Once considered a harmless source of pleasure and therapeutic benefit, today the drug cocaine is vilified as the cause of great misery and suffering for many who have succumbed to its euphoric effects. Yet, by nearly all accounts, cocaine is here to...

OFFICIAL NAMES: Powder cocaine, crack cocaine STREET NAMES: Base, Bernice, blow, "C", coke, dream, dust, flakes, nose candy, Peruvian marching powder, powder, rock, stardust, snow, sugar, the devil's dandruff, white lady DRUG...

Cocaine What Kind of Drug Is It? Cocaine is a natural substance that comes from the leaves of the coca (pronounced KOH-kuh) plant. This plant should not be confused with the cocoa (pronounced KOH-koh) plant, which is the source of chocolate. Cocaine...

The abuse of cocaine has become a major public-health problem in the United States since the 1970s. During that period it emerged from relative obscurity, described by experts as a harmless recreational drug with minimal toxicity. By the mid-1980s,...

In the medical community, there is no general agreement as to the best way to treat cocaine dependence. This is alarming given that in 2000, an estimated 1.2 million Americans were current cocaine users. One form of treatment takes a behavioral...

Erythroxlon coca, a shrub indigenous to the upper jungles of the Andes mountains in South America, has been consumed for millennia by the various Indian tribes that have inhabited the region. The primary alkaloid of this plant, cocaine (first called...

The abuse of cocaine is a major public-health problem in the United States. In the 1970s, people began taking cocaine as a recreational drug. Experts believed that cocaine was harmless. Many movies and books from this decade show cocaine use as a...

The signs and symptoms of withdrawal from depressant drugs, such as alcohol or heroin, are much easier to recognize than the symptoms of withdrawal from the stimulant drug cocaine, because a cocaine abuser who stops taking the drug has no immediate...

An alkaloid found in the leaves of the shrub Erythroxylon coca, which grows wild and has been cultivated in South America for thousands of years. This stimulant DRUG is commonly used for its psychoactive effects in modern times, but in fact human...

Crack (sometimes called crack-co-caine) is an illicit drug, the smokable form of CO-CAINE, made by adding the bases ammonia or baking soda and water to cocaine hydrochloride. The white powder illicitly purchased as cocaine is in the hydrochloride form;...

For centuries, Peruvian natives have chewed the leaves of the coca plant because of their stimulating and exhilarating effect. In 1855 the German Gaedicke isolated the active alkaloid in coca leaves. Albert Niemann (1880-1921) studied the white powder...

Crack (sometimes called crack cocaine) is the form of cocaine that is smoked. The white powder that people buy illegally as cocaine cannot be smoked, because it is destroyed at the temperatures required for smoking. Cocaine can be converted to crack by...

The free base of the alkaloid COCAINE. Cocaine is extracted from the leaves of the coca plant. The initial extraction process results in the alkaloid being converted to cocaine hydrochloride (HCl) salt, which is in crystalline, powdered form. This form...

Heterocyclic compound (C17H21NO4), an alkaloid obtained from coca leaves. It has legal uses in medicine and dentistry as a local anesthetic but far more is used illegally, usually as the hydrochloride. When sniffed in small amounts, cocaine produces...

Benzoylmethylecgonine; Methyl benzoylecgonine; Benzoylecgonine methyl ester Found in coca leaves, Erythroxylum coca, and other Erythroxylum spp. (Erythroxylaceae). Central nervous system stimulant and narcotic, subject to widespread abuse. It is a...

A colorless to white crystalline powder. Used as a local anesthetic (medicine or dentistry), usually as the hydrochloride. Also known by street names, such as coke, snow, or...

Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is both a stimulant of the central nervous system and an appetite...