Over time, and with regular use, people may get paranoid, anxious, and confused, and sometimes they hallucinate. Insomnia, agitation, and depression can also result from frequent cocaine use. Cocaine is extracted from the coca plant, which grows on the mountain slopes of the Andes in South America, in certain parts of the Amazon jungle, and on the island of Java in Indonesia. Native cultures have used coca leaves, in chewed and brewed forms, for thousands of years for social and religious occasions. In 1860, cocaine was isolated from all the other chemicals in the coca leaf, and a pure form of cocaine was extracted.
Cocaine is much more potent when injected than when chewing the leaf.
The drug readily dissolves in water, allowing users to inject it and dissolve it directly into soft drinks. Injecting cocaine results in an intense rush in fifteen to thirty seconds, while drinking it results in a milder, yet longer lasting, stimulation thirty to forty-five minutes after ingestion. Both these methods of using cocaine popularized the drug in the United States at the turn of the century. The problems with cocaine come from doing too much, its mixture with other drugs, and the crash after binge use. The latter arrives when the initial feelings of well-being and confidence, the sense of omnipotence, and the satisfied feelings disappear as suddenly as the rush appeared, leaving the user with the desire to have more .