✳flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

Crack Cocaine

cocaine.wiki · 2,008 words · saved by 1 readers

In pre-Columbian times, the coca leaf was officially reserved for Inca royalty. The natives used coca for mystical, religious, social, nutritional and medicinal purposes. Coqueros exploited its stimulant properties to ward off fatigue and hunger, enhance endurance, and to promote a benign sense of well-being. Coca was initially banned by the Spanish. In 1551 the Bishop of Cuzco outlawed coca use on pain of death because it was "an evil agent of the Devil". The noted 16th century orthodox Catholic artist Don Diego De Robles declared that "coca is a plant that the devil invented for the total destruction of the natives." But the invaders discovered that without the Incan "gift of the gods", the natives could barely work the fields - or mine gold. So it came to be cultivated even by the Catholic Church. Coca leaves were distributed three or four times a day to the workers during brief rest-breaks. Returning Spanish conquistadores introduced coca to Europe. Even Shakespeare may hav

Crack Cocaine In Search Of The Big Bang What is Crack Cocaine? Cocaine is an alkaloid found in leaves of the South American shrub Erythroxylon coca . It is a powerfully reinforcing psychostimulant. The drug induces a sense of exhilaration in the user primarily by blocking the reuptake of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the midbrain . Activation of dopamine D2 receptors induces release of an endogenous opioid peptide that binds rewardingly to mu opioid receptors in the nucleus accumbens. If the predictions of The Hedonistic Imperative are vindicated, then future millennia will witness what Rob

Explore this link on the map →

related reading