(Guardian UK) “I first took coke when I was 18 and at university. I remember two friends who did chemistry told me I should get really drunk first because it would mix into this new chemical in my blood and make me even higher,” a 30-year-old woman who works in publishing told the Observer yesterday.
What her friends did not tell her is that the combination of cocaine and alcohol in her then teenage body will have left a highly toxic chemical in her liver called cocaethylene.
For not only is cocaethylene toxic in the liver, it is also blamed for heart attacks in the under-40s and a surge in social problems. But because so little is known about the drug, few experts can agree on the nature of the threat to users, and indeed society as a whole.
Cocaine-related deaths are also increasing in the US. The US National Household Drug Survey estimated that around five million people used alcohol and cocaine each month.
Yes, but five million people also realize that they can have a great Friday or Saturday night out on the town, dancing and drinking til the wee morning hours, with a bump of coke every now and then, sleep it off Sunday, and unless their workplace random drug testing pops them early on Monday morning, they can probably pass a urine screen.
But if 14 million people wanted to have a fun weekend with a toke of a natural, herbal social relaxant shared communally among friends, knowing it is non-toxic to their liver and far safer to themselves and society than alcohol or cocaine or mixing the two, a workplace random drug test anytime in the next week to a month means chugging nasty-tasting body flushes and water or mixing up freeze-dried urine, strapping it to their thighs along with a chemical hand warmer and maybe even wearing a prosthetic penis to be certain they can beat the pee test and continue to pay their mortgages and feed their families.
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I have a standard saying that marijuana is not a drug. I mean, the drug czar keeps telling me over and over that “crude marijuana” can never meet the FDA’s standard for a prescription drug, so, it’s not a drug, right?
To me, a drug is created when man takes the essences of a plant and synthesizes them into a standardized form. Aspirin, Marinol, heroin, and cocaine are drugs. Willow bark, cannabis, opium, and coca are plants.
Yes, cannabis, opium, coca, even certain fungi and toads are mind-altering, but they aren’t “drugs” in my mind, they are just plants, fungi, and animals with certain effects felt by humans. Nightshade, poison ivy, aloe vera, and hemlock are also plants with a certain effect on humans, but we don’t call them drugs, do we?
Yeah, but you do it right. Thoughtful, articulate, bulletproof arguments. It’s easy to say, ‘Hey, that’s bullshit man.’ It’s harder to explain WHY it’s bullshit, in a way that people who don’t already agree with you can understand.
This started happening in the mid 80′s in a big way. Healthy people doing coke during a big drinking night just up and died
(even if they only did it once). My ex (a nurse) made me stop doing the evil powder when she stated seeing the deaths at the hospital.
I am glad I stopped then. It is a very seductive and dangerous substance in the refined form. Coca leaves don’t have that problem. Guess it’s good they don’t travel well and grow in only a few places.
[...] Combining cocaine, alcohol, creates toxic cocaethylene stored in liver, blamed for heart attacks [...]
And all for the amazing low price of… nothing! Knowledge yearns to be free.
But really, I’m just the messenger. This Thursday marks NORML’s 39th birthday. Keith Stroup and a whole bunch of people made this common sense knowledge available and many many more donated the money and time to bring it to the public. Me, I’m just a snarky entertainer who delivers the pitch.
Thanks for speaking the truth, Russ. You make available a vast amount of common sense knowledge for anyone who wishes to actually learn the truth.