Are you a snow sage? A blow boffin? Do you really know your stuff when it comes to cocaine?
1) Cocaine comes from
A. Coca leaves
B. Coca bark
C. Coca-cola
D. Your bestie who knows a guy
2) What kind of drug is cocaine?
A. Sedative
B. Stimulant
C. Psychedelic
D. Really hard to get
3) And what class is it?
A. A
B. B
C. C
D. Upper-middle
4) Does cocaine have a medical use?
A. No, and it never did
B. It did but it’s not used any more
C. Yes, it’s currently used in certain surgeries
D. Does a prescription from Dr. Feelgood count?
5) What’s the least risky way to take cocaine while still getting a potent effect?
A. Snort
B. Swallow
C. Shelve
D. Eyedropper
6) What substance is often added to weak cocaine to make it feel more potent?
A. Creatine
B. Anaesthetic
C. Salt
D. Spinach
7) What’s the most risky thing to happen when you mix cocaine and alcohol?
A. The stimulant effect of the cocaine cancels out the sedating effect of the alcohol, so you feel safe to drink more than you would ordinarily
B. The cocaine and alcohol combine in your body to create cocaethylene
C. You spend a heap of money chasing the kind of high you’re expecting
D. All of the above
8) Why is cocaethylene something to be wary of?
A. It lasts longer in the body than cocaine does
B. It has a more intense psychoactive effect than cocaine by itself
C. It poses more risks to the cardiovascular system and liver than cocaine by itself
D. All of the above
9) What’s the difference between cocaine and crack?
A. One’s a base and the other’s a salt
B. One’s a crystal and the other’s a powder
C. One’s heavily stigmatised and the other is associated with wealth and celebrity
D. All of the above
10) Are crack babies real?
A. No
B. No
C. No
D. No
Answers
1) A. Coca leaves, specifically Erythoxylon coca
2) B. Stimulant Psychonaut Wiki
3) A. A Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, Schedule 1
4) C Yes. Read more about the history of cocaine and its medical uses in A review of the history, actions, and legitimate uses of cocaine by Brain and Coward, 1989, National Library of Medicine
5) A. Snort. You can also rub it on your gums, but that can lead to ulcers if you do it too often.
6) B. Anaesthetic. Collated data from NZ Drug Foundation, DISC, and KnowYourStuffNZ’s drug checking results in the months leading up to festival season 2024-25 showed benzocaine and lignocaine as a common adulterant. These give the same numb feeling that you’d get from cocaine, but not the stimulant effects.
7) B. Your body creates cocaethylene. Alcohol toxicity is close second though, so you get half a point if you said cocaine dulls the effects of the booze and you drink more than you would.
8) D. All of the above. Read about cocaethylene in Cocaethylene: When Cocaine and Alcohol Are Taken Together by Pergolizzi et al, Cureus, 2022
9) D. All of the above
10) No.The crack baby myth is one of the bigger Yikes to have come out of the War on Drugs, and we’re not even going to entertain the thought that it might be real, even for a lil’ quiz like this. There’s a buuuunch of receipts about why crack babies, meth babies, and other types of drug babies aren’t real, but our favourites are:
- We Were Wrong About “Crack Babies”: Are We Repeating Our Mistake With “Meth Babies”? by David Lewis in Medscape General Medicine, 2005
- The Wrong Race, Committing Crime, Doing Drugs, and Maladjusted for Motherhood: The Nation’s Fury over “Crack Babies” by Enid Logan, Social Justice, Vol. 26, No. 1 (75), Human Rights, Gender Politics & Postmodern Discourses, 1999, and
- The Construction of the Crack Babies Phenomenon as a Social Problem by Lyons and Rittner, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 1998.