FREE ESSAY ON CRACK COCAINE

CRACK COCAINE

It is used in offices, parties, on street corners, in homes, and even in schools. With so
much widespread abuse, cocaine is in extreme demand. Cocaine abuse has risen 118% since
1990, and continues to rise. Cocaine addiction is easy to understand-- it [cocaine]
produces a good feeling, so naturally people would tend to want more of it. The question
now though, is how does it produce these feelings, and why is the addiction so strong. By
taking a look at cocaine from its entrance into the body, to the end of it's high, and
the side effects it produces, the answers to these questions will become clear. 
When a user takes cocaine the user experiences pleasure beyond what a person usually
would ever experience in their life. The user also experiences an altered state of
conciousness where he/she feels an intense sense of feeling alive. Cocaine takers often
speak of a rush in the sense of a whole body orgasm.
Cocaine comes in two forms--preprocessed and cut (which are the most popular and most
expensive on the market), or in rock form, which is most commonly called 'crack'. Cocaine
is taken mainly in two ways: inhalation, and injection. When inhaled, cocaine travels up
through the nasal passage to the capillaries that line the olfactory nerves. This
provides a more direct route to the brain than an injection and gives what is commonly
referred to as a 'quick high'. The olfactory nerves will receive some of the cocaine
particles and mistake them for smell-producing particles. The cocaine will enter the
nerve and eat away at it, and in time, will destroy it, leaving the victim with no sense
of smell. 
Cocaine needs to be in the bloodstream to become effective. Whether through the nose
capillaries, or an injection, once the cocaine is in the bloodstream, it will travel to
the brain. Cocaine particles bear a striking resemblance to glucose molecules, so as they
enter the brain, the hypothalamus will send messages to the brain to open more dendrite
receptors to receive the overflow of glucose. 
Glucose naturally induces the production of the neurotransmitter dopamine and ceretonin.
This is commonly referred to as a 'sugar rush', so as the cocaine enters the dopamine and
ceretonin receptors, the brain believes it's on a 'sugar. As cocaine floods the dopamine
and ceretonin receptors to there limits, the hypothalamus will send signals to open more
receptor sites.
The production of ceretonin (the neurotransmitter that slows down the system) is blocked
by cocaine, and dopamine (the neurotransmitter that excites the system) is produced
rapidly. The excess dopamine flows into the open receptor sites of norepinepherine and
noradrenaline (the neurotransmitters that arouse and cause pleasure) and excites them.
This creates the rush that cocaine gives it's abuser. After repeated usage of cocaine,
the brain begins to fall prey to an effect called neuroadaption . The neurotransmitters
start to adapt to the dopamine overflow and ceretonin receptors will die off and
ceretonin will not be produced at it's normal levels in the brain. This adaptation will
require more of the drug to produce the previous effect, and the once thought amount of
cocaine needed to produce a high would be needed to produce a norm. This dependence is
called a physiological dependence, and is common with repeated cocaine abuse. 
Cocaine will often cause death in its users. Most often heart attacks and strokes occur,
convulsions are produced at the least. The rush of dopamine and drop of ceretonin is
taking place all over the brain. All the activity caused by this, depreciates the clarity
of normal messages of thought and sense from region to region of the brain. The most
often clouded messages are those from the brain stem to the subcortex. When the
hypothalamus reads low levels of adrenaline, it sends messages to the medulla to increase
heart rate. The medulla relays the message to the pituitary gland for production of
adrenaline, but due to the high levels of dopamine, the message for an increase in a
hormone produced by dopamine called prolactin is read as well. Prolactin and adrenaline
are produced in the adrenal glands. As the hormones enter the heart, they increase heart
rate to abnormal highs. The heart will become exhausted by the abnormal overuse. Incoming
messages to the brain are slow and clouded, so the medulla continues to send messages for
increased heart rate until a heart failure occurs. Strokes and convulsions occur mainly
due to dopamine flowing into the wrong receptor sites. This rush is too much and
malfunctions start to occur in the motor cortex, producing convulsions and in some cases,
strokes and deaths.
Surprisingly, the Limbic System, or that which produces emotion in the brain, is not
affected by cocaine as was once believed. Recent studies indicate that the relaxed,
euphoric feeling that is produced is achieved during a high is created by the clouded
messages that occur due to high neurotransmitter activity in the brain. 
As cocaine is used, it affects many parts of the brain directly and indirectly. The highs
produced by cocaine are actually irregular levels of brain-made neurotransmitters caused
by cocaine, not cocaine itself. The addiction is a strong physiological dependence
brought about by low levels of ceretonin in the brain. The abuse of cocaine is
wide-spread and is expensive financially as well as physically. After all of the facts
presented, the question that remains to be answered about cocaine abuse is not how, but
why.