The debate over whether or not cocaine is addictive is ongoing and complicated. The majority of mental health professionals take the view that regular cocaine users cannot voluntarily stop taking the drug. In this sense, cocaine meets the definition of an addictive drug. Moreover, these experts believe that cocaine use leads to physical changes in the brain that encourage continued use. Journalist Norbert R. Myslinski reports: According to Prof. Karen Bolla of Johns Hopkins University, cocaine impairs memory, manual dexterity, and decision making for at least a month. Her study suggests damage to the brain’s prefrontal cortex, leading to loss of control over consumption of the drug. A deadly spiral is set up, making it more and more difficult for the addict to quit. Continued drug abuse becomes increasingly a matter of brain damage and less a matter of weak character. Another study performed by researchers at Rockefeller University in New York City confirms Bolla’s conclusions and provides a detailed explanation of the brain chemistry of a chronic cocaine user. The Rockefeller University investigators found that repeated exposure to cocaine causes a change at the molecular level that alters a brain protein called Read more [...]

After more than two decades of relative obscurity, cocaine re-emerged on the American drug scene in the early 1970s. Deterred by the obvious addictiveness and social stigma of drugs like heroin and the occasional “bad trip” associated with hallucinogens such as LSD, some Americans saw cocaine as a relatively harmless “recreational” drug. Its potential for harm was downplayed, especially since markedly successful individuals in the entertainment industry seemed to use the drug with impunity. As movie stars, rock musicians, and sports heroes openly admitted using cocaine and enjoying its euphoric effects, its popularity and image soared among the general population. Cocaine quickly occupied a niche in American popular culture. The rock song “Cocaine,” recorded by Eric Clapton, Richie Havens, Dave Van Ronk, the Jack Saints, and DRG Compilations, bolstered the drug’s cool image. More songs with “cocaine” in the title followed, performed by some of America’s most popular singers. Dozens of movies appeared featuring scences that both destigmatized and satirized the use of the drug, depicting cocaine users as fun, successful people. A scene in Woody Allen’s film Annie Hall, for example, depicts guests at a party comically Read more [...]

Although not all long-term cocaine users experience cocaine psychosis, those who do are unable to function in society. Thus, cocaine psychosis is likely to affect those personally and professionally connected to the user as well as the user himself. Those suffering from cocaine psychosis display a variety of antisocial behaviors, such as deception, violence, and isolation. This deception often begins with lying to friends and family about the cost and frequency of cocaine use; experts in addictive behavior note that self-deception in the form of blaming others for the user’s addiction is also common. If this pattern continues unchecked, many regular cocaine users escalate their deception to nonviolent forms of criminal behavior such as shoplifting, burglary, and forgery to pay for their cocaine habits. Coke Bugs One of the most common manifestations of cocaine psychosis is a sensory hallucination experienced by many long-term users who feel bugs crawling all over their bodies and in their mouths. This hallucination is so common that it has become known as “coke bugs.” Eugene Richards, in his book Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue, interviews a cocaine addict who tells this story about coke bugs: I knew this guy, Read more [...]

As destructive as crack is to the addict’s family, the drug is even more destructive to the health of the addict. Medical complications resulting from long-term crack use show up daily in emergency rooms across America. Cardiac arrest, strokes, and liver failure are all well-documented results of crack use. In addition to illness and deaths directly linked to crack use, numerous indirect or secondary illnesses are linked to it as well. Some of these illnesses are commonly found among those who take drugs intravenously. Although crack is usually smoked, intravenous crack use is common in crack houses. Addicts tend to share needles, meaning that they risk contracting diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis, a severe liver inflammation. Nobody knows for sure how many crack addicts contract AIDS in this fashion, but according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), use and abuse of illicit drugs, including crack, have become the leading risk factors for new cases of HIV infection. NIDA also reports that hepatitis is spreading rapidly among intravenous drug users. Crack Addict Three women addicted to crack — Teresa Wiltz, Diana Donnell, and Mia Mann — contributed an article to the April 1996 issue of Essence Read more [...]

Fear of cannabis, or marihuana, as it was beginning to be known, was minimal throughout most of the nation in the 1920s. Nevertheless it still concerned the federal government. For example, in the January 1929 authorization of the two narcotic centers for the treatment of addicted federal prisoners, the law specifically defined “habit-forming narcotic drugs” to include “Indian hemp” and made habitual cannabis users, along with opium addicts, eligible for treatment.16 Although there seem to have been few cannabis users transferred to Lexington and Fort Worth, it is significant that congressional worry about cannabis continued after passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and clearly was present before the Bureau of Narcotics was established in 1930. In areas with concentrations of Mexican immigrants, who tended to use marihuana as a drug of entertainment or relaxation, the fear of marihuana was intense. During the 1920s Mexican immigration, legal and illegal, rapidly increased into the region from Louisiana to California and up to Colorado and Utah. Mexicans were useful in the United States as farm laborers and, as the economic boom continued, they traveled to the Midwest and the North where jobs in factories and sugar-beet Read more [...]

