Endnote 232 — Why cocaine poisons some people and not others

A clinical catalogue of how cocaine ("Crosbulation") breaks down in the body and produces wildly different toxic side effects from person to person, which is why "not everybody is wired to enjoy" (p. 1037) the drug. Don Gately gets skin lesions and a compulsion to pick at his hands, which is why he has always loathed coke; Bruce Green weeps uncontrollably; Ken Erdedy got nosebleeds bad enough to send him to the ER both times he tried it; Kate Gompert now risks instant cerebral hemorrhage because she is on the antidepressant Parnate; and Randy Lenz suffers a long, escalating string of effects up to homicidal envy and manic garrulousness. It also notes that Calvin Thrust's coke-induced priapism "led directly to his early choice of career." (p. 1037)