This article is about the drug cocaine. For the blues song by J.J. Cale (later covered by Eric Clapton) see Cocaine (song).

Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system and an appetite suppressant, creating what has been described as a euphoric sense of happiness and increased energy. Though most often used recreationally for this effect, cocaine is also a topical anesthetic that was used in eye, throat, and nose surgery in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Cocaine can be psychologically addictive, and its possession, cultivation, and distribution is illegal for non-medicinal and non-government sanctioned purposes in virtually all parts of the world. The name comes from the name of the coca plant plus the alkaloid suffix -ine.

Cocaine is an illicit drug derived from the leaf of the coca plant, a plant whose stimulating qualities were well-known to the ancient peoples of Peru and other Pre-Columbian South American societies. In Western countries, cocaine has been a feature of the counterculture for well-over a century; there is a long-list of prominent intellectuals, artists, and musicians who have used the drug -- names ranging from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sigmund Freud to President (and General) Ulysses S. Grant.For many decades cocaine was a key ingredient in Coca-Cola. Today, although illegal in virtually all countries, cocaine remains popular in a wide-variety of social and personal settings.