The article “Overshadowed by the Opioid Crisis: A Comeback by Cocaine” by Austin Frakt highlights the looming cocaine epidemic in the United States. The author highlights the cocaine is the second killer among illegal drugs in Africa and it kills more African Americans that heroin. Farkt illuminates the social crisis and the burden cause by cocaine and explores its usage in the midst of the opioid crisis, which has diverted attention from the destructive effects of cocaine.
How Society View Cocaine
Cocaine has a largely negative perception among non-users due to its detrimental effects. Not only does cocaine wreak the person using it, it also breaks up families and places a burden on social systems like healthcare and child care services. The people who use cocaine, on the other hand, believe that it is an antidepressant ( Kerridge, 2019) . However, it completely is not such a drug. Indeed, there are many cases where cocaine has completely destroyed lives, from the rich to the poor. Increased usage in conventional society is partly associated with the pressures of modern day life. When people get exhausted and depressed, they turn to cocaine. Due to its addictive nature, they want to keep using it due to the highs, and then they keep on using it due to the downers. Consequently, this leads to severe addiction, deterioration of health, and even death. This wicked curve among cocaine users has led to the negative perception of the drug in society. Nonetheless, this negative view is justified as cocaine is largely a destructive drug.
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Benefits of Cocaine
Despite the negativity associated with cocaine, it has some benefits. First is its application as an anesthetic. Cocaine is an effective anesthetic that functions by restricting impulses in the nerves. In particular, it works by acting as a barrier to the uptake of norepinephrine this leading to anesthesia and vasoconstriction ( Kerridge, 2019) . Cocaine can also be used in medical interventions when applied in procures that involve the upper section of the respiratory tract. Aside from these applications, cocaine also contracts the mucous membranes hence it is used as a tropical solution on medical procedures. Due to its potential toxicity, only small concentrations of cocaine are used in medical procedures.
The Disadvantage of Cocaine
There are numerous long-term effects of sustained cocaine use. The most sever and common effect is addiction. As an individual continues to use the drug, they start to develop a toleranc. According, to Hart, Ksir, and Ray (2013), this leads to the need for the person to take more of the drug in an effort to get the desired effect. The enhanced tolerance develops a reliance on the drug, leading to addiction (Spillane, 2017). Additionally, the user will become dependent on cocaine for performance purposes. It leads to the perception that one needs to take the drug to attain optimal performance (Farkt, 2018). Such dependency can be extended into academic or work performance, or even a person’s ability to socialize.
Apart from addiction, there are some cognitive effectives of sustained cocaine use. People who use cocaine over a long period typically show memory issues, shortfalls in consequential reasoning, and lacking motor skills (Spillane, 2017). Research findings suggest such effects are due to the destruction of the brain’s grey matter (Farkt, 2019). The organ is responsible for motor functions, sensory perception, processing of information, self-control, decision making, and memory.
Lastly, one of the most apparent long-term effects of cocaine addiction is depression. Users of cocaine are usually depressed due to the inability of the mind to re-stabilize the regulation and production of dopamine. Ultimately, as articulated by Spillane (2017), the mind starts to create less dopamine, leading to a severe depression. This not only decreases the high generated by cocaine, it also restrict the user from getting the natural amount of dopamine when performing a rewarding behavior that is necessary to sustain life ( Kerridge, 2019) . Since a person can no longer get the “feel good” sensation associated with rewarding activities, they stop acknowledging the desire to achieve these needs. Not only does this lead to a reduced internal drive, it also leads to a loss of appetite and lack of enjoyment of stimulating and fun activities. Besides, according to Kerridge (2019), the brain will be wired to feel good only when it receives dopamine induced by cocaine consumption. Overall, the use of cocaine interferes with the internal drive to make meaningful achievements.
