Cocaine is pretty expensive and not used that often by young people, but it's still worth knowing about in case you come across it.

Cocaine is an illegal stimulant made from the leaves of the coca plant. It's also known as C, coke, nose candy, snow, rack, white lady, toot, Charlie, blow, white dust, pebbles, Chang and stardust. Freebase is known as base. Crack is referred to as rock or wash.

Cocaine is a white powder. The same substance can also come as “Crack” or as "freebase". Crack looks like small lumps or rocks which are smoked, but there doesn’t seem to be crack around in Victoria or Australia. Cocaine is pretty expensive and not often used by young people wanting support from services. It’s mostly snorted but it can be injected.

The effects of cocaine include alertness, feelings of wellbeing and euphoria, and enthusiastic talking. Cocaine can also cause a loss of appetite, aggressiveness and over-confidence which sometimes leads to careless risk-taking. The high from cocaine is felt almost immediately and only lasts a little while but the comedown can last days.

If you have too much cocaine, you may have vomiting, tremors, irregular breathing, agitation or panic. An ambulance should be called if anything like this happens. You should also know that if you have alcohol with cocaine, it can produce a third chemical called cocaethylene, which is really bad for your heart and can even cause a heart attack (watch this video)

If you use cocaine then if nothing else, make sure you know these ways to be as safe as possible.