Cocaine Addiction: Psychopharmacology of Cocaine

Cocaine Addiction
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Cocaine Addiction
Brief History
Cocaine is derived from the leaves of Erythroxylon coca or coca plant. The leaves have been used as a stimulant from the early 16th century and its concentrates extracted in 1859 from the plant. However, the powder cocaine found its usage in the 20th century. Around 3,000 BC, the cocaine leaves were first used in South America by the ancient Incas in the Andean regions of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia (Karch, 2005). The revelation of it usage by the Europeans was in the 16th-century y the Spanish explorers who noted its usage by the indigenous South Americans. This plant concentrated in the region due to the restricted climate, rich soils, and the cool temperatures until the mid 19th century. In these early days, the leaves of the coca plant were chewed by the Incas to produce a stimulant effect of speeding breathing rates to adjust to their living in the higher regions with low levels of oxygen. Other people used the plant to raise their moods, lower their appetite and in aid for digestion. The coca leaves also found their usage in religious ceremonies for stimulation of the mind to the point of hallucinations which transformed the Native Peruvians to the spiritual transcendence state (Karch, 2005).
The cocaine found its routes to the United States in the mid 19th century where the American drug research companies began to explore another world for medical solutions. A German chemist Albert Niemann extracted cocaine from coca plant in 1859 for further medical examination. In the early days, the American used cocaine as nausea pills, toothache drops, as an agent for numbing and in sinus medication to relieve pain. By 1884, Sigmund Freud who was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis noted in his book "Uber Coca" to have magical properties and benefits to cure depression and sexual dysfunction. In 1885, John Pemberton used cocaine to develop French Wine Coca as a patent medicine (Levinthal, 2005). Later in 1886, prohibition legislations made him developed a non-alcoholic version of the French Wine Coca and named it Coca-Cola; a drink that cured morphine addiction, nerve disorders, headaches, erectile dysfunction and difficulty in digestion. The cocaine powder found its immense usage in 1905, especially for recreational purposes. However, it received negative attention in 1910 as a source of nasal damage based on the hospital records and was banned in1914 with an exception for medicinal usage (Levinthal, 2005).
In the 1970s, cocaine drug appeared as the drug for the rich due to its high price tag. The advent of freebasing at the time led to the increased smoking of the substance via a pipe that introduced the drug into the system with immediate impacts on the users. At the same period, traffickers from South America developed networks of trade on the drug to the USA peddlers (Levinthal, 2005). However, its association with the rich vanished in the 1980s due to its negative impacts on the society hence it became associated with poverty and crimes. On the same period, the crack cocaine came surfaced that delivered intense high effects. At the time, the American users rose to approximately six million on a regular basis. The usage was high among the twelfth graders with the number increasing from 1.5 to 2.7 by 1999. By the year 2015, its usage among the eight, tenth and twelfth graders, young adults, and college students reduced between 1.1 to 0.2 percent (Levinthal, 2005).
Psychopharmacology of Cocaine
Cocaine has been found to have effects on moods, behavior, thinking and sensation of the users. Therefore, its chronic usage results to frequent and permanent disruption of the functionalities of the neurotransmitters coupled with dopamine which results in dysfunction in the cognitive and behavioral processes (Moeller, et al., 2001). Dopamine is usually a pacesetter for the nerve cells in the brain. This dopamine reaches the receptors and attached to them for stimulation in order to alter impulses at the receptor cells which change the cell functions. Thus, the dopamine molecules help in the regulation of cell stimulation. However, when cocaine is administered in the body, it alters the control mechanism by stopping the dopamine transporter which leads to a buildup and concentration of the dopamine molecules in the receptor cells. Thus, it is able to alter the neural circuit in the brain which leads to abnormal behavior, excess stimulation, and mood changes among the users (Moeller, et al., 2001).
On a separate note, cocaine is able to produce pleasure and euphoria, loss of control as well as compulsive responses to cues related to the drug. This comes as a result of the impacts it causes in the limbic system where the dopamine responsive cells are concentrated. For example, the nucleus accumbens (NAc) in the limbic system is normally affected by cocaine and when the cells are stimulated by the dopamine, they result in a feeling of satisfaction and pleasure (Moeller, et al., 2001). Therefore, use of cocaine artificially leads to the buildup of dopamine molecules in the NAc region which results in a higher feeling of pleasure. In addition, the limbic system also has memory centers in the hippocampus and the amygdala which help in the recall of activities that led to the pleasurable feeling due to the dopamine release in the NAc. Thus, ...