Just Say No! A Profile Of Cocaine And Its Effects On Two Lives

Term Paper Title	Just Say No! A Profile Of Cocaine And Its Effects On Two Lives
# of Words	758
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.03

Just Say No! A Profile Of Cocaine and It's Effects On Two Lives

        Presented by:
        J.T. Stocker
        Mr. Kramer/Mrs. Locke
        7C
        December 13, 1995

     Greek mythology tells of a young god, Morpheus, god of dreams. Morpheus
planted a special purple flower called the lotus.  Soon the people of the land
smelled the sweet flowers and ate them.  They immediately feel into a deep and
troubled sleep.  From that day on, they awoke only long enough to gather the
lotus flowers and sleep again.  Eventually they lost their strength and
willpower and wanted only to drift in and out of sleep.1  The story of the
lotus-eaters and similar tales from ancient times show us that drug use is not
new.  Today this problem threatens all of our society.  The worst, most deadly
of drugs, however, is cocaine.  This report will talk about what cocaine is,
what it does to the human body, and two fantastic people who gave their lives
because of it.
     Today, over 5 million people use cocaine each month.  Each day, 3,000
people try cocaine for the first time.2  Cocaine is a white powder made from the
leaves of the cocoa plant.  Cocaine is first pressed to form a paste; then, the
paste is mixed with strong chemicals to make a white, powdery mixture. Most
cocaine comes from South America.  It is estimated that about 400 tons of
cocaine is smuggled out of South America each year.  Half of this cocaine ends
up on the streets of the United States.
     Cocaine is a stimulant.   That means that when it is used, it speeds up
the way the brain works.  It causes the brain to send out too many electrical
signals that then get mixed up.  Because the brain tells the heart how fast and
often to beat, using cocaine can make the heart pump so fast that it damages the
muscles or can lead to a heart attack.  Since the brain also tells the lungs how
often and how deep to breath, the use of cocaine can cause those signals to get
mixed up leading to a shortness of breath or the complete failure of the lungs
to work causing instant death.  The use of cocaine is seriously addicting.
Monkeys will keep giving themselves doses of cocaine until they die; most people
will follow the same trend.3
     The world of sports has many sad examples of people who made the poor
choice to use drugs.  Perhap...

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