# Ingesting Cocaine **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 2, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingesting-cocaine/633455 "2012-09-02T17:10:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![IceQube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@IceQube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IceQube)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingesting-cocaine/633455/1 "2012-09-02T17:10:31Z")
What happens in a biochemical sense to someone who swallows cocaine? What does the cocaine do that is so harmful to the body? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingesting-cocaine/633455/2 "2012-09-02T17:16:15Z")
Are you assuming cocaine is more dangerous when taken orally than other methods? It isn’t at all, in fact orally is probably safer than other methods of ingestion It is the dose that determines whether it is dangerous or not. IF you mean criminal suspects who swallow cocaine or drug mules with digestive systems full of condoms filled with cocaine that burst, the danger there is the high dose causing a fatal overdose. Most users buy cocaine in amounts larger than a single dose, and drug mules of course are carrying large amounts in a smuggling run. ---
**Author:** ![IceQube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@IceQube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IceQube)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingesting-cocaine/633455/3 "2012-09-02T17:23:22Z")
I saw an episode of COPS and this woman was trying to swallow a minute amount of cocaine and the cop wrestled her to the ground and forced her to spit it out. He said that swallowing that piece would have landed her in the ER. So I’m wondering about what is it about cocaine that makes it dangerous. But then … that was a long time ago, and it may have been another drug … ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingesting-cocaine/633455/4 "2012-09-02T17:35:53Z")
> [@IceQube](#): > > I saw an episode of COPS and this woman was trying to swallow a minute amount of cocaine and the cop wrestled her to the ground and forced her to spit it out. He said that swallowing that piece would have landed her in the ER. So I’m wondering about what is it about cocaine that makes it dangerous. > > But then … that was a long time ago, and it may have been another drug … There isn’t anything inherently dangerous about swallowing cocaine or crack cocaine, they used to put cocaine in things intended for oral consumption such as patent medicines and tonics. Here is the wiki entry on cocaine: > **[Cocaine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine)** > > Cocaine (from French cocaïne, from Spanish coca, ultimately from Quechua kúka) is a tropane alkaloid that acts as a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant. Coca has traditionally been used by indigenous South Americans for various purposes for over a thousand years. As an extract, cocaine is rarely but formally used as a local anaesthetic or diagnostic tool by medical practitioners in some countries, and it is contraindicated in pregnancy due to the risks associated with prenat Cocaine i... > [@](#): > > Orally administered cocaine takes approximately 30 minutes to enter the bloodstream. Typically, only a third of an oral dose is absorbed, although absorption has been shown to reach 60% in controlled settings. Given the slow rate of absorption, maximum physiological and psychotropic effects are attained approximately 60 minutes after cocaine is administered by ingestion. While the onset of these effects is slow, the effects are sustained for approximately 60 minutes after their peak is attained. > > Contrary to popular belief, both ingestion and insufflation result in approximately the same proportion of the drug being absorbed: 30 to 60%. Compared to ingestion, the faster absorption of insufflated cocaine results in quicker attainment of maximum drug effects. Snorting cocaine produces maximum physiological effects within 40 minutes and maximum psychotropic effects within 20 minutes, however, a more realistic activation period is closer to 5 to 10 minutes, which is similar to ingestion of cocaine. Physiological and psychotropic effects from nasally insufflated cocaine are sustained for approximately 40–60 minutes after the peak effects are attained.[43] The cop didn’t know how much she was ingesting, it is also probably policy to take anyone that consumes any amount of drug to the ER to reduce liability. ---
**Author:** ![ClevelandProud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@ClevelandProud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ClevelandProud)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingesting-cocaine/633455/5 "2012-09-02T18:06:38Z")
Investigators: Eating cocaine from crack led to death, additional charges Monday, December 19, 2011 \*NORTH CHARLESTON, SC - Police say one of two brothers pulled cocaine out of his butt. The other brother then ate it and died within the hour. Now, the brother who survived the ordeal is facing a charge of involuntary manslaughter. …\* (Includes a one minute 57 second video) > **[Investigators: Eating cocaine from crack led to death, additional charges](https://abcnews4.com/archive/investigators-eatting-cocaine-from-butt-leads-to-death-additional-charges)** > > Police say one of two brothers pulled cocaine out of his butt. The other brother then ate it and died within the hour. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingesting-cocaine/633455/6 "2012-09-02T18:14:42Z")
