Author: Gary Jackson

Short- & Long-Term Effects of Crack Cocaine

It’s not a sign of weakness, bad judgement or other personal characteristics. The best way to support someone coping with addiction is to encourage them to find help. It’s also important to remember cocaine use often has a ripple effect, putting stress and strain on relationships. If that’s your situation, consider participating in a support group. Because crack use itself is known to cause depression and anxiety, using it to alleviate the onset of these feelings becomes a vicious cycle—one that can quickly result in addiction. The symptoms of Crack withdrawal are predominantly psychological.

LGBTQ adults are also more than twice as likely to have a substance use disorder. Instead of using baking soda as you would with crack, you add ammonia to “free” the cocaine base from its natural form. It’s most often smoked in a pipe in the same way as crack. For this reason, you might hear the terms “crack” and “freebase” used interchangeably.

What are the risks of using cocaine?

When you heat the rock crystal and breathe the smoke into your lungs, you get a high that’s almost as fast and strong as when you inject it. That’s one reason crack cocaine became popular in the 1980s. To make cocaine, the leaves are chemically processed and treated to form a powder. A German chemist named Albert Neiman first isolated the drug from coca leaves in 1860. In the early 1900s, cocaine was a common ingredient in herbal remedies for all sorts of illnesses.

• Additional aftercare or sober living programs can help ex-abusers maintain their sobriety and rebuild their lives once they leave the safety of inpatient treatment.
• If you use cocaine regularly or to excess, you may have long-lasting and serious problems with your physical and mental health.
• Another reason cocaine can lead to substance use disorder is that each time you use it, your body builds a tolerance.
• It’s important to remember addiction is a chronic disease.

Cocaine use disorder (addiction) can affect your personal relationships. Cognitive behavioral therapy may help people recover from cocaine use disorder. Crack use will cause a user’s pupils to dilate and will make them restless and jumpy. Crack can cause the sensation of bugs crawling under the skin, which will lead users to pick at their skin until they have wounds, which can easily become infected. Cocaine is an addictive stimulant drug that can change lives and be life-threatening.

Signs and Symptoms of a Crack Overdose

They can also add other drugs like amphetamine, fentanyl, heroin, or procaine. Use of cocaine is less common in the U.S. than misuse of prescription painkillers (reported by 2.4 million people in the 2021 survey), or use of hallucinogenic drugs (2.2 million). In a 2021 national survey, about 4.8 million people in the U.S. ages 12 or older said they had used cocaine in the past year. The rate was highest in the age group (1.2 million people or 3.5%), followed by those over age 26 (3.6 million or 1.6%).

It’s possible to die from an overdose of crack or any other type of cocaine. It’s important to spot the symptoms of overdose and get help immediately. Symptoms include a high heart rate and blood pressure, seizures, hallucinations, and trouble breathing.