Cocaine

“ The cocaine user takes large quantities, but in small doses frequently repeated. He becomes frightened at the effects of large doses, and when he cannot get the effects from small (to him safe) doses, he resorts to alcohol, morphine, or chloral. In many cases memories of the delusions and hallucinations are so vivid and distressing that other narcotics are used to prevent their recurrence. In other cases the recollection is very confused and vague, and strong suspicions fill the mind that the real condition is grossly exaggerated by the friends for some deterring effect. ”

“ The abject wretch who becomes possessed of a few coppers, realizing that the amount will be insufficient for a square meal, buys an innocent looking packet of cocaine, and mixing it with a small quantity of the lime-paste used by betel-chewers in their quids, smears the mixture on his gums, and slowly swallows the saliva. Gone are the cravings for food; a feeling of pleasant warmth suffuses his wasted body; he feels equal to any exertion. Images are distorted to immense proportions ”

“ To combine such a drug as coca, or cocaine, with an alcoholic stimulant, is to multiply the dangers of cocainism by those of alcoholism. It would be impossible to find terms sufficiently severe in which to condemn the recklessness of those who promiscuously recommend such a compound for all who are overworked or debilitated. One firm actually has the assurance to advertise a preparation of this kind as a remedy for dipsomania. ”

“ We seem to be rapidly becoming a nation of cocaine fiends. If the number of those addicted to the use of the dreadful drug continues to increase at the present rate, the importation of what was originally regarded as a blessed alleviation of pain, will have to be classed with opium, and its use prohibited by law, except for medicinal purposes. ”

“ Cocaine is now such a universally recognized local anesthetic that there is the best of reason for referring to it here—the more so because it affords another opportunity to do honor to a discoverer, who has rendered a most important service to not only our profession, but to the world in general. ”

“ Cocaine poses a serious threat to our Nation. Long masquerading as glamorous and relatively harmless, cocaine has revealed its own deadly truth—cocaine is a killer. It can cause seizures, heart attacks, and strokes. ”

“ Cocaine is benzoylmethyl ecgonine. It crystallizes from alcohol in prisms, which are sparingly soluble in water. Its solution has a bitter taste, alkaline reaction, and is laevorotatory. Its use as a local anaesthetic (see Anaesthesia) makes it the most valuable of the coca alkaloids, and it is much used in ophthalmic practice. ”

“ The habitual use of cocaine for example, may be regarded as an indulgence of appetite and the obtaining of sensation and artificial stimulation and not as based upon the demands of a specific physical addiction-disease mechanism. The therapeutics of its discontinuance are entirely different. Habitual indulgence in cocaine tends to result in mental and moral deterioration. ”

“ When the cocaine-habit fixes itself on a person, the desire for liquor is gone, the victim finding entire satisfaction in sniffing cocaine. By sniffing cocaine up the nostrils it reaches the brain quicker, and the effect is more lasting than if swallowed or administered by hypodermic injection. Persons addicted to the habit say they have tried the two latter ways, and that the effects are not the same, nor do they afford the same degree of satisfaction and pleasure as when sniffed. ”

“ All persons who acquire the cocaine habit die from it, unless they stop their pernicious habit very soon. If you wish to save your life you must abandon your habit without delay. As we said before, to take cocaine is worse than to get drunk—it is more injurious to the body, more fatal to the mind, and more destructive to morality. But where did you get the cocaine? Chemists are forbidden to give poisons to silly girls. ”

“ John's, the American people eventually indemnifying the owners of the Tigris.
In hunting my patients I started round with a book and pencil accompanied by the steward carrying a candle and matches. The invalids were distributed in the four holds—the after, the main, forecastle, and foretop-gallant-forecastle. I never went round without a bottle of cocaine solution in my pocket for the snow-blind men, who suffered the most excruciating pain, often rolling about and moaning as if in a kind of frenzy, and to whom the cocaine gave wonderful relief. ”

