Signs That Someone Is Using Crack

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is John Bosworth. I'm a licensed mental health counselor in St. Pete, Florida. I'd like to talk to you a little bit about what are some of the signs that someone is using crack. Signs of crack addiction are very similar to signs of cocaine addiction. Crack is kind of a purified form of cocaine that, when heated, gives off vapors, and the user actually inhales the vapors right into the lungs for the quick high of it. Crack addicts have many telltale signs, and you hear people on the street using, you know, the term a lot "Well he's a crack addict, or he's a crack addict". And you'll see a lot of the antisocial behavior or some of the telltale signs in a behavioral sense. People will walk around asking for money, or they'll try to beg money when you're at the gas station and you're filling up your car. But some of the more physical signs that somebody is using crack tend to be dilated pupils, profuse sweating, or dizziness, weight loss, irregular heartbeat. One of the biggies is that they'll have fits of coughing, and they'll cough up a lot of black looking tar-like phlegm when they've been smoking crack on a regular basis. They also have very much... their weight, a lot of weight loss. Their physical appearance, basically, starts to deteriorate rapidly, and a lot of times they start losing their teeth. And basically, that is from the fumes--the actual vapors--when the cocaine is heated. The toxicity of those fumes actually gets at the root of the teeth and starts to wear away enamel and actually rot the teeth. There's also a change in mood and lifestyle that goes along with a lot of other drug use, not just crack or crack addiction. So those are some of the other things that we want to be looking at. My name's John Bosworth, and we've been talking about some of the signs to look for when somebody's using crack."