THE Erythroxylon coca is a plant found in Central and South America. These leaves are used, by the Andean people, for chewing or as a component of teas, with the function of alleviating the symptoms resulting from high altitudes. However, an alkaloid substance that constitutes about 10% of this part of the plant, called benzoylmethylecgonine, is capable of causing serious health and social problems.
In the first phase of alkaloid extraction, the leaves are pressed in sulfuric acid, kerosene or gasoline, resulting in a paste called cocaine sulfate. In the second and last, hydrochloric acid is used, forming a white powder. So, in this second case, it can be aspirated, or dissolved in water and then injected. The paste is smoked in pipes, in this case being called crack. There is also merla, which is cocaine in base form, whose users smoke it straight or together with marijuana.
Acting on the Central Nervous System, cocaine causes euphoria, well-being, sociability. Because people are not always able to have such sensations naturally, and intensely, a person who allows himself to use this substance tends to want to use it again, and again, and so successively.
The heart tends to speed up, pressure increases, and the pupil dilates. Oxygen consumption increases, but the ability to capture it decreases. This factor, together with the arrhythmias that the substance causes, makes the user predisposed to heart attacks. Frequent use also causes muscle pain, nausea, chills and loss of appetite.
As cocaine tends to lose its effectiveness over time of use, a fact called drug tolerance, the user tends to use progressively higher doses seeking to obtain, incessantly and increasingly inconsequentially, the same pleasant effects that it achieved in the beginning of its use. Very frequent and excessive dosages cause tactile, visual and auditory hallucinations; anxiety, delusions, aggression, paranoia.
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This cycle also makes them increasingly dependent, doing everything to get the drug, resulting in serious problems not only with regard to their health, but also in their interpersonal relationships. Withdrawal from family and friends, and even reprehensible behaviors, such as participating in thefts or robberies to obtain the drug, are common.
In addition to causing, in the long term, impairment of skeletal muscles, there are also recurrent aggravating factors in the form of use. Injectable cocaine, for example, can lead to contamination by infectious diseases such as hepatitis and AIDS, and local infections. In the case of those who inhale, impairment of smell, rupture of the nasal septum and complications respiratory symptoms, the latter also typical of smokers, including bronchitis, persistent cough and severe dysfunctions. Pregnant women can have stillborn babies, with malformations, or neurological impairment.
Breaking the drug is difficult, as the individual tends to feel depressed, irritable, and insomnia. Thus, when a user chooses to leave it, he/she should receive a lot of support and be encouraged in this regard. Medical help is needed, both in the detox process and after this step.
By Mariana Araguaia
Graduated in Biology
Brazil School Team