> [@ClevelandProud](#): > > Investigators: Eating cocaine from crack led to death, additional charges > > Monday, December 19, 2011 > > \*NORTH CHARLESTON, SC - Police say one of two brothers pulled cocaine out of his butt. > > The other brother then ate it and died within the hour. > > Now, the brother who survived the ordeal is facing a charge of involuntary manslaughter. …\* > > (Includes a one minute 57 second video) > > [http://www.abcnews4.com/story/16355650/investigators-eatting-cocaine-from-butt-leads-to-death-additional-charges](http://www.abcnews4.com/story/16355650/investigators-eatting-cocaine-from-butt-leads-to-death-additional-charges) Did you see this part? > [@](#): > > Deangelo Mitchell told officers Wayne swallowed about an ounce of cocaine. Recreational users don’t dose an ounce of cocaine, they’d fatally OD. Again what killed the guy was the amount he ingested. ---
**Author:** ![janeslogin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingesting-cocaine/633455/7 "2012-09-02T22:16:23Z")
Didn’t the original coca cola have cocaine for ingestion? ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingesting-cocaine/633455/8 "2012-09-02T22:35:34Z")
> [@janeslogin](#): > > Didn’t the original coca cola have cocaine for ingestion? I do believe it was added to the original drink concoction. Not sure about the amount. Cocaine used to be viewed as a helpful analgesic and something to help with alertness and such before its addictive properties were understood. Laudanum, there was a helluva drug! ---
**Author:** ![ClevelandProud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@ClevelandProud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ClevelandProud)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingesting-cocaine/633455/9 "2012-09-02T22:46:00Z")
> [@janeslogin](#): > > Didn’t the original coca cola have cocaine for ingestion? \*"… Use of stimulants in the Coca-Cola formula When launched, Coca-Cola’s two key ingredients were cocaine and caffeine. The cocaine was derived from the coca leaf and the caffeine from kola nut, leading to the name Coca-Cola (the “K” in Kola was replaced with a “C” for marketing purposes). Coca – cocaine Pemberton called for five ounces of coca leaf per gallon of syrup, a significant dose; in 1891, Candler claimed his formula (altered extensively from Pemberton’s original) contained only a tenth of this amount. Coca-Cola once contained an estimated nine milligrams of cocaine per glass. In 1903, it was removed. After 1904, instead of using fresh leaves, Coca-Cola started using “spent” leaves – the leftovers of the cocaine-extraction process with trace levels of cocaine. Coca-Cola now uses a cocaine-free coca leaf extract prepared at a Stepan Company plant in Maywood, New Jersey. …" \* > **[Coca-Cola](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola)** > > Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a cola soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings each day. Coca-Cola ranked No. 94 in the 2024 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue. Based on Interbrand's "best global brand" study of 2023, Coca-Cola was the world's sixth most valuable brand. > Originally marketed as a temperance... ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingesting-cocaine/633455/10 "2012-09-02T23:09:22Z")
> [@grude](#): > > The cop didn’t know how much she was ingesting, it is also probably policy to take anyone that consumes any amount of drug to the ER to reduce liability. And cops probably aren’t very reliable source of information. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingesting-cocaine/633455/11 "2012-09-02T23:38:28Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > I do believe it was added to the original drink concoction. Not sure about the amount. Cocaine used to be viewed as a helpful analgesic and something to help with alertness and such before its addictive properties were understood. > > Laudanum, there was a helluva drug! Laudanum was tincture of opium, not cocaine. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingesting-cocaine/633455/12 "2012-09-03T04:19:09Z")
Cocaine acts as a stimulant to increase the heart rate, sometimes precipitating lethal tachyarrhythmias. When the heart beats very very fast, it doesn’t have time to fill properly during diastole, and so blood pressure can plummet (This is the usual mechanism of demise if the fast heart rate is otherwise reasonably well-organized, electrically speaking.) Sometimes fast heart rates can stress an underlying abnormality. For instance, if a valve works poorly or an artery is partially blocked, a patient might do OK with normal activity but the heart will fail if the rate is too rapid. Fast heart rates can also precipitate other more malignant arrhythmias because the normal organized electrical activity is screwed up. Cocaine can also cause extreme high blood pressure, and this can precipitate strokes or else put so much stress on the heart that it gives out. Cocaine can raise your temperature to dangerous levels. When the body gets too high, end organs are stressed, and if you raise the temperature enough, all sorts of processes crap out (for example, many molecular interactions and enzymatic processes need a narrow temperature range to function correctly). Cocaine can also make you wacky enough to injure yourself. I’m sure there are others, but these are the ones that come to mind. Google cocaine excess or cocaine overdose or something for details… ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingesting-cocaine/633455/13 "2012-09-03T04:52:26Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Laudanum was tincture of opium, not cocaine. Yes, but both were powerful, unregulated drugs in their day. It was a joke.