Infants, children test positive for cocaine after exposure to second-hand crack smoke
Article Abstract:
Infants and children whose adult caretakers use freebase or crack cocaine may be at risk for cocaine toxicity from exposure to second-hand cocaine smoke. Of 460 children aged from one month to five years and screened at Children's Hospital of Michigan in Detroit, 25 (5.4%) had a breakdown product of cocaine in their urine. Children exposed to cocaine smoke may have neurological symptoms and seizures, but none of the children with positive urine tests had any of these symptoms. The children's cocaine exposure could not be explained by exposure before birth because they were all over one month old. None of the children had been breastfed, and none had symptoms of ingesting cocaine. The children were too young to use cocaine experimentally. In other research, a drug-free man who was experimentally exposed to second-hand cocaine smoke had a breakdown product of cocaine in his urine the next day. Individuals may intake cocaine through their skin and then test positive for drug use.
Publication Name: JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0098-7484
Year: 1992
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Cocaine death reported for century or more
Article Abstract:
The prevalence of cocaine use in the 1980s and 1990s is similar to the cocaine craze that occurred in the US and Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In 1860, the pharmacology graduate student Albert Nieman isolated cocaine from a coca leaf. The value of cocaine as a local anesthetic was discovered in 1884. A wine that contained cocaine became popular in Paris in the late 1800s. Pharmaceutical companies sold pure cocaine, and included it in many drug preparations. The first reports of cocaine-associated heart attacks and stroke were published in 1886, and many reports of cocaine toxicity were published through the 1920s. In 1914, cocaine was outlawed in the US, and cocaine use decreased. Cocaine use is again prevalent in the 1990s. The drug is inexpensive and widely available. Crack cocaine is a much more lethal form of the drug, which creates a whole new set of public health concerns.
Publication Name: JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0098-7484
Year: 1992
User Contributions:
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