Cocaine is an extremely addictive stimulant that affects the user’s body and mind. It is one of the oldest known drugs, having been abused for more than 100 years. Pure cocaine was first extracted from the cocoa leaf, which grows primarily in Peru and Bolivia, in the mid-19th century. It was used medically as anesthetic and stimulant throughout the early 1900s.

Cocaine is an intense euphoric drug with high potential for addiction. It can be transformed into crack cocaine, a purer form of the drug, and is easily attainable on the street. The powdered form of the drug can be snorted or dissolved in water and injected, or it can be mixed with hydrochloride salt and heated to form rock crystals, or crack.

Slang terms for the drug include blow, coke, C, nose candy, snow, snowball, tornado, wicky stick, ya yo, Charlie, Devil’s dandruff, flake, Peruvian marching powder, pearl-flake, stardust, and toot.

Cocaine’s effects appear within a few minutes of taking the drug, and disappear within a few minutes or hours. Cocaine usually makes the user feel euphoric, energetic, talkative, and mentally alert. It also temporarily decreases the desire for food and sleep. The short-term physiological effects include constricted blood vessels, dilated pupils, and increased temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure. Large amounts of the drug can leaf to bizarre, erratic, and violent behavior. Users may experience tremors, vertigo, muscle twitches, paranoia, and feelings of irritability and anxiety. Sudden death can occur as a result of cardiac arrest or seizures followed by respiratory arrest.

Users may develop a tolerance to the drug, which often resorts in taking higher and higher doses as they try to achieve the same effects. This also means that users can become more sensitive to the drug’s effects, which may explain some deaths that occur after taking apparently low doses of cocaine. Taking the drug repeatedly at increasingly high doses (binging) can lead to full-blown paranoid psychosis, where the individual loses touch with reality and experiences hallucinations.

According to a 2006 national survey, 35.3 million Americans ages 12 and older reported having used cocaine, and 8.5 million reported having used crack cocaine. There were an estimated 977,000 new users of cocaine in 2006, most of which were 18 and older when they first used the drug.

Cognitive behavioral therapy has been shown to be effective in decreasing cocaine use and preventing relapse. Treatment should be tailored to the individual’s needs, which usually involves a combination of detox, therapy, and social support.

There are currently no medications for treating cocaine addiction, though researchers are looking for medications that can help alleviate the intense craving experienced by users, as well as medications to counteract triggers of relapse such as stress. Research so far suggests that addiction medications are most effective when used as part of a comprehensive treatment program.