Crack Cocaine Research Paper

Cocaine is a purified extract from Erythroxylum coca bush leaves, which mostly grows in South America at the Andes region. These extract go through chemical processes that result into two different forms of cocaine, the powdered cocaine and crack cocaine. Powdered cocaine usually dissolves in water. Users may decide to inject or snort it. Crack cocaine, on the other hand, undergoes through a process that leaves it is a freebase form for smoking. Cocaine is currently one of the most abused stimulants in the United States of America. A recent study shows that, at least 15% of the Americans had used it at some point in their lives, 6% of whom used it while in high school senior year (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2010). Young men between the

Cocaine can cause sudden kidney failure through the rhabdomyolysis, a process of breaking down the muscle fibers leading to the release of myoglobin into the bloodstream. Myoglobin is extremely harmful to the kidney and may cause sudden and serious kidney damage. People suffering from high blood pressure run the risk of accelerated long-term kidney damage because of the high blood pressure. In addition, cocaine contracts the blood vessels, supplying blood to the gut, resulting in oxygen starvation (Morton, 1999). The oxygen starvation results in ulcers or perforation of the stomach and even the intestines. All these physiological conditions resulting from the use of cocaine require many finances to treat, which leads to depletion of family finances since, at this point, many users are fully dependent on their families. Families have to support the users completely, and in extreme cases, they end up losing their family members. This is because, most of these conditions are fatal, and in situations where they are not fatal, they leave behind irreversible damage on the user’s health, their lives and extension, the lives of the people close to the