Cocaine is a fast addictive hard drug with a strong stimulating effect on all bodily and mental functions. Cocaine is extracted from the coca plant found mainly in the northern part of South America. Cocaine may be ingested by chewing on coca leaves, by mouth, inhale through the nose, inhale after evaporation (“crack”) and injection into a vein (intra-venous).

265 000 South African citizens consume roughly 5 metric tons of cocaine annually,  spending nearly R1.43 billion at the street price of around R300 a gram.

Very Important:

• Cocaine addiction leads to serious physical and mental addiction.
• Producing, trading and use of cocaine is strictly prohibited anywhere in the world.

Possible symptoms of cocaine addiction:

• Misplaced sense of superiority and omnipotence
• Hyper-alertness
• Hyperactivity
• Hyper-sexual behaviour
• Apparently feeling happiness (euphoria )
• Nervousness
• Anxiety
• Paranoia (paranoid delusions )
• Hallucinations
• Widely dilated pupils
• Accelerated heartbeat
• Hypertension
• High fever
• Severe, often fatal, heart attack
• Constipation
• Intestinal damage
• Nervousness, violent
• Subcutaneous nerve disorders ( feeling of bugs under the skin)
• Seizures (convulsions )
• Very violent behavior and other psychoses
• Insomnia
• Miscarriage
• Damage to the fetus
• Infants with nutrition, muscle coordination, sleep and behavior disorders

Important to know:

• The effect of a dose of cocaine lasts only 30 minutes.
• To curb the intense nervousness during the use of cocaine, users often combine it with alcohol or a sedative.

Cocaine withdrawal symptoms:

• Severe fatigue
• Depression
• Suicidal tendencies

Risks of Cocaine Addiction:

• Risk of infection through contaminated needles: ao-vein inflammation (phlebitis), hepatitis, HIV infection (AIDS) and blood poisoning (sepsis )
• Malnutrition due to poor diet
• Miscarriage, foetal damage and sick babies, stop menstruating
• Death by overdose
• Suicide
• Imprisonment