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Comment by Burbia on August 4, 2020 at 1:18am

I thought I was the only one cocaine had no effect on. I can quit anytime I want. Shh.I think it's the cops. That car has parked out there for a really long time.

Comment by James Roberts on August 3, 2020 at 10:56pm

I've seen a lot of examples of this in my own life. For instance, in 2008 (If I remember correctly), someone gave me an ampoule of cocaine hydrochloride from a hospital, because they knew I was intensely interested in altered states of consciousness. Cocaine has no effect on me, and thank goodness. However, this event caused me to be curious as to the mechanism of how crack heads become so physically and neurologically damaged.

I looked on the internet as to cocaine and brain damage. What was front and center, and produced several pages pof results, was the phemomena of "negri bodies". Cocaine damages the brain tissue that produces dopamine, and the result is copious "neuromelanin", a very dark material caused by the breaking down of dopamine as it waits to fill the dopamine receptors that cocaine occupies while it is active in the brain.

These black spots show up on post-mortem microscopy, in autopsies in which the brain is examined. I remember chuckling because of the association of negroes with cocaine, "negri bodies", the black spots in the brain that cause some cocaine addicts to become severely twitchy and emaciated. You need your dopamine to get through the day, and if you don't have it, well, you're like a Parkinsons patient.

Many years later, I related this information to someone who was a cocaine user, in furtherance of getting them to quit. A few days later, they angrily confronted me, telling me they couldn't find "one journal reference or article" on cocaine causing negri bodies. I was so sure that there were such references that I didn't look into it for six months, but when I did, all the refs, which had been so front and center, had disappeared.

Now, negri bodies are primarily cited in cases of rabies, not long-term cocaine use. What gives? I have no personal reason to prefer that this is the case. I have no dog in this fight. But I do have my memory, which is very good. Why does "reality" not match up to my memories? And this is not the only such case of info being wiped from the internet, that I  can think of. Not a mean feat.