Teen Cocaine Addiction

Teen cocaine addiction has many serious consequences. Cocaine is most often used by snorting the powder through the nose which takes it into the user's blood stream. This can cause major damage to their sinus passages. Snorting cocaine can also cause the user's teeth to decay from inside their mouth. This can create hollow teeth in the user.

Another way adolescents with teen cocaine addiction problems use the drug is by injection. Many suffering with teen cocaine addiction mix other drugs together to get a stronger high. Cocaine and heroin mixed together gives the user a euphoric feeling and can be addicting the first time it is used. In the drug culture this is called a speed ball.

Another way that cocaine is used is by smoking it. This is done by rocking the powdered cocaine in the process known as cooking it. The drug user uses baking soda and water with a hot flame to cook the cocaine down into chunks or rocks. Then the user takes these rocks and breaks them into pieces that can be smoked in a glass pipe. The teen addict receives a euphoric feeling that is indescribable in words. This method of cocaine use is very addicting and the duration of its effects are immediate. Overall, the effect of cocaine use depends upon the route by which it is administered.

Cocaine is not one of the more widely abused drugs by teenagers, but teen cocaine addiction does exist. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, about six million people over the age of 12 have used cocaine at least once in the past year. 3.4% of 10th graders and 5.2% of 12th graders have used cocaine in the past year. Most cocaine use by teenagers is experimentation, but that does not mean that cocaine is safe.

Cocaine is highly addictive and the body develops a tolerance to its use. One of the most dangerous effects of teen cocaine use is that a person's body can become used to the amounts of cocaine used, and need more and more of the drug in order to feel the same effects. This can increase the chance of overdose as the user takes successively greater amounts of cocaine in an effort to get high.

New drug research suggests that teens may get addicted and relapse more easily than adults because developing brains are more powerfully motivated by drug-related cues. This conclusion has been reached by researchers who found that adolescent rats given cocaine -- a powerfully addicting stimulant -- were more likely than adults to prefer the place where they got it. That learned association endured: Even after experimenters extinguished the drug-linked preference, a small reinstating dose of cocaine appeared to rekindle that preference -- but only in the adolescent rats. The research, performed at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School's largest psychiatric facility, was reported in Behavioral Neuroscience.

Teen Cocaine Addiction: Know the Signs to Look For
If you think that your child may be experimenting with cocaine or suffering with a teen cocaine addiction, take action. Here are several signs of teen cocaine abuse.

• A change in behaviors, such as flunking out of school or not going to school.
• A change in friends and groups within different ages.
• Acting withdrawn or depressed, very tired and careless about personal appearance.
• Change of eating habits and loss of weight.
• Change of sleeping habits; sleeps all day and is up all night.
• Frequent and dramatic mood swings.
• Frequent sniffing or runny nose (common when one is snorting cocaine).
• Frequently needing money and stealing it to support their habit.
• Losing interest in the things they used to like to do, such as family activities.
• Red eyes, bloodshot from lack of use or prolonged use.

In addition to these common signs of teen cocaine addiction, it appears that compulsive cocaine use may develop into addiction even more rapidly if the substance is injected and smoked. Some of the things you can do if your child is suffering with teen cocaine addiction are:

• Be there for them and encourage them to get help.
• Find a professional teen cocaine addiction treatment center or some other form of intervention that will give them a chance to recover.
• Get information on the drug and the effects it has on other people so that you can gauge what kind of help will best suit your child and your family.