Joe McGinniss' attack book, "The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin," is out, oozing with salacious allegations.

The book is packed with stories that could make a blockbuster movie. It offers stories about cocaine and marijuana, a one-night stand with a basketball hero and a love triangle, the atlanticwire.com reports.

McGinniss claimed that Palin, while on a snowballing trip with husband Todd and their friends, snorted coke. He further says that Todd Palin was a frequent cocaine user.

Cocaine is a powerfully addictive stimulant. In its powdered hydrochloride salt, cocaine can be snorted or dissolved in water and then injected. Crack is the street name given to the form that resembles a rock crystal and produces a crackling sound when heated, according to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Cocaine can be snorted, ingested, injected or smoked. All these methods can lead to addiction and other health problems, including the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases from shared paraphernalia. The route speaks much of the intensity and duration of cocaine's effects. The faster the drug is absorbed (injecting or smoking) into the bloodstream and delivered to the brain, the more intense is the high. The faster absorption that occurs during snorting usually produces a shorter effect. To sustain the high, cocaine users may binge on the drug, taking it repeatedly within a short period in increasing doses.

Among many adverse effects of cocaine on the body, it is capable of constricting and dilating blood vessels. It alters body's vital signs by increasing body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure.

Other effects range from headaches irritability, restlessness and anxiety. Severe paranoia up to full-blown paranoid psychosis, losing touch with reality and experiencing auditory hallucinations, may also occur.

The constricting effect in the blood vessels may lead to bowel gangrene as a result of diminished blood flow. Other gastrointestinal complications including pain, nausea and decreased appetite that may eventually cause the user to become malnourished.

Snorting may lead to runny nose, loss of the sense of smell, sinus issues, perforated septum, nosebleeds and problems with swallowing and hoarseness.

NIDA further warns that regardless of the route or frequency of use, cocaine abusers can experience acute cardiovascular or cerebrovascular emergencies, such as a heart attack or stroke, which may cause sudden death. Cocaine-related deaths are often a result of cardiac arrest or seizure followed by respiratory arrest.

Nobody experiments on taking a drug with a desire to a become an addict. But the initial euphoria commonly experienced may instigate the desire to use the drug at another time.

Many cocaine abusers report that they seek but fail to achieve as much pleasure as they did from their first exposure. Some users will increase their dose in an attempt to intensify and prolong the euphoria, but this can also increase the risk of adverse psychological or physiological effects, according to NIDA.

Addiction