“ Cocaine is the original type of a local anesthetic. Einhorn has made possible its synthetic production and has also opened the field for a great number of experiments of scientific and practical importance leading to the discovery of new local anesthetics obtained by exchanging the non-anesthiferous atom groups of cocaine for other groups different for each of the various new agents; thus eucaine, orthoform, anesthesine, alypin, and others have been obtained.
Cocaine occurs as a white, crystalline powder, readily soluble in water and in alcohol. ”

“ Today an even more devastating form of cocaine—"crack"—has appeared. Crack is smoked, producing immediate effects in the user. It is relatively inexpensive, but is so powerfully addictive that the user, even a first-time user, feels an overwhelming compulsion for more. Crack is used by people of all ages. Tragically, it is sold to and used by even 11- and 12-year-olds. To mothers and fathers, boys and girls at this age are children. To a cocaine dealer, they are just another market. ”

“ Action.—Cocaine in small doses is a cerebral, cardiac, respiratory and nervous stimulant and dieuretic; overdoses cause delirium with cardiac and respiratory failure. Cocaine is a powerful local anaesthetic; used for all animals in 4 to 10 per cent solution, usually a 4 to 6 per cent solution is strong enough for ordinary operations. Inject under the skin, into the muscular tissue or over nerve trunks for minor operations. Applied to such structures as the eye, penis, tongue and other delicate mucous surfaces as the uterus, vagina, rectum, etc. ”

“ The active principle of some of the best known catarrh remedies is cocaine, and a few manufacturers are honest enough to so announce on the labels covering their goods; more do not, and leave the victims to discover the truth after they have paid the penalty of ignorance, and developed the cocaine habit. ”

“ The cocaine-habit is an unmixed vice. There is no excuse for it; not even the excuse that the opium and morphia habits have, viz., accident; and the person who takes to it, does so wilfully and deliberately. Cocaine has a greater power over its votaries than either opium or morphia; the after distress is keener; and a slave to it is a slave indeed. And the harm it does, and the certainty with which it eventually kills, is truly appalling.
A Burman Cocaine Eater
[72]
Extreme poverty is frequently a cause of the habit. ”

“ Despite the best efforts by law enforcement officials, cocaine continues to come into our country at alarming levels, supplied by ruthless criminals who draw their power from public acquiescence. Bigger supplies and lower prices have put cocaine in the hands of people who were never before tempted to use it. ”

“ When an overseer in the South will deliberately put cocaine into the rations of his negro laborers in order to get more work out of them to meet a sudden emergency, it is time to have some policy of accounting for the sale of a drug like cocaine.
It is also extremely important to regulate the sale of the hypnotic coal-tar derivatives. All the group of hypnotics should be buyable only on a physician’s prescription. They all disturb heart action and impoverish the blood, thereby producing neurotics. ”

“ THE USES OF COCAINE IN SURGERY.
It is not the object of this communication to speak of the discovery of this drug and the experiments which were necessary to bring it before the profession as a reliable and trustworthy agent. That cocaine is a valuable addition to the armamentarium of the surgeon, I think no one will doubt, but how beneficial, I think but few fully realize.
Cocaine is constantly growing in favor with the surgeons here in New York. ”

“ There can be no doubt that in many parts of the world cocaine inebriety is largely on the increase. The greatest number of victims is to be found among society women, and among women who have adopted literature as a profession; and there is no doubt that a considerable proportion of chronic cocainists have fallen under the dominion of the drug from a desire to stimulate their powers of imagination. ”

“ The reefer smoker who gives the stuff up does not turn violently ill. But he doesn’t give it up. He likes its effect and needs its lift to give him courage.
Sooner or later, all reefer smokers go on to cocaine, because the effect is the same as from reefers, a hundredfold. When the bang of the hemp wears off, cocaine is the only thing that can take its place. And because cocaine is so expensive, one must become a criminal to afford its use. And the cocaine gives one the courage to be a criminal. ”

