Crack cocaine, cocaine, methamphetamine: Substance Abuse Treatrment 101

Cocaine and crank can be injected easily

Crack cocaine, cocaine, and bathtub meth are 3 drugs that literally changed the landscape of addiction, and the persons who abuse them. One of the reasons is due to the swiftness in which these chemicals bring people to their knees. Crack cocaine, and bathtub crank (methamphetamine) are especially gruesome in their ability to make homes disappear, cars vanish, families evaporate, and the addict’s health settling in at about sewer level, if not lower, like slightly less than 3 meters.

Continuing on from the last 101 article highlighting the stimulant class of drugs, this one is about crack cocaine, cocaine, and non-prescription methamphetamine. These drugs produce most of the same side effects as prescription amphetamines with a few thrown in for extra malevolence.

Have you ever seen the before and after photographs of crystal meth users? If you have, the impact should have stayed with you. If not, look at these, and ask yourself if you might want to even consider abusing this drug. Crack cocaine, and cocaine ride in the same car, and harbor the same potential for wearing your ass down so fast you’d think someone was using a huge piece of sandpaper on your butt. We’re talking about full-blown chemically dependent persons here, not chippers, although chippers often become full-blown addicts.

A major problem with bathtub meth is the labs used to make the chemical. These labs have been found everywhere from rolling SUV's to rural areas deep in the woods. The chemicals used to make methamphetamine are so volatile they have literally blown up the premises, and the people inside of them. Also, the ingredients are very hazardous to life. Children of the people cooking these drugs are at high risk for contamination, and health problems..

Michigan meth lab bust

The street slang for many amphetamines pretty much cover the entire alphabet, most of which belie their malevolence. An article on teen slang done recently touched on some of the endearing terms people use for these chemicals. Have you ever heard of Biker’s Coffee? It’s coffee and methamphetamine. What about “Crankster.” This is a person who either uses or manufactures methamphetamine. How about “Dropping?” This is placing methamphetamine in bread and consuming it. Let’s do a “five-way.” This is really nuts. It is combining the snorting of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, ground-up flunitrazepam pills, and drinking alcohol. Five-way? How about five-ways to die?

With any prescription amphetamines, and street cooked drugs like crack and meth, the stimulant appears to increase the rate of deterioration. Whether that is the case or not, doesn’t matter here. What matters is that if you develop an addiction to these particularly nasty chemicals, your deterioration usually comes much quicker than say if you used heroin. And no, the suggestion that heroin be used instead, or that heroin is somehow safer is not intended because it can be just as dangerous.

Before you breakout the keyboard gangster on this article about that statement, it needs to be clarified. Some drugs are inherently more dangerous than others. For instance, what is more dangerous, swallowing 10 aspirin or 10 clonodine , (brand name Catapres), pills? Aspirin may result in your stomach bleeding, and could also upset your stomach. Clonodine on the other hand lowers blood pressure, and chewing up 10 of them might find medical personnel with mining equipment digging beneath your body searching for your blood pressure because it dropped that low. Lower the blood pressure enough and it will kill you.

The routes of administration for these 3 drugs are either by smoking, injecting, swallowing, or snorting. Crack cocaine, sometimes called “Rooster” or “Tornado” is smoked mainly because the high is instantaneous. It is also cheaper to produce and buy than the cocaine powder it is derived from. Powder or crystallized cocaine can be smoked (freebased), snorted, injected, but hardly ever taken orally. Bathtub crack, (methamphetamine), can be smoked, injected, snorted, and taken orally.

In addition to the regular side effects of stimulants, the 3 here have the added effects of those posed by the adulterants contained in these chemicals, especially after so many hands have been in the cookie jar in order to make a profit along the smuggling routes, middlemen take, and ultimately the dealer’s hands. At each stop, the drugs are usually stepped on in order to increase the amount, and thus the profit. By the time it hits the streets of American cities, it might be cut with everything from Drano crystals to a baby diuretic called mannitol, (makes you urinate). How shrewd is that dude? Cutting the drugs with mannitol; a chemical that makes you urinate more. Think what that means for business.

Cocaine research

If you are an addict and consuming quantities of drugs cut with mannitol, (mannitol is cheap), this drug can lower potassium to dangerous levels affecting the heart’s ability to beat. Not only are the side effects from the original drug working on you, but the adulterants often do more harm than the original drug. If injecting cocaine, or bathtub crank, there is always the risks associated with invasive administration of the drug. Blood clots can form, and infections can set in, not to mention the risks associated with sharing needles, or reusing the same needles over, and over again like many addicts do. The author used needles so dull the skin depressed fully a half before piercing the skin.

Most dangerous drug?

Aside from the adverse physical and psychological affects of cocaine, including bathtub crank, one of the greatest side effects of this kind of chemical dependency is the rapid depletion of both the addict’s, and his or her family’s assets, or for that matter their neighbor's assets too. It’s not uncommon for a cocaine addict to go though half a million dollars like it’s a junket to a candy store. One acquaintance a few years back managed to burn up 30 grand just short of 10 days rubbing cocaine on his tongue, gums, shooting it up, snorting, and freebasing the stuff. Had it been offered in suppository form, it’s a bet a few plugs would have been up that orifice as well! The dude was a walking cocaine crystal. Is it any wonder why rats, and monkeys will self-administer cocaine to the exclusion of food, and destroy themselves in the process? The stuff feels that good, and is that addictive. Humans do the same thing, however. People can also be very irresponsible when either selling drugs, or consuming them, especially if they are doing both.

Irresponsible, stupidity, unconscionable behavior

Chemical dependencies usually boil down to one thing for many, many addicts, and that is: The drugs once used as a crutch to help forget problems, eventually come to rule with an iron fist. Addiction has no compassion or benevolence when it comes to life. It’s like being caught in a thousand miles of rough sea weather without a raft, at the mercy of Nature’s elements. The oceans are an especially unforgiving environment quick to snatch one’s last breath away, and pummel ignorance un-gratuitously. Addiction sails those same waters content in drowning its victims without so much as a blast of a mariner’s horn in respect. And for those who became addicted through no fault of their own due to some medical procedure by the resultant prescription narcotics taken for acute or chronic pain; it rules life the same way. Addiction doesn’t care why you came, or from where; its only concern is that you keep coming back to feed the beast that never sates.

If you or a loved one needs help with any type of drug problem, contact these sites depending on where you reside. SEMCA (Wayne County residents), CARE (Macomb County residents), PACE (Oakland Countyresidents), Drug Free Detroit (City of Detroit residents).

Spanish speaking readers can access SAMHSA's site on this page under Habla Con Tus Hijos.

In the flow...

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