Society and Distribution of Cocaine
The surge in cocaine usage in society has largely been instigated by its glorification in popular culture. Spillane (22017) asserts that the rise of cocaine since the 1970s is founded in numerous variables, addiction via programs aimed at substituting methadone, and the social amnesia about the risk of cocaine usage. The generation of baby boomers, whose reasoning was interfered with by hedonism and the hippy culture were open to the use of cocaine. Cocaine was seen as a sexually stimulating and exhilarating drug ( Hart, Ksir, & Ray, 2013) . Moreover, the wide endorsement of cocaine by the media and celebrities enhanced its appeal and glamour. Consequently, the drug was associated with a social life of parties and was seen as clean, safe, and induced excitable joy. Hart, Ksir, and Ray (2013) add that the consequences of addiction were forgotten due to the significant addiction issues caused by the heroine crisis. Due to this, cocaine was immortalized in populated culture. For instance, popular singer Mick Jagger constantly flaunted its usage and Hollywood blockbusters like Scarface glamorized. Indeed, the drug was implicitly endorsed by the media and embraced as the definitive psychoactive tool for the high fliers and the lovely set. This paved way for the use of the drugs by future generations. The advent of crack cocaine in the 1980s only acted to proliferate usage of the drug as it made it more affordable (Spillane, 2017). Nowadays, cocaine has proliferated into society to the point that people are making careers by selling it. The level of addiction has increased and so is the number of deaths, particularly in minority communities.
The Population that Uses the Cocaine
While people from all walks of life and socioeconomic background use cocaine, there is a trend that has emerged from recent statistics. In his article, Frakt (2018) refers to a study conducted by National Cancer Institute and the National Institute on Drug Abuse to show the demographics of cocaine users. The study reveals that while all groups use cocaine, the problem of addiction is more prominent in African Americans and Hispanics. In particular, from 2012 to 2015, 7.6% per 100,000 African American men died from cocaine overdoses (Frakt, 2018). This is an extremely disturbing figure that demonstrates the effect of cocaine in society. Spillane (2017) believes that many people are exposed to cocaine from a young age and this leads to a high dependency on the drug throughout a person’s life. While the effect of cocaine in black communities is prominent, it should not be forgotten that cocaine use is rampant among other social groups. From the educated to the wealthy, many people in the U.S use cocaine. However, the figure may seem low since most of these users are not captured by the statistics due to the lack of overdose cases reported to healthcare organizations.
Biopsychosocial Treatment of Cocaine
The treatment of cocaine users focuses on relieving cocaine addiction while providing psychological addiction due to the depression caused by the drug. This type of treatment is referred to as the integrated intervention. The integrated intervention is aimed at treating adults that have multiple issues like mental disorders and substance abuse. The intervention has thus far proven to be effective in treating adults with substance abuse issues and mental disorders. Crowley and Krishner (2016) state that clinicians have to consider the physical and behavioral health of patient for integrated intervention to be effective. In other words, the patient has to be treated as a whole person. The intervention targets risk factors prevalent in people with substance abuse and mental disorders like intimate partner violence (IPV) to enable effectiveness. It also focuses on personal factors in the adult (for example, the ethnicity, or gender) or setting (for example, the quality of work or home setting) might have on the impact of intervention.
The review of Farkt’s article reveals that cocaine addiction is a serious problem in society. It is alarming that the cocaine is leading cause of death among illegal drugs for African Americans. As the use of cocaine continues to be glorified in popular culture, future generations are bound to get addicted to it. Early intervention is important in reducing cocaine addiction in society.
References
Crowley, R., & Kirschner, N. (2015). "The integration of care for mental health, substance abuse, and other behavioral health conditions into primary care: executive summary of an American College of Physicians position paper." Annals of Internal Medicine 163.4: 298-299.
Farkt, A. (2018). “ Overshadowed by the Opioid Crisis: A Comeback by Cocaine.” The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/upshot/overshadowed-by-the-opioid-crisis-a-comeback-by-cocaine.html
Hart, C. L., Ksir, C., & Ray, O. S. (2013). Drugs, society & human behavior (p. 496). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Kerridge, B. T., Chou, S. P., Pickering, R. P., Ruan, W. J., Huang, B., Jung, J., ... & Hasin, D. S. (2019). Changes in the prevalence and correlates of cocaine use and cocaine use disorder in the United States, 2001–2002 and 2012–2013. Addictive behaviors , 90 , 250-257.
Spillane, J. F. (2017). The First Era of Cocaine Abuse and Control. Dual Markets: Comparative Approaches to Regulation , 55.
