Is It Dangerous?

“Don’t be deceived that cocaine is a safe drug,” Dr. Schuster warns. Even those who use and favor the drug will admit to certain discomforting symptoms, such as nervousness, shaking, runny nose, bleeding and vomiting. And while the use of cocaine may curb the body’s desire for food and sleep temporarily, it does not offset the need for such. It just knocks out nature’s warning system and gives a false feeling of excellence. Eventually the body has to come down or crash. Physical exhaustion and collapse are the result.

“A lot of people look at cocaine and think that the use of it has no consequences, you don’t have to pay the devil his due,” says Dr. Everett Ellinwood, expert on drug abuse. He continues: “You can develop paranoia, deep-seated suspicion and then go into hallucinations, delusions of grandeur and manic depression. A strong enough dose can make you psychotic and an overdose can kill you.”

Don, 36-year-old paramedic and ex-cocaine user, supports this conclusion, saying: “I was suffering from hallucinations and saw apparitions. At the time I was also delving into the occult. Under the influence of cocaine I had contact with personages and heard voices. I can see now how easily drugs and demonism can become intertwined.”

Sexual behavior can change as well. “It leads you to bizarre behavior,” said one female user of cocaine. “I did threesomes, foursomes, things I’d never do normally. You think you are fulfilling fantasies, but in the end they are unfulfilling. You have no soul.”

Under the headline “Heavy Use of Cocaine Is Linked to Surge in Deaths and Illnesses,” The New York Times report stated: “Cocaine . . . is sending more and more users to the emergency room or the morgue.” In one study of 68 deaths associated with the use of cocaine, 24 were due directly to its toxic effects.

Reports also tell how cocaine use alters the personality and sociability of those using it and leads them into self-destructive behavior. Besides becoming distrustful and paranoid, some become so totally obsessed with the drug that they abandon everything that formerly had meaning for them in life and become totally preoccupied with it.

While it is true that the effects of using cocaine vary, depending on the dose and individual body chemistry, the dangers are real. And they increase with the amount used. Most common is “snorting,” the inhalation of cocaine into the nose where it is absorbed through the mucous membranes. Besides giving the user a clogged and runny nose, this weakens and destroys the nasal tissue, resulting in bleeding and eventually a perforated septum​—a hole in the membrane dividing the nasal passages.

The “snorting” method can lead to the other common forms of use, injection and smoking, in order to get a bigger, better and faster “high.” These forms are considered the most dangerous and addicting, as the drug quickly makes its way to the brain. Although a rapid “high” is produced, it is often followed by a crash, or a period of extreme discomfort. Then more has to be taken to relieve the discomfort. Or a heroin habit may be started to bring the user down and relieve the irritability. Or both cocaine and heroin will be mixed in a process called “speedballing.” Death may ensue, as there is a great danger of overdose because of the uneven cutting and mixing that takes place several times before the drug reaches the user.

Says Dr. Schuster: “One of cocaine’s biggest dangers is that it diverts people from normal pursuits; it can entrap and redirect people’s activities into an almost exclusive preoccupation with the drug.”