Cocaine The Super Drug Essay Research Paper

Cocaine: The Super Drug Essay, Research Paper

This paper will be describing the history, celebrity use, effects, and research of the drug, Cocaine. The scientific name of the street drug is cocaine hydrochloride, because there is a salt molecule bound to the cocaine alkaline molecule. Most cocaine that is purchased on the street is hardly pure, and can vary as much as 15% to 90% actual cocaine. Those who sell these illegal drugs use the practice of cutting the pure substance with sugars and even powdered milk. Everyday 5000 Americans try cocaine for their 1st time every day. Also known as White Gold, cocaine is five times more valuable than normal gold. The process to leach out the cocaine alkaloid from the coca leaves is long and drawn out. With a solution of sulfuric acid, kerosene, ammonia, and various other solvents, the leaves are soaked till they give up the drug. To get this potent drug across the border of the United States, it is concealed in shoes, dolls, flashlight batteries, against records, and pressed into clay bowls that are 75% or more of cocaine.

There are few drugs of abuse that have received as much public attention as cocaine. But cocaine is by no means a new drug. Cocaine has been used in the New World since before the Spanish Conquest; indeed, it has been in use for an estimated 3000 years. Originating from Peru, the Inca Indians have been using the leaves of the coca bush as a stimulant for working in the high altitude of the Andes Mountains. In both Bolivia and Peru, these leaves are still chewed.

In 1862, a German scientist by the name of Albert Neimann located the active ingredient in the coca leaves. The Latin name for the coca plant is Erythoxylum coca. He found that the substance produced an anesthetic effect, by putting some on his tongue, and consequently, having it go numb.

Although cocaine was highly regarded in the 1880 s and the 1890 s, by the turn of the century its potential for abuse was beginning to be realized. Sigmund Freud, who was Viennese, used cocaine to treat for morphine addictions. In 1884 he researched it and rote the paper, Uber Coca. He theorized that cocaine was a stimulant like caffeine, not one like most narcotics, and opium. One of the most tragic examples involved a close friend of Freud s, Ernst Von Fleischl Marxow, who was addicted to morphine. When Freud treated his condition with cocaine, Fleischl Marxow quickly became heavily involved with the drug and began to use it excessively. Within a year he was taking so much cocaine that he suffered toxic psychosis and later died. One scientist at the time pronounced that cocaine was the third scourge of humanity.” (After alcohol and opium.)

Seemingly, Sigmund Freud single-handedly popularized the use of cocaine.

In the 1880 s, a Corsican chemist named Angelo Mariani used this coca extract in a wine called Vin Mariani. It became an immensely popular medicine for fatigue, nervousness, and a variety of other ills. Mariani sent free samples to celebrities and solicited their endorsements. Among the public figures that sang the praises of Vin Mariani were Pope Leo XIII, the inventor Thomas Edison, Jules Verne, and the U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant. The Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson was inspired by cocaine while writing his famous novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, portrayed Holmes as an occasional heavy user of cocaine. Although aware that the drug was bad for him, the detective injected it because cocaine as transcendentally stimulating and clarifying to the mind.

Vin Mariani had competition from the American, John Styth Pemberton and his Brain Cola. Its popularity spread because of its use in soda fountains. Called Coca Cola, it also faced competition from tonics with names such as Koca Nola, Celery Cola, Wiseola, and even Dope Cola. But the Pure Food and Drug act led to regulations that forced the companies to remove cocaine from their sodas. Although caffeine is now the main stimulant in Coca Cola, the company still uses de cocainized cocaine leaves as a flavoring agent.

From the books and articles and efforts of Dr. Wiley, the Pure Food and Drug Act, known as the Wiley law, went into effect in 1906. Ironically, the very legislation that regulated one drug often caused some Americans to turn to another. No longer could companies simply peddle secret formulas containing habit forming drugs. Many mothers, who once happily bought soothing syrups for teething infants, recoiled from such products when their morphine or opium bases appeared on package labels. Reformers and newspapers charged that a lack of federal regulation spawned a large population of addicts. According to historian David Musto suggests that addiction rates peaked in 1900 at two to four hundred thousand people. What actually increased was the fear directed at addiction by officials and the public.

From the 1930 s to the late 1960 s except among such individuals as entertainers and jazz musicians, the abuse of cocaine was largely non-existent. In the 1970 s and early 1980 s, cocaine was the glamour drug of the professionals- doctors, business executives, attorneys, star-athletes, and entertainers who could afford its high cost. (A cocaine habit could cost as much as several thousand dollars weekly.)

In January 1983 Tom Kenn