What is Crack?

Crack is a solid form of freebase cocaine that is best suited to smoking. It is possible to smoke powder cocaine (cocaine hydrochloride), but a lot of the cocaine gets destroyed when heated. 

 

Cocaine hydrochloride requires a high temperature to ignite, freebase cocaine or "crack" requires a much lower temperature to ignite. 

 

Converting cocaine to crack (freebase) is fairly easy and the resulting product is ideal for smoking. Very little of the cocaine is destroyed in the heating process when smoking freebase cocaine. 

 

The reason people smoke crack cocaine is because it delivers large quantities of the drug to the lungs. When an user smokes crack, they experience its effects in as short as ten seconds! This provides a feeling that is similar to the effect one gets from injecting cocaine, but smoking freebase cocaine does not require needles. These immediate and euphoric effects are short lived, approximately five to ten minutes.

 

Crack rocks appear as off-white nuggets with jagged edges, with a slightly higher density than candle wax. Purer forms of crack resemble a hard brittle plastic, in crystalline form (snaps when broken). A crack rock can act as a local anesthetic, numbing the tongue or mouth only where directly placed. When smoked, crack can leave the tongue numb where the smoke enters the mouth. Purer forms of crack will sink in water or melt at the edges when near a flame (crack vaporizes at 90 °C, 194 °F).