How dangerous is it to take crack or cocaine?

It is never risk-free to take any mind-altering substance including alcohol and marijuana.  Cocaine use can affect the body and the brain in negative ways and can occasionally cause seizures or death. Two things, however, need to be remembered when thinking about the harm cocaine can cause.  First, the harms caused by cocaine are rare.  While the vast majority of occasional users never suffer any serious side-effects nor come close to death, one in five users develop a dependency and become heavy users.  There is little way to predict who such users might be.  Secondly, the use of any substance, whether legal or illegal, can be styled in a way that emphasizes negative effects. 

For example, alcohol, a legal and socially accepted drug, has many potential harmful side effects, and heavy acute use can directly cause death, as well as the risk of death in automobile accidents, falls or drowning related to alcohol intoxication.  Long term heavy chronic use also leads to the destruction of the liver and mental impairment.  This reality must be weighed against the fact that for the vast majority of users, alcohol is a harmless and enjoyable social drug.  Most who drink alcohol do so in a controlled manner, and although addiction and adverse side-effects do occur, most users regulate their use to reduce or eliminate these risks.  As with alcohol, cocaine use comes with inherent risks described above. While negative complications are possible, they are not the rule, and most users control and regulate their use of cocaine.  Having said this, any user of cocaine or crack needs to be aware that the pleasure of use and the unpleasant effects after a dose wears off (experienced as a crash) can lead to frequent or uncontrolled use.


(For a more extensive description of adverse side effects, see the website of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA): http://www.nida.nih.gov/ResearchReports/Cocaine/cocaine2.html)

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