18 The Encyclopedia of Addictive Drugs
was simply one part. In contrast, persons who are dissatisfied with their lives,
for whom cocaine brings relief of unhappiness, may face a harder struggle in
giving up the drug if it begins degrading the quality of their lives. The more
needs a drug satisfies for a person, the stronger its appeal. Some needs may
be biological; a study of identical twins finds their cocaine usage patterns to
be remarkably similar.^11 Some needs may derive from a person’s life situation.
Cocaine abuse is normally part of a multiproblem lifestyle. A study of
homeless cocaine abusers found that achieving abstinence was easier for them
if they obtained shelter and employment.^12 Compared to the whole popula-
tion, cocaine addicts are much likelier to be addicted to gambling as well.^13
Alcoholism and suicidal thoughts increase the likelihood that a person who
uses cocaine will become addicted.^14 One study of persons being treated for
cocaine abuse found over one half to be jobless and over one third to have
jail records.^15 A survey of crack smokers found that over one third had been
physically attacked over a one-year period.^16 Five years of records at one hos-
pital showed the following primary reasons for admission of cocaine-using
patients: assaults, stabbings, and bullet wounds.^17 Such persons obviously face
serious challenges other than cocaine; any inability to cope with the drug is
but a single element in a general inability to cope with life.
For information about specific cocaine class stimulants, see alphabetical list-
ings for:cocaandcocaine.Pyridine Alkaloids Class
Tobacco andareca nutare the most widely used substances containing
drugs from this class. Although most Americans think of tobacco’snicotine
as a recreational drug, it has had agricultural functions as a pesticide and for
ridding farm animals of worms. Nicotine is readily absorbed through the skin
and causes “green tobacco sickness” among farmworkers who handle leaves,
a poisoning sometimes severe enough to require hospitalization. The tobacco
plant has been known to kill livestock that eat it. Humans have also been
poisoned when attempting to use tobacco as food, such as by boiling greens.
Tobacco apparently originated in the Americas, where native peoples did
not seem to regard it as a recreational substance. Their uses were spiritual
and medical. Even in the twentieth century some native peoples used tobacco
to treat conditions ranging from chills to infections and snake bites. When
Europeans discovered tobacco in the New World, they removed it from the
cultural context in which its primary uses had been medical and spiritual.
Used without those restrictions, hazards became obvious soon enough. Lack-
ing the shared social values that had long limited tobacco’s use in the New
World, Europeans attempted to control the substance by law. Property of cul-
tivators and traffickers became subject to forfeiture in Hungary and Russia
and even Japan. In the 1600s smoking was condemned by the pope and by
King James of England, and smokers were condemned to death in Turkey,
Iran, Russia, and some German states. Legal harshness, however, was unable
to substitute for the social values that had limited consumption in lands where
tobacco originated.
We often measure drug addiction by the amount of drug used, assuming