as also been a subject of intense discourse in the modern culture. There is also compelling evidence of innovation and experimentation in mind-altering drug use and abuse. The list seems almost endless, if popular culture references are any guide: cocaine, heroin, crack, PCP, glue, designer drugs, Rohypnol (date-rape drug), marijuana, hashish, amphetamines (Wesson & Ling, 1996; Fox & Miller, 1997). This research purposefully focuses on cocaine, heroin, and prescription drugs: the first two because they appear to have opposite but equally addictive physical effects. The last drug is included because of evidence that toxic effects can come about from legal and illegal drugs alike--and from perhaps unexpected sources.
In both organic and synthetic form, cocaine has stimulative effects in the human body and mind-altering properties. The main physical effects are on the central and sympathetic nervous systems. These effects cause feelings of exhilaration or, in some cases, convulsions, to be followed by depression and potentially by respiratory shutdown (Morse, 1966). Symptoms of cocaine abuse and toxicity have been well documented, particularly in clinical settings where patients are engaged in withdrawal. In both popular imagination and the clinical setting, cocaine was thought to be only psychologically addictive. It appears that the psychological component of intense sensory experience associated with cocaine use may have misled some clinicians into thinking that cocaine addiction was all in the mind. By the end of the 1980s, this view had been discredited. For example, one drug-and-alcohol rehabilitation study found that cocaine dependence was not a purely psychological addiction. Rather, this study found that cocaine upset the ability of the central nervous system to regulate responses to sensual stimulation (Gawin & Ellinwood, 1989). At the time of that study, there was hope that anti-cocaine d
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