IT'S SNOWING IN MY HEART

PEOPLE don't joke about heroin abuse or glue-sniffing. Heroin users and glue
addicts end up dead in back alleys. But cocaine is viewed in a kinder light.
For rock stars and professionals alike, Charlie is just a bit of fun: it
perks you up and gives an added frisson to life, thanks to its illegal
status and comparative exclusivity. At worst, really bad coke fiends might
part company with the insides of their noses.

This pretty sanguine picture may be responsible for the drug's increasing
popularity. After dipping in the 1980s, the drug is on the up again.

But people have got cocaine wrong. It does induce dependency and can cause
psychiatric problems, such as paranoia. It now appears that cocaine users
are also dicing with death from premature heart disease.

Cocaine is known to cause arteries to spasm--a fact that may explain the
increase in anecdotal reports on both sides of the Atlantic of young,
otherwise fit cocaine users arriving at emergency clinics with chest pains.

Worse, the latest evidence suggests that the drug also causes the immune
system to attack healthy heart tissue (see p 14). This fits with the fact
that doctors are starting to see young cocaine users with congestive heart
failure, a disease normally confined to old people.

Not exactly glamorous is it? Clearly the time has come for cocaine to lose
its reputation as a safe drug.