Does Cocaine Have Any Potential as an Antidepressant?
Two years ago, Madeleine (not her real name) lost her father to cancer. She was devastated. She had about a gram of cocaine leftover from a New Year's Eve party, and she started using it, little by little, to get through each day. She says that cocaine is the only thing that gave her the energy to cope with her daily life, to make the funeral arrangements, and take care of her grieving mother. Cocaine, she says, saved her from her grief.
There are no doctors who would endorse Madeleine's method of self-medication—it sounds dangerously close to a rather serious habit, after all. But the fact that she says it helped her deal with depression doesn't surprise Dr. Matthew Johnson, who researches behavioral pharmacology at Johns Hopkins University.
"The idea of using cocaine, or drugs extremely similar to cocaine, for depression or related disorders is not new," he explained—and it's not scientifically unfounded either.
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Modern antidepressants don't have the same instantaneous effect as cocaine, which makes them less addictive. But they work in similar ways the brain—namely by, balancing the monoamine neurotransmitters, which are believed to be the cause of depression. Wellbutrin, a commonly prescribed antidepressant, feels similar enough to a coke binge when it's snorted that it's earned the nickname of " poor man's cocaine."
While cocaine is only vaguely similar to most modern antidepressants, it's nearly identical to another drug: methylphenidate, commonly known by the brand name Ritalin. Cocaine and Ritalin work very, very similarly—both substances block the reuptake of the same neurotransmitters in the brain to increase dopamine levels. Snorting cocaine and Ritalin are indistinguishable to users under blind conditions," said Dr. Johnson.
http://www.vice.com/read/can-cocaine-cure-grief-210
= new reply since forum marked as read
"a rather serious habit"? 
It appeared right after my post above so I figured it would be best to say thanks here.
