Cocaine Biological & Biomedical Sciences Research Paper (Research Paper Sample)

Plant Chemical Adaptations- Cocaine
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Today, nearly half of the pharmaceutical drugs used are derived from natural sources. For instance, aspirin is obtained from a compound found in the bark and leaves of the willow tree CITATION Won14 \l 1033 (Wong, 2014). Others include the Taxol from the yew tree and cocaine from the cocoa tree. Cocaine is among the most commonly abused plant-derived drug worldwide. The drug is obtained from the Erythroxylaceae which contains about 4 genera and 240 species of smallish trees and shrubs. Cocaine occurs in the form of alkaloids CITATION Her14 \l 1033 (Herkewitz, 2014). Alkaloids are usually a very huge group of natural nitrogen-containing compounds and cause diverse effects to some organs in the human body. Specifically, the addictive drug cocaine constitutes the tropane alkaloids and constitutes two distinctive five-membered and seven-membered interconnecting rings. Plants that produce the alkaloid commonly use the compound for protection against herbivores and similar enemies.
Unlike animals. plants do not move from one place to another and therefore must have a mechanism to enable them to keep the hungry herbivores away. One mechanism involves the manufacture of a slew of defensive chemicals. For instance, the cocoa plant produces a neurotoxic drug known as the alkaloids which alter the chemical balance in an animal's brain. During the penultimate step of the formation of alkaloids, there is the reduction of a ketone group to an alcohol residue CITATION Her14 \l 1033 (Herkewitz, 2014).