
An article entitled "Cocaine Epidemic Feared As Cocaine Deaths Nearly Double In Florida Over Past 5 Years" was featured on the "Medical News Today" website on October 21, 2006

Not surprisingly, the information contained in this article was quite disconcerting. For instance, one of the key points in the article was that cocaine use is on the rise among college students with disposable income and also among high-profile celebrities

Perhaps of more importance, however, are two facts that are associated with the escalation in cocaine use: the increased cocaine-related emergency room visits and the rising cocaine-related fatalities. In fact, according to Florida drug authorities, cocaine-related deaths in Florida have almost doubled from 2000 to 2005

Why do various individuals use cocaine? Cocaine gives a person a feeling of euphoria, energy, and at times, an unbelievable, almost superhuman sense of control and mastery. For instance, some people who have taken cocaine have been known to leap out of windows or off rooftops, thinking that they could fly or that they could jump dozens of feet without getting injured

There is, however, a physiological reason why people continue to use cocaine after their first encounter. Cocaine exhausts the "feel-good" neurotransmitter dopamine, thus causing a need for even more use. In short, and from a physiological perspective, cocaine use perpetuates more cocaine use

To gain a better understanding of the ultimate danger inherent in cocaine use, namely death, one needs to focus on the timeframe regarding its life-threatening effects. To accomplish this, cocaine use will be compared with prescription drug abuse

The abuse of prescription drugs such as Oxycontin, Vicodin, and Adderall can trigger abrupt cardiac or respiratory arrest at the time of abuse

Thus the critical and fatal timeframe when abusing prescription drugs is mostly "short-term." Conversely, due to the snowballing effects of cocaine, especially regarding the blood vessel damage that increases the risk of stroke or heart attack as a person ages, users can suddenly die years after their cocaine abuse started

Therefore, the critical and fatal timeframe for cocaine use, unlike the same measure for prescription drug abuse, is typically "long term."

Why is cocaine use increasing? One of the reasons is that celebrities who are addicted to cocaine have become "walking cocaine advertisements" and, as a result, have been able to adversely influence others, such as students, who have access to relatively large amounts of disposable income
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