In March 2012, the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office reported that Whitney Houston's official cause of death was accidental drowning.
Cocaine use and heart disease were contributing factors in her death.
The coroner believes that cocaine use caused Whitney to suffer heart problems (she already had heart disease), which led her to become unconscious.
Bruises on her forehead, chest, and upper lip suggest that she fell into the bathtub, where she drowned.
The six-time Grammy winner also had marijuana, the prescription drugs Xanax and Flexeril, and the over-the-counter medicine Benadryl in her bloodstream, though the coroner does not believe they played a role in her death.
Cocaine Can Lead to Scary Side Effects Cocaine is a stimulant-a class of drugs that elevate mood, boost feelings of well-being and euphoria, and increase energy and alertness.
Stimulants make a person feel good by increasing the amount of dopamine in the brain, but they also have some nasty side effects.
Short-term effects can include increased body temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure; dilated pupils; nausea; blurred vision; muscle spasms; and confusion.
With repeated use, cocaine can lead to addiction (something Whitney struggled with for years), which changes how the brain works and makes it more difficult to feel any pleasure at all.
People who abuse cocaine are forced to take more and more of the drug to experience the same effects as they did at first.
Regularly snorting cocaine can lead to other long-term effects such as a hoarse voice, loss of the sense of smell, nosebleeds, and a chronically runny nose.
Whitney's famous voice was noticeably damaged in recent years, and the autopsy showed she had a hole inside her nose from repeated cocaine use.
Cocaine and Heart Disease Another long-term effect of abusing cocaine is heart damage.
Stimulants cause the body's blood vessels to narrow, limiting blood flow and forcing the heart to work harder to pump blood through the body.
It also restricts blood flow to the heart, killing some of the heart muscle.
Because the effects of cocaine are worse on arteries that are already damaged, people who have heart disease-like Whitney did-suffer most from the effects.
The chance of having heart trouble, such as a heart attack, also increases.
Unfortunately, Whitney's cocaine abuse ultimately led her to suffer the worst effect of the drug-death.
We hope that people can learn from her experience and avoid the same tragedy.
Did Whitney's death change the way you or your friends think about drugs? Tell us in the comments how her death affected you.