Word: brained
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...little over a year ago in early 1980. Says he: "It rose so rapidly that we got to the point where we couldn't keep up with it." In New Orleans last year, there were 536 arrests related to the drug; 20 deaths, mainly from seizures, strokes and brain damage; and 40 or so homicides that seem connected to the burgeoning trade. Says New Orleans Narcotics Division Detective David Peralta: "They kill for it just like they do for heroin...
...real devils of the war work in the mind. Something like a quarter of those who served may still be suffering from substantial psychological problems. They get flashbacks, nightmares, depression, startle reactions, and that wild red haze of rage in the brain when self-control goes and adrenaline shakes the whole frame, and some terrific violence struggles to cut loose. That is Viet Nam combat doing its wild repertory in the theater of a vet's nerves...
...drug-at least so its devotees innocently claim. A snort in each nostril and you're up and away for 30 minutes or so. Alert, witty and with it. No hangover. No physical addiction. No lung cancer. No holes in the arms or burned-out cells in the brain. Instead, drive, sparkle, energy. If it were not classified (incorrectly) by the Federal Government as a narcotic, and if it were legally distributed throughout the U.S. (as it was until 1906), cocaine might be the biggest advertiser on television. You can hear the commercials: Endorsed by the great Dr. Sigmund...
...send tiny electrical impulses coursing through the nervous system. (By contrast, narcotics tend to suppress these impulses.) As the signals multiply, they inundate the system's peripheral areas, which control such involuntary functions as the pulse and perspiration. They also flood at least three critical parts of the brain itself: the cerebral cortex, which governs higher mental activities like memory and reasoning; the hypothalamus (appetite, body temperature and sleep as well as such emotions as anger and fear); and the cerebellum (walking, balance and other motor activities...
...consequences are inevitable. "Like an overburdened telephone switch board," explains Dr. Walter Riker Jr., chief of pharmacology at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, "the brain cannot handle all the messages. There is too much information flowing in, and the user becomes hyperaroused." With higher doses and chronic use, the alertness and exhilaration so prized by coke's connoisseurs quickly turn into darker effects, ranging from insomnia to full-fledged cocaine psychosis. Even a single overdose can cause severe headaches, nausea and convulsions-indeed, total respiratory and cardiovascular collapse. Says U.C.L.A. Psychopharmacologist Ronald Siegel: "Extreme cocaine dosages light...