deprived of them, he often goes into a reaction like that ofan epileptic fit. This is followed by hallucinations similar to those ofdelirium 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 temporaryrelief from pain and, sometimes, move into a world of brief ecstasy andwonder. But, when they return, the world is usually as bad or worse thanwhen they left it. And, as we all know, they must always return.
 

The History of Cocaine

Long before cocaine was extractedfrom the coca plant, the leaves were chewed by the Indians of Peru andother South American countries. This practice began before recorded history,so our knowledge is derived totally from archaeological sources. Line drawingson pottery found in northwestern South America show evidence that cocachewing was part of the culture before the rise of the Incan Empire, perhapsas early as 3,000 B.C., and that its effects on mood and behavior werevery profound and much appreciated by the Indians.

The coca plant was consideredto be a gift of the gods and was used during religious rituals, burialsand for other special purposes. By the time the Spaniards arrived in the16th century, the Incan Empire was in decline. By this time, coca was nolonger 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 inthe gold and silver mines despite difficult conditions in the high altitudes.

Coca leaves, along withcoffee, tea, and tobacco, were brought to Europe from South America bythe explorers in the 16th century, but unlike the others, coca leaves wereunpopular until the 19th century. This may have been due to deteriorationof the leaves during the journey, causing a great loss of potency. In 1862,Albert Niemann finally extracted a purified cocaine from a crystallinesubstance derived from coca leaves.

Cocaine was highly regardedin the 1880's and 1890's, and many prominent figures advocated the therapeuticuse of cocaine: Pope Leo XII, Sigmund Freud, Jules Verne, and Thomas Edisonall endorsed its use and in 1888, Coca-Cola, which originally containedcocaine, advertised itself as "the drink that relieves exhaustion." (Coca-Colahas since removed cocaine from the contents of their drink and replacedit with caffeine.)

The abuse of cocaine waslargely non-existent in the United States until the 1960's, except amongentertainers 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 Andesstill chew the unprocessed leaves for their stimulating effect. They oftenmix these with ashes or lime and, it is said, they can go for days withoutfeeling hunger or fatigue. The habitual chewer, however, has an unsteadygait, green-crusted teeth, incurable insomnia, and general apathy.

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Cocaine Addiction

Cocainecan be introduced into the body by sniffing,swallowing, or injecting it to produce its characteristic effects. Onlypure cocaine or crack can be smoked however. Outside of South America,where cocaine is chewed and absorbed by the membranes of the mouth, stomachand intestines, cocaine is most frequently used in the form of powder.Powder is readily absorbed from all mucous membranes such as the liningof the mouth, nasal passages, and gastrointestinal tract.

Powder is the preferredform, because it is easier to smuggle across the national borders thancoca leaves. To increase profits, cocaine hydrochloride is diluted withsugar and other drugs, thus exposing the user to other unknown and potentiallydangerous substances.

"Snorting" is the mostpopular way to take cocaine today. Within seconds, there is a numbing sensationin the nose which lasts about five minutes. Then there is a gradual senseof exhilaration, euphoria and increased energy, and then a "high" thatpeaks in ten to twenty minutes and then subsides. In an attempt to maintaintheir highs, users will continue to snort every thirty minutes or so untiltheir supply is gone.

Many frequent and moreexperienced cocaine users administer the drug through the veins. An intense"rush" is experienced within just a minute or two. The rush wears off withinthirty minutes, and as with snorting, the users will repeat the injectionsas long as the drug is available. Smoking of coca paste is widespread inPeru, Ecuador, Columbia, and Bolivia, where this form is in easy access.The effects derived from smoking are short-lived and users sometimes continueto smoke the paste for several hours. In 1985, coca paste was not beingimported to the United States on a large scale basis, but since the crudeprocessing of paste is cheaper to produce than cocaine hydrochloride, thissituation may change.

Users of cocaine havesaid that the using the drug was more important than food, sex, friends,family, or jobs. Their main concern was how to ease the undesirable physicaleffects of being without the drug, and that, in itself, tells us why weshouldn't use it.
 

Effects of Cocaineon the Body

Cocaine produces anestheticeffects by interfering with the transmission of information from one nervecell to another. Although used as a local anesthetic in eye surgery, itwas 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 respirationrate and body temperature, and also induces vomiting. At high dosages,tremors and convulsions may result. These stimulating effects can rapidlylead to a collapse of the central nervous system, which may then lead torespiratory failure and/or cardiac arrest and finally to death.

After repeated exposureto cocaine, certain areas in the limbic system (a group of structures ofthe brain that are concerned with emotion and motivation) are more susceptibleto a type of seizure that resembles an epileptic fit.

Cocaine causes profoundloss of appetite, leading to severe weight loss and nutritional imbalance.It also causes sleep loss. The symptoms of cocaine psychosis usually includeparanoia; delusions of persecution; visual, auditory, and tactile (touch)hallucinations; an increase in irrationality; restlessness; suspiciousness;depression; and a lack of motivation.

Because of increased demandson the heart during cocaine use, people with heart problems, such as hypertensionor cardiovascular disease, are more prone to fatal reactions. There arerare cases of cerebral hemorrhages (bleeding from the brain) occurringfrom acute increases in the blood pressure.

If cocaine is taken throughthe veins, unsterile syringes can cause infections and disease. These infectionscan include Hepatitis B, blood poisoning, inflammation of the lining andvalves of the heart and, of course, AIDS.

Smoking cocaine pasteproduces severe complications: bronchitis, persistent coughing, blurredvision, and pulmonary dysfunction of circulation. Chronic and compulsivecocaine use leads to depression, anxiety, irritability, and other psychologicalcomplaints along with those previously mentioned. Despite the fact thatcontinued use may not reduce the undesirable effects of withdrawal, aslong as the drug is available, users find it very difficult to do withoutcocaine.