“ In a busy age there is the strongest possible temptation to seek a restorative by some occult method, rather than to give the rest and refreshment that nature demands. It is upon this that the whole trade in these so-called restoratives depends.
“There is no food quality in alcohol, cocaine or kola, but there is in them all a narcotizing influence that in its lesser stages is hurtful, and in its greater stages disastrous.
“The cocaine habit may be cultivated as easily as the alcohol habit, and the two forms of disease, alcoholism and cocainism, are by no means rare. ”

“ Cocaine stimulates the central nervous system. Its immediate effects include dilated pupils and elevated blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, and body temperature. Occasional use can cause a stuffy or runny nose, while chronic use can ulcerate the mucous membrane of the nose. Injecting cocaine with unsterile equipment can cause AIDS, hepatitis, and other diseases. Preparation of freebase, which involves the use of volatile solvents, can result in death or injury from fire or explosion. ”

“ Properties.—Cocaine is in the form of four- to six-sided prisms of the monoclinic system. It is one of the few alkaloids which melt under the temperature of boiling water, the melting-point being as low as 85° in water. It readily furnishes a sublimate at 100°, partially decomposing. On boiling with hydrochloric acid cocaine is [348] decomposed into methyl alcohol, ecgonin, and benzoic acid, according to the following reaction:—
Cocaine is but little soluble in water, but easily dissolves in ether, alcohol, benzene, chloroform, and carbon disulphide ”

“ Cocaine, an active principle of the Erythroxylum coca, is capable of exciting a powerful craving, which apparently holds its victims in a grip of iron until they are willing to spend any amount of money in obtaining the drug. Arsenic eating is a habit fortunately rare in this country, although cases have been met with in which women have gradually become addicted to taking large quantities for improving their complexions. ”

“ As with morphine, to use either of these drugs effectively means in the long run the necessary increase of the dose up to the limit of physical tolerance.
The most harmful of all habit-forming drugs is cocaine. Nothing so quickly undermines its victim or provides so short a cut to the insane asylum. It differs from opium in two important ways. A man does not acquire a habit from cocaine in the sense that it is virtually impossible for him to leave it off without medical treatment. ”

“ In using cocaine as a diagnostic agent for lameness, the fact must not be lost sight of that it is a cerebral stimulant and that if a large quantity is injected it may cause such a degree of excitement as to make the patient forget his lameness, thus leading the operator to believe that the improvement is due to anaesthesia below the point of injection, when the apparent remission from the lameness is of physical origin. Cocaine is advantageously used in painful eye affections. ”

“ Many teenage drug users calling a national cocaine hotline report that they take other drugs just to counteract the unpleasant effects of cocaine. Certain drugs, such as opiates and barbiturates, create physical dependence. With prolonged use, these drugs become part of the body chemistry. When a regular user stops taking the drug, the body experiences the physiological trauma known as withdrawal. Psychological dependence occurs when drug taking becomes the center of the user's life. ”

“ Cocainæ Hydrochloras, Hydrochlorate of Cocaine (Off.) .
Off. Dose.—1⁄5 to 1 grain, but less and more may be given, in aqueous solution, pill, or pastil.
This salt has been most used: if pure it is in hard, colourless, short, acicular, granular-looking crystals, or, now more frequently met with, in light, shining, lamellar crystals, free from odour and almost tasteless; being soluble in half its weight of water, the tingling numbness and local anæsthesia which it produces on the tongue are more intense than that produced by pure cocaine. ”

“ Students are no longer buying the old line that experimenting with cocaine and other illegal drugs is safe. For many years, only about a third of them said that using cocaine once or twice was dangerous. Last year almost half did, and nearly 90 percent said regular use was dangerous. And cocaine use is no longer the "in" thing. In fact, almost all the seniors surveyed-97 percent-disapproved of regular cocaine use. ”