Effects of Crack Cocaine
What Are the Short‑Term Effects of Crack Cocaine?
Crack causes a short-lived, intense high followed by deep depression, edginess and strong cravings for more. Users often don’t eat or sleep properly and may experience a faster heart rate, muscle spasms and convulsions. It can make users feel paranoid,* angry, hostile or anxious—even when not high.
Crack use increases the risk of heart attack, stroke, seizure or breathing problems, all of which can lead to sudden death.
Smoking crack also carries additional health risks. It is often mixed with other substances that produce toxic fumes when burned. Short crack pipes can cause cracked and blistered lips, known as crack lip, from having the hot pipe pressed against their lips.
* paranoid: extremely and unreasonably suspicious, distrustful or afraid of other people without evidence or justification
What Are the Long‑Term Effects of Crack Cocaine?
In addition to the risks associated with cocaine use, such as constricted blood vessels, increased temperature, elevated heart rate and high blood pressure, as well as the risk of seizure or heart attack, crack users may experience acute breathing problems, including coughing, shortness of breath, lung trauma and bleeding.
Long-term effects from using crack cocaine include severe damage to the heart, liver and kidneys. Users are also more likely to have infectious diseases.
Continued daily use causes sleep deprivation and loss of appetite, resulting in malnutrition. Smoking crack cocaine can cause aggressive and paranoid behavior.
As crack cocaine interferes with the way the brain processes chemicals, users need more and more of the drug just to feel “normal.” Those who become addicted to crack cocaine, as with most other drugs, lose interest in other areas of life.
Coming down from crack causes severe depression, which becomes deeper after each use. Withdrawal symptoms can get so bad that a person will do anything to get the drug—even commit murder. And if they can’t get crack, the depression can drive the addict to suicide.
The only thing on my mind was crack cocaine. And if somebody offers you any of it, you’ll jump at it and take it. It’s like offering a starving man a loaf of bread if he walks for miles.
“Things came to a head for me when I’d been smoking constantly for a couple of weeks. One day I just decided I’d had enough—I couldn’t live like this anymore, and I tried to commit suicide.
“I’m going to have to try and fight. I hope my survival instincts kick in.” —John
I retired as a successful corporate exec who had put two daughters through college and had earned my retirement. My retirement party was, however, the beginning of five years of hell. That was when I was introduced to crack cocaine for the first time. Over the next five years, I would lose my home, my wife, all my financial resources, my health and almost my life. I also spent two years in prison.” —William
Physical & Mental Effects
Short‑Term Effects
Because it is smoked, the effects of crack cocaine are more immediate and more intense than that of powdered cocaine. Short-term effects include:
- Loss of appetite
- Increased heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature
- Contracted blood vessels
- Increased rate of breathing
- Dilated pupils
- Disturbed sleep patterns
- Nausea
- Hyperstimulation
- Bizarre, erratic, sometimes violent behavior
- Hallucinations, hyperexcitability, irritability
- Tactile hallucination that creates the illusion of bugs burrowing under the skin
- Anxiety and paranoia
- Depression
- Intense drug craving
- Panic and psychosis
- Convulsions, seizures and sudden death from high doses (even one time)
Long‑Term Effects
- Permanent damage to blood vessels in the ears and brain
- High blood pressure leading to heart attacks, strokes and death
- Liver, kidney and lung damage
- Severe chest pains
- Respiratory failure
- Infectious diseases and abscesses if injected
- Malnutrition and weight loss
- Severe tooth decay
- Auditory and tactile hallucinations
- Sexual problems, reproductive damage and infertility (for men and women)
- Disorientation, apathy, confused exhaustion
- Irritability and mood disturbances
- Increased frequency of risky behavior
- Delirium or psychosis
- Severe depression
- Tolerance and addiction
How much do you really know about crack cocaine?
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