According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, cocaine is a powerfully addictive stimulant drug made from the coca plant leaves native to South America. Cocaine is nature’s most powerful stimulant and is used by nearly 14 million people worldwide. In the 1980s, people began to use baking soda to strip away the hydrochloride from powder cocaine. The most addictive form of cocaine is crack.
Crack cocaine is a crystal-free base form of cocaine that can be smoked or injected, and it is also known as rock or crack. It fluctuates in pigment from white to light rose or yellow. It stimulates the brain’s reward system, dopamine, and generates instant effects throughout the central nervous system. Crack gets its name from the cracking and popping sound it makes when heated. It fluctuates in pigment from white to light rose or yellow.
It stimulates the brain’s reward system, dopamine, and generates instant effects throughout the central nervous system. Crack cocaine addicts build a forbearance swiftly because their bodies get used to the drug. Therefore more of the substance is necessary to deliver the consistent results of reaching a high. A crack cocaine addict’s physical brain function is dependent on the sense to be able to function normally.
What are the Dangers of Smoking Crack Cocaine?
Short-term crack cocaine effects cause a quick but intense high that is immediately followed by the opposite, a severe depression, edginess, and a craving for more of the drug. People who use it often don’t eat or sleep properly, and they can experience significantly increased heart rate, muscle spasms, and convulsions. The drug can make people feel paranoid, angry, hostile, and anxious—even when they aren’t high. Regardless of how much of the drug is used or how frequently, crack cocaine increases the risk that the user will experience a heart attack, stroke, seizure, or respiratory (breathing) failure, any of which can result in sudden death.
The long-term effects of smoking crack cocaine include:
- Chronic cough
- Asthma
- Respiratory distress
- Higher risk of infections like pneumonia
Long-term effects also include severe damage to the heart, liver, and kidneys. Users are more likely to have infectious diseases. Continued daily use causes sleep deprivation and loss of appetite, resulting in malnutrition. Smoking crack cocaine also can cause aggressive and paranoid behavior. As crack cocaine interferes with how the brain processes chemicals, one needs more and more of the drug to feel “normal.”
Those who become addicted to crack cocaine (as with most other drugs) lose interest in other areas of life. Coming down from the drug causes severe depression, which becomes deeper and deeper after each use. This can get so severe that a person will do almost anything to get the drug, even commit murder. And if they can’t get crack cocaine, the depression can get so intense it can drive the addict to suicide.
What are the Symptoms of a Crack Cocaine Overdose?
Possible symptoms of crack cocaine overdose include but are not limited to visual or auditory hallucinations (acute psychosis syndrome), delirium, hypertension (high blood pressure), tachycardia (rapid heartbeat), or arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat). When a person experiences an overdose, their body becomes pathologically over-stimulated—often resulting in seizure activity or heart rate and rhythm disturbances. Often, this results in seizures or heart rate abnormalities. In most cases, crack overdose involves such severe and rapid escalation of symptoms that a person suffering from it can experience sudden death. If a person survives the overdose by getting medical help right away, their body can incur extensive, lasting damage to their brain, heart, kidneys, and muscles.
Help with Crack Cocaine Addiction
Here at Allure Detox, we offer detox from opiates, heroin, alcohol, benzos, and crack cocaine. We don’t perceive addiction as a moral failing because it is a disease. We offer a continuum of needed care from the detox program into a residential treatment facility to facilitate long-term recovery. We will look at your health and life to make an individualized treatment plan that fits your needs, and the safest route will be approached.
You would be taken through detox to eliminate drugs and alcohol from your system gradually. It will be a medical process that includes an umbrella of medication to alleviate the physical withdrawal symptoms, and you will be closely monitored. An expertly trained team of medical professionals will administer these medications on a decreasing schedule, and sometimes the patient will remain on certain drugs until the cravings have tapered off.
Even if the patient is not facing life-threatening withdrawal symptoms, it is best to lean on the safe side. It is crucial to consider the inherent fatal dangers of stopping crack cocaine, primarily if used for a prolonged period and mixed with other substances. Please reach out to us here at Allure Detox in West Palm Beach, Florida, if you or a loved one has a crack cocaine problem. Our crack cocaine detox specialists will explain our solution-focused treatment program.