Health - How Dangerous is Cocaine Use?

[Jatelka]

Eniacoc
Coke can be taken pure and in large lines, unlike common belief. For a 90kg human it takes around 7 grams to kill him (if one doesnt have heart or liver problems, or doesnt mix with anything else). Usually dealers make up this lie as an excuse for the excessive cut.

SWIM thinks (oppinion) that snorted coke is unlikely to kill by OD - the body (and nose) gives up earlier because the absorbed dose is much less than the ingest dose, but indirect problems (heart, liver, stroke) can happen in less healthy individuals. Smoked is the same (maybe a bit more is absorbed and faster), but IV is dangerous as any other drug - once injected, it's done, no turning back so be VERY careful.

As an oppinion, SWIM also thinks coke is only mentally addictive, not physically. No one can talk about this for sure as it is an extremely variable subject. SWIM thinks cocaine is a "24h addiction" drug - once you sleep you will be ok. Dont abuse it on a hard time of your life, that can make you think about it after you sleep, which isnt good.

Only some conclusions SWIM had in a dream... SWIM is sorry for the long post but he hopes it's useful for someone. If wrong please discuss.

Cheers

Does SWIEniacoc have a reference for "for a 90kg human it takes around 7g to kill him"?

Just so all SWIY's know the figure quoted above seems high, given that oral LD50's are stated in various places as being 1.5g (and SWIJ STILL hasn't been able to find a reference for that one either!)

When we're talking toxicity/fatality stats we need some science people!

[eniacoc]

Google "cocaine ld50" and you find even higher ld50 doses than what was said by SWIM. As much as 90 to 100 mg/kg (intravenous) is the ld50 for pure cocaine, this has been tested many times in mice. The control populations are healthy of course. Dont forget this is the toxiciy levels and that ld50 is the average. Most deaths are by indirect causes (heart attack and stroke caused by body stress) and not by an intoxicated organism.

SWIY said "oral dose" - that seems pretty outlandish since only about 20% are absorbed once it is taken in this fashion. The rest is hydrolized into ecgonine it the stomach, and this is not even active.

SWIM would have died several times if this was true

Originally Posted by jatelka

Does SWIEniacoc have a reference for "for a 90kg human it takes around 7g to kill him"?

Just so all SWIY's know the figure quoted above seems high, given that oral LD50's are stated in various places as being 1.5g (and SWIJ STILL hasn't been able to find a reference for that one either!)

When we're talking toxicity/fatality stats we need some science people!

[Jatelka]

Ok: Seeing as SWIJ has to do all the work round here.

From inchem.org:

"Lethal doses are estimated at 0.5 to 1.3 grams per day by mouth; 0.05 to 5 grams per day by the nasal route, 0.02 grams of cocaine by the parenteral route (Baschard & Richard, 1984; Haddad & Winchester, 1990;
Burnat & Le Brumant-Payen, 1992).

Cocaine addicts can tolerate doses up to 5 grams per day. Toxic effects can be manifest with plasma concentrations equal to or above 0.50 mg per litre; deaths have been reported with concentrations of 1 mg per litre (Clarke,
1986)."

Mice are not humans, it is disingenuous (and potentially dangerous) to extrapolate human doses from animal LD50's. The little buggers are remarkably resistant to the toxic effects of many drugs.

You talk of "body stress" as if it is seperate from the effects of cocaine. Strokes and Heart attacks are caused by hypertension and coronary artery spasm, BOTH OF WHICH are direct effects of cocaine.

Bear in mind that many people may read these pages and take it as simple fact. They may not be arsed to Google Search. Therefore backing up your statements here with references is a means of harm reduction.

Please consider this in future.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Thanks for fixing the facts

[eniacoc]

About the ld50, i've read more about it and in fact the human tolerance seems lower in many documents, although there doesnt seem to be much agreement on this, maybe because of the lack of ld50 human volunteers (hehe) and also because it's almost impossible to evaluate the total dose in the fatal cases, even when it's possible to know how many grams have been taken (street drugs vs lab drugs, mice are always tested with lab coke, virtually 100% pure so statistics are precise).

Sorry about jumping to conclusions and post such a dangerous number as if it was a fact. But the reality is that the values you state seem a bit low to SWIM or even more to some people SWIM knows of, maybe because these values rise with tolerance, but it's always safe to stay on the low side rather than abusing it.

The truth is that people see two opinions and usually go for the one that they like the best instead of searching for medical facts. Read and learn.