Cocaine
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Cocaine is a drug refined from the coca plant specifically Erythroxylum coca var. coca. In its refined form, it presents as a white powder at one end of a rolled-up hundred dollar bill, of which the other end is inserted in one's nostril.
Ingestion of cocaine results in euphoria, general power-tripping, but, sadly, eventual psychosis. According to a scale published in The Lancet, Cocaine works out as the second most harmful and second most addictive drug out of the major controlled substances in use around the world — second only to heroin.[1][2]
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[edit] Types
Cocaine can also be chemically manipulated to make "free base," which can be smoked, although danger to your polyester shirt becomes an issue. Likewise, it can also be processed into a smokable "rock" form known as "crack" cocaine (which is also freebase), possession of which carries one hundred times the penalty of the powder version. This is because white businessmen snort the powder version in order to promote the American ideal as go-getters, whereas ghetto-dwelling Bad People smoke the rock version, in order to better groove to the rap song "You're in the Ghetto because you are inferior."
[edit] "Alternative" uses
Cocaine can also be used as a local anesthetic. If your tooth hurts, get a little and rub it your gum, while waiting for your dentist appointment.
Once upon a time, the "real" Coke (Coca Cola) truly was "the pause that refreshes." since its active ingredients were cocaine and the kola extract, caffeine. Bottles of the "real Coke" are now most likely held in private collections, much as old bottles of wine, or classic stashes of chronic, to be gently consumed and enjoyed by connoisseurs.
Cocaine (or, in reality, the raw leaf of the coca plant) is also known as Bolivian Marching Powder.
[edit] Legal status
Because cocaine does have valid medical uses as an anesthetic, it falls under Schedule II of the U.S. Controlled Substances Act: recognized medical uses, but a high potential for abuse.
Interestingly, marijuana falls under the even-more-restrictive U.S. Schedule I, supposedly reserved for substances with no recognized medical use and a high potential for abuse. Evidently, cocaine's use as a topical anesthetic is Federally recognized, but marijuana's use as an anti-nausea treatment is not.
This situation is reversed in Canada. Under Canada's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, cocaine is listed alongside Rob Ford heroin and methamphetamine on the most restrictive Schedule I, while Schedule II is a special category containing only marijuana and nothing else.
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse. (2007)
- ↑ Visualization of the scale[wp]