On the whole, cocaine is a severely addictive stimulant that directly affects the brain. Cocaine has been labeled the drug of the 1980s and '90s, because of its international celebrity and use during this time.
One surprising fact, though, is that cocaine is not a new drug. In reality, it is one of the oldest known drugs. Simply stated, cocaine hydrochloride has been an misused substance for more than 100 years, and coca leaves, the root of cocaine, have been ingested for thousands of years. Natural cocaine was first extracted from the leaf of the Erythroxylon coca shrub, which grows principally in Peru and Bolivia, in the mid-19th century. In the early 1900s, it became the leading stimulant drug used in most of the tonics/elixirs that were developed to prescribe for a broad mixture of illnesses.
Today, cocaine is a Schedule II drug, meaning that it has high potential for misuse, but can be administered by a physician for valid therapeutic uses, such as a local anesthetic for various eye, ear, and throat surgeries. There are chiefly two chemical forms of cocaine: the hydrochloride salt and the "freebase." The hydrochloride salt, or powdered formation of cocaine, dissolves in water and, when misused, can be taken intravenous (by vein) or intranasal (in the nose). Freebase refers to a blend that has not been neutralized by an acid to create the hydrochloride salt. The freebase structure of cocaine is smokable. Cocaine is usually sold on the street as a fine, oyster-white, diaphanous powder, known as "coke," "C," "snow," "flake," or "blow."
Street dealers as a rule doctor it with such inactive substances as cornstarch, talcum powder, and/or sugar, or with such active drugs as procaine (a chemically-interrelated local anesthetic) or alongside such alternate stimulants as amphetamines.
