Crack cocaine

History

Cocaine was extremely popular in the USA in the 1970’s and it is from this root that ‘freebase’ evolved. Freebase cocaine, enjoyed much less popularity.  As with powder cocaine, the users of freebase tended to be rich, middle class and white.  Freebase had little use in medicine, unlike cocaine, but a base form of the drug is required to purify towards the common salt, cocaine hydrochloride. There are varies theories about the huge rise in popularity of crack, which include the advantage over ‘freebase’ due to the tricky manufacturing process and the danger of fire and explosion caused by ether.

The simplicity of making crack was a major factor that led to crack becoming more widespread in the 1980s.  Cocaine supply also increased, reducing the price.  Crack provided an intense high very quickly, relatively cheaply (per rock) and did not require the use of needles.  For sellers, crack was a lucrative product – easy to make and desired by a huge consumer base for whom powder cocaine had previously been culturally inaccessibly and expensive in gram deals.  The association of crack with poor, urban areas where it was sold, and the violence connected with the rapid expansion of the crack market, changed the American perception of cocaine.  Through the 1980’s and 1990’s there was an explosion of news coverage of crack and fear of an ‘epidemic’ of drug use in the ghettos.  It is called ‘crack’ as the heated end product ‘cracks’ and pops as it is smoked.