COCAINE : An Unauthorized Biography. By Dominic Streatfeild. St. Martin's Press, $27.95; 498 pp.

IT has been said there is no greater sensation on earth than a cocaine high. In very short order, a snort of the glimmering white powder produces an overwhelming feeling of well-being, mental clarity and boundless energy - - not to mention a sort of post-orgasmic glow in the solar plexus. Smoking it only intensifies the feeling. Injecting it, well, that defies description.

Given a limitless supply of the stuff in their water, laboratory animals will abandon food, sleep, sex, grooming and all other drugs, dosing themselves until they literally die of exhaustion.

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