Author: Gary Jackson

Cocaine Crack: What It Is, Side Effects, Risks & Withdrawal

This detection window is much shorter than that of other drugs, such as marijuana, which testing methods can detect for up to 30 days after last use. Potential short-term side effects include overdose, addiction (cocaine use disorder) and withdrawal. Long-term side effects may include serious and potentially life-threatening medical issues like heart failure, stroke or infections. If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction to crack cocaine, it’s essential to get professional drug addiction help as soon as possible. Recovery from addiction is possible but challenging, and professional treatment programs offer vital support and resources throughout the process.

When snorted or gummed, the drug has to get through mucus, skin, and other tissues first. Smoking and injecting it bypasses all that and gets it into your bloodstream almost instantly. Coke is one of those drugs that hits you hard and fast, but the exact onset time depends on how you consume it.

Crack Cocaine Detection Times

Prolonged use, large doses, and very pure cocaine may have a slightly longer detection window. The length of time cocaine stays in the body and causes effects differs from the length of time it will show up on a drug test. The length of time cocaine stays in a person’s system depends on the dosage, how often a person uses it, and other factors.

We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. You can get naloxone — and fentanyl test strips — from NEXT Distro or your local syringe access program. If you plan on using cocaine, you may also want to consider carrying naloxone, a medication that can reverse an opioid overdose if someone ingests contaminated cocaine. If you recently used cocaine on a single occasion, some research suggests waiting at least 24 hours before breastfeeding again. That’s not to say fetal cocaine exposure isn’t harmful, but it’s hard to identify risks that are specific to cocaine exposure alone.

Factors Influencing How Long Crack Stays in the Body

Many people participate in ongoing treatment programs after they’re clean, including 12-step programs. These are long-term options that reduce a person’s risk of relapse. In fact, cocaine itself is only detectable in the urine for a few hours.

This means drug test results vary from person to person based on their level of cocaine use.
Saliva tests for cocaine can measure the presence of cocaine for 24–48 hours after a person’s last use.
This means that, within an hour of taking a dose, the body will have metabolized half of the original dose.
If you or someone you know is addicted to crack, the best way to stop using crack cocaine is to seek professional treatment.
How long crack can show up in a drug test will depend on the type of test, the amount of crack used, and other personal and biological factors.

A person’s weight, individual metabolism, liver function and level of hydration can also affect drug test results. It reaches the highest levels in urine four to eight hours after last use and normally remains present in urine for up to four days. Chronic crack users will test positive for five days, on average, or longer. Crack cocaine usually remains detectable in urine for two to four days. The drug can stay in the system even longer after chronic or heavy use, which is common among people with a crack addiction.

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Read on to learn more about how long cocaine stays in the system, including some risks and dangers of cocaine use and how to seek help for drug misuse. If you’re not sure whether someone’s experiencing a cocaine or opioid overdose, you can still safely administer naloxone. While it won’t reverse a cocaine-only overdose, it won’t cause any harm to the person, either. If you’re going to use cocaine, it’s important to know how to recognize an overdose.

The 2021 (U.S.) National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) concludes 4.8 million people age 12 and older used cocaine in 2020. In comparison, the same survey results show 52.8 million people age 12 and older used marijuana and 1.1 million people used heroin. Cocaine has many street names like snow, nose candy, coke, Big C, flake and blow. Join 40,000+ People Who Receive Our Newsletter Get valuable resources on addiction, recovery, wellness, and our treatments delivered directly to your inbox. So if you took a dose of 100 milligrams (mg) of crack, after 15 minutes, there would be 50 mg left in your system; after 30 minutes, there would be 25 mg left; and so on. It is also possible for the hair to become contaminated with cocaine through direct exposure, even if a person does not use cocaine.

How Long Crack Cocaine Remains In Saliva

According to the Drug and Alcohol Testing Industry Association (DATIA), cocaine can usually be detected for 2 to 10 days. If you snort or gum cocaine, you feel the effects within 1 to 3 minutes. If you smoke cocaine or inject it, you’ll feel effects in a matter of seconds. The method of use also affects how long cocaine stays in your system. Snorted cocaine stays in your system flonger than smoked or injected cocaine.

So if you took a dose of 100 milligrams (mg) of crack, after 15 minutes, there would be 50 mg left in your system; after 30 minutes, there would be 25 mg left; and so on.
The half-life of a drug is the amount of time it takes for the level of the drug in your body to be reduced by half.
That’s not to say fetal cocaine exposure isn’t harmful, but it’s hard to identify risks that are specific to cocaine exposure alone.
This also means that cocaine overdoses or prolonged use can damage the liver.
Cocaine has a shorter half-life than many other drugs, which means that the body metabolizes it fairly quickly.
Hair testing can provide evidence of crack use for up to 90 days, but the tests are controversial and prone to false positives because they can become contaminated.