Pills and Powders... Cocaine and Crack... Part 1  Cocaine is the flip-side of the hard drug coin, with heroin being on the other side. Whilst heroin is associated with unemployment, grotty bedsits and junkies with track marks down their arms, cocaine has always been seen as the drug of the rich. It’s the drug for the bankers, the lawyers, the rich London types with more money than sense, and more dangerously, it’s seen as a drug you can dip in and out of and it has no lasting effects…you couldn’t be more wrong.
So we get to the truth on cocaine and it’s even more dangerous version crack, by telling you all the facts and comparing the two drugs. What it is and what it looks like:  Cocaine comes from the leaves of the coca bush, which is found in South American countries like Columbia, Bolivia and Peru. It is a white powder with a bitter taste and no smell. The correct name for it in this form is cocaine hydrochloride.
 Crack is also from the coca bush but it is the powder mixed with water and things like baking soda. Now get the chemistry book out, or alternatively switch off if science ain’t your thing, this is done to ‘free’ the cocaine alkaloid ‘base’ from the salt. It’s become known as crack because of the noise it makes when you take it. It looks like raisin-size pellets or little white rocks.
How you take it:  Cocaine is usually snorted up the nose from lines finely cut, using a razor or credit card, through a tube, rolled up money off a flat surface. It also can be injected as it dissolves in water and this way is sometimes mixed with heroin in something called a speedball.
 It can’t be dissolved in water so can’t be injected and is hard so it can’t be snorted so it’s smoked in three different ways. Firstly in cigarettes, secondly off tin foil, known as ‘chasing the dragon’, like heroin where the vapours are inhaled and thirdly and more commonly in pipes. To smoke it through a pipe all is needed is a bottle, filled half with water, where the rock is heated and the smoke is inhaled.
How you buy it and how much it costs:  Cocaine is usually bought in grams, 25-30mg of coke is enough for a line 2 inches long and a gram will give you about 30 lines. How much this costs varies from place to place due to demand, supplies and the state of the market but usually it’s about £60-120 per gram. (August 2001)
 Crack can be made at home by mixing cocaine powder with water and a chemical reagent like baking soda, this is known as freebasing. However dealers caught on to this and started to sell crack as 150mg wraps, which is enough for one smoke. These wraps or hits cost about £25, whilst a gram of crack costs £100. (August 2001)
Both are Class ‘A’ drug so are illegal and if you’re caught having, making or selling them you will get the most serious punishments.  What it’s also known as:
Cocaine is also called coke, charlie, blow, toot, snow, dust, candy, c , flake, snowdust, white Crack is also called freebase, rock, base, wash Where to get help: If you or anybody you know are having problems with cocaine or crack try the following places for help and support @ the Addictions Links Page. Read:
by ChrisM
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Pills and Powders... Heroin