Cocaine Facts

Cocaine Facts

Crack

Crack is actually a less pure sort of free-base cocaine. Unlike old-fashioned free-base, however, its production doesn't involve any flammable solvents.

 Crack is usually made by mixing two parts of cocaine hydrochloride with one part baking soda in about 20 ml of water. The solution is then heated gently until white precipitate form. Heating is halted when precipitation stops. The precipitate is filtered and retained. The precipitate may then be washed with water; this procedure is usually omitted in the street product. The product may then be dried for 24 hours under a heat-lamp. Crack is then cut or broken into small 'rocks' weighing a few tenths of a gram.

There are four basic routes to coca intoxication:

 chewing the leaves. Coca consumption was originally the prerogative of the Inca elite. Today, most of the natives indulge as well. Coca is also consumed as the highly esteemed coca de maté. Drinking coca-tea tends to soothe the stomach; so it's good for digestive problems. Coca de maté is less likely to induce jitteriness than coffee. It is a rather more effective mood-brightener too.

 cocaine sulfate - pasta, basuco, basa, pitillo, paste. This is the low-grade stuff that reaches the urban slums of South America. The sulfate is the intermediate stage between the coca leaf and the finished cocaine hydrochloride crystal. Coca leaves are stripped from the plant. They are put into plastic pit with a solution of water and sulfuric acid. A bare-footed man will climb into the pit; step on the mess; and shove it around with his hands.

 cocaine hydrochloride - an odorless, white crystalline powder. It has a bitter, numbing taste. Making cocaine hydrochloride is quite com...

... middle of paper ...

...tes of administration create vivid memories and intense cravings.

 Unlike most clinically approved mood-brighteners, cocaine is a pro-sexual drug. Taken before sex, it can induce prolonged and intense orgasm. Cocaine-induced lovemaking, however, is not especially warm or empathetic.

 Cocaine is habit-forming. It is potentially dangerous when indulged in excess. If rats or monkeys are hooked up to an intravenous source of heroin, they will happily self-administer it indefinitely; but they still find time to sleep and eat. If rats or monkeys can self-administer cocaine, however, they will do virtually nothing else. They continue to push their drug-delivery lever for as long as they are physically capable of doing so. Within weeks,

if not days, they will lose a substantial portion of their body weight - up to 40%. Within a month, they will be dead.