Perhaps even more significant and unfortunate, however, are the negative effects that cocaine and crack users have on their families, communities, workplaces, and society. Domestic violence and random violence are often fueled by cocaine or crack. But, by the mid-1990s, there was evidence of increasing use, particularly among adolescents.
Cocaine is a central nervous system stimulant, the most powerful found in nature.
Most often seen in the form of cocaine hydrochloride, a white, crystalline powder, it is extracted from the leaves of the coca plant, Erythroxylon coca, indigenous to the highlands of the Andean mountains in South America. The Incas used coca leaves as a part of their religious rites thousands of years ago. Cocaine in the United States Cocaine was first isolated from the coca leaf in the late 1800s. Concern soon mounted due to instances of addiction, psychotic behavior, convulsion, and death. A series of steps, including passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, were taken to combat health and behavioral problems associated with the use of cocaine and other drugs.