Cocaine (coke) is made from the Erythroxylon coca plant, a coca tree that grows high in the Andes Mountains of South America. The coca farmers’ purpose is to pick and process the leaves into a paste from which cocaine is extracted (Edwards, 64). These Indians of Bolivia and Peru chew the coca leaves to obtain a mild stimulation, which helps fight fatigue that is caused by the high altitudes at which they work. Chewing the leaves does not see to harm the users, because the stimulating chemical extracted from them is in such small quantities. They stop chewing the coca leaves when they come down from the high altitudes because there is no longer any need for it (Edwards, 63).
Cocaine is known as the most potent drug (Mickey, 2). It is an odorless powder, sometimes crystalline, and sometimes fluffy white. Pure cocaine hydrochloride is so potent that a one-gram dose is lethal. Because very small quantities of cocaine induce euphoria, drug dealers “cut” the pure powder of cocaine with adulterants such as mannite, dextrose, lactose, tartaric acid, and sodium bicarbonate (Edwards, 65).
From cocaine comes crack, a very powerful drug that is an approximately 75…
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Works Cited
Beschner, George and Alfred S. Friedman. Teen Drug Use. Lexington, Massachusetts: D.C. Health and Company, 1986.
Edwards, Gabrielle I. Coping With Drug Abuse New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 1990.
Knowles, Gordan James M.A. “Dealing Crack cocaine: A View From The Streets of Honolulu.” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin July 1996: 1-8.
Mickey, Dr. Robert. “Angel Dust, Crack, Grass, Ice, Junk.” Christian Social ActionJune 1990: 8 .
Morganthau, Tom and Mark Miller. “Tougher Law Enforcement Will Win the War Upon Drugs.” War on Drugs. San Diego, California: Greenhaven Press, 1990.
Schroder, Donald D. “Cocaine Use Is Not Sensationalized.” Chemical Dependency. St. Paul, Minnesota: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1985.
Zonderman, Jon and Laurel Shader M.D.Drugs and DiseaseNew York, New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
LSD, Medicine or Madness?
Freedom was the battlecry of the sixties. Freedom from war, from the social pressures exerted by the older generation, and perhaps even freedom from oneself. The goal was to live in an uninhibited environment where experimentation of all sorts could thrive. It was within the context of this “hippie generation” that lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as “acid” on the street, came to pervade the lives of millions of American youth. The best known of all psychedelic drugs, LSD had a profound effect on the outlook of the counterculture that emerged on the streets of San Francisco in the sixties. It gave people “freedom from the restraints of ordinary consciousness and everyday sorts of socialized behavior” (Debold and Leaf 1967). As a result of LSD’s saturation of American society and the negative connotations that came with it’s rampant abuse, LSD was categorized as a schedule one drug, indicating that it had no accepted medical use in the U.S. Despite this claim, many researchers have asserted that LSD has proven to be a useful aid in psychotherapy and in other settings as well. This issue is one that has stirred controversy and many remain skeptical to it’s genuine benefits. The objective of this paper is to understand LSD and it’s effects, as well as to present a discussion on possible benefits of it’s use in psychotherapy.
The Discovery of LSD
LSD is a semisynthetic preparation derived from ergot, which grows as a parasite on rye wheat and other grains (Snyder 1986). The hallucinogenic properties of this substance were first discovered by Albert Hofmann in 1943 when he accidentally took in some of the drug during it’s purification and crystallization. What Hofmann actually took in was LSD-25, so named…
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…dical use in the U.S. Many still await the day when doors will be opened to conduct further research on this intriguing topic.
References
1. Aghajanian, G.K. Serotonin and the action of LSD in the brain. Psychiatric Annals 24(3): 137-141 (1994).
2. Bonson, K.R.