If you walk into any drug rehab center anywhere then you will find that many of the people being treated for drug addictions will be in there because of their cocaine abuse. Cocaine use has been rising for years and shows no signs of slowing down. It seems that the authorities on health in the UK have seen a good amount of success in cocaine treatment. So what are the effects of cocaine that make it so bad?

People use cocaine because it gives them a high, which is similar to amphetamines in that it is a stimulant, however the effects do not last very long at all. At first the person using will find that they feel great – very confident and energetic but it wears off very quickly. Like all stimulants body temperature and heart rate go up while you don’t feel like eating at all.

If these were the only effects then there would be no problem would there? Well the main issue with cocaine is its addictiveness. It changes brain patterns and this can lead to a psychological addiction that many people end up struggling with for a long time. Physically it can cause problems, with the withdrawal symptoms being very bad. It leads to users feeling very low and feeling very ill, which means that they take more to combat these effects.

The day after is not something to look forward to either, with people feeling like they have flu after a long session, and many people use this feeling as a reason to go and take some more, which invariably does not help matters. It is also a massive risk to take cocaine as if you have a heart condition that you don’t know about, you may end up suffering a heart attack as it increases your heart rate. There is also a feeling of massive confidence after taking cocaine, which means that there is a chance that the user could take risks they would not normally have done.

So while the high might seem like fun, it comes at a cost. And this is why cocaine remains a Class A drug within the UK. Its addictive nature leads many users into a long term battle with the substance or into rehabilitation. Is a ten minute high really worth all that?

Find out more drug rehab center information