During its first few years, the bureau, as judged from its annual reports, minimized the marihuana problem and felt that control should be vested in the state governments.24 The report published in 1932 commented, This abuse of the drug is noted among the Latin-American or Spanish-speaking population. The sale of cannabis cigarettes occurs to a considerable degree in States along the Mexican border and in cities of the Southwest and West, as well as in New York City, and, in fact, wherever there are settlements of Latin Americans. A great deal of public interest has been aroused by newspaper articles appearing from time to time on the evils of the abuse of marijuana or Indian hemp, and more attention has been focused upon specific cases reported of the abuse of the drug than would otherwise have been the case. This publicity tends to magnify the extent of the evil and lends color to an inference that there is an alarming spread of the improper use of the drug, whereas the actual increase in such use may not have been inordinately large. In 1932 the Federal Bureau of Narcotics strongly endorsed the new Uniform State Narcotic Act and repeatedly stressed that the problem could be brought under control if all the states Read more [...]

Anslinger went to New York in January 1936 to meet with a group of distinguished experts to try to hammer out a marihuana control bill; present were a representative of the Foreign Policy Association; Joseph Chamberlain, professor of law at Columbia; Herbert L. May, member of the Permanent Central [opium] Board of the League of Nations; and Stuart Fuller, assistant chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs of the State Department. Anslinger reported their conclusion to Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Stephen B. Gibbons in a confidential memorandum: “under the taxing power and regulation of interstate commerce it would be almost hopeless to expect any kind of adequate control.”30 The Commissioner’s recommendation for the marihuana legislation was to follow the example of the Migratory Bird Act, which had been declared constitutional, although it intruded into the police powers of the states, because it had been enacted as a requirement of treaties with Canada and Mexico (Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416). Anslinger suggested a similar treaty requiring the control of marihuana. Once the treaty was ratified by the Senate, a federal marihuana law would not meet the constitutional blocks he felt sure it would Read more [...]

Believing that the movement to control narcotics was gaining strength and that some legislation was likely to be enacted, the American Pharmaceutical Association sought to give the various components of the drug trades a united voice, or at least a forum, in which the interests of each would receive the maximum possible support of the others. Meeting in Denver during October 1912, the association called for a convocation. As a result, the National Drug Trade Conference (NDTC) was created and met in Washington, D.C., on 15 January 1913, with its chief business the proposed antinarcotic bill. Each major trade association was permitted three representatives, and no resolution could be passed unless it was unanimous.2 This set of rules worked relatively well for the problem at hand because pressure from outside forces was considerable. During the three-day meeting, constituent members were able to compromise on a common position. In later years, however, and on other subjects, the NDTC reached unanimity less often. All groups opposed the Harrison bill as it then stood. The American Association of Pharmaceutical Chemists and the National Association of Medicinal Products (NAMP), both makers of prescription drugs, were Read more [...]

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century United States, the production and misuse of methamphetamine was a growing and urgent public health, criminal justice, and child welfare problem affecting whole families and communities. Methamphetamine, also known as crank, crystal, glass, ice, speed, hillbilly crack, and yaaba, among other names, is a form of amphetamine with strong central nervous system effects. It gained popularity as a less expensive, more easily available and longer-lasting stimulant than cocaine. It is highly addictive, and regular use is associated with a variety of serious health and mental heath problems. Methamphetamine use also contributes to a rising rate of violent crime (Federal Bureau of Investigation). Initially limited to the western states and Hawaii, by the late twentieth century, methamphetamine misuse and production had spread throughout the United States, particularly into rural areas. At the time of our study, a combination of factors fueled the rapid growth of methamphetamine misuse and production in the rural Midwest. Rural poverty contributed to the despair that led some to escape through substance misuse and provided financial incentives for methamphetamine production, Read more [...]

In posts of this site, we begin with an introductory discussion of the history and epidemiology of methamphetamine. Despite intense publicity in the popular press in the 1990s and early 2000s, methamphetamine was not a new drug, nor were problems with its misuse. Methamphetamine was synthesized more than 100 years ago by a German chemist and was once used to treat a variety of medical conditions including narcolepsy, attention deficit disorder, and obesity. The drug, however, proved to be highly addictive, and epidemics of methamphetamine misuse arose in diverse cultural contexts from urban Japan to the rural Midwest. The social impact of various methamphetamine epidemics were related to the quality of the drug, its means of distribution, population of users, methods of administration, and legal sanctions, all of which have varied widely across time and place. For example, surplus stockpiles of methamphetamine used to keep pilots and factory workers alert were released as over-the-counter medications to the Japanese public following World War II and led to widespread stimulant misuse. In rural Illinois, as summarized earlier, easy instructions for producing highly potent crystal methamphetamine at home were available Read more [...]