Cocaine is a potent naturally occurring central nervous system stimulant found in the leaves of the South American shrub, Erythroxylon Coca. It is used medically as a topical anesthetic in ophthalmology, nose and throat surgeries. For recreational use it is taken by snorting or intravenously, or smoked in the free-base form.
Desired short-term effects of cocaine are anesthesia and euphoria. Concomitant and mostly undesirable short term effects are increased pulse and heart rate, elevated blood pressure, dilated pupils, anxiety and restlessness, insomnia and fever.
Long-term cocaine use results in escalating exhaustion, chronic insomnia, paranoia, aggressiveness, violence and toxic psychosis.
Patients intoxicated with cocaine may get in violent confrontations with police, and suffer cardiac arrest during restraint, the so-called excited delirium syndrome.
Chronic (long-term) cocaine abusers may experience strokes or heart attacks due to the constrictive action of cocaine on the brain and heart blood vessels, plus a toxic irritable effect on the heart itself.
In addition to the devastating psychological and social consequences of cocaine abuse, addicts who habitually snort cocaine may end up with a destroyed nasal septum.
Among street drugs of abuse, cocaine is one of the most, if not the most addicting.
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