Kinetics of pharmacologic response to cocaine.

Cocaine plasma concentration-response-time data obtained from the literature were analyzed by pharmacokinetic methods. The plasma concentration-time data yield an elimination half-life of approximately 1 hour and the data suggest that only about 20% of an oral dose of cocaine is absorbed intact into the systemic circulation. Response, as assessed by means of a relative "high" rating scale, declined linearly with time as predicted by theory. The rate of decline of response was found to be 0.0221 "high"/min. The rate of decline of response is a function of the apparent first-order elimination rate constant (K) of the drug and the slope of the response-log plasma concentration curve (m). A value for m of 4.2 "high" was calculated from the response-time data which agreed well with a value of 3.9 "high" for m determined from the slope of the response-log plasma concentration curve.