Word: coke
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...spread of AIDS among needle-using junkies; some of the seedy, smoke-filled "base houses" where crack is sold and consumed were formerly shooting galleries for heroin. But crack's low cost has also made it particularly appealing to adolescents. Kids as young as twelve have called the coke hotline in desperation...
Cocaine addiction is nothing new in the U.S. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, some 5 million Americans are regular coke users. But the traditional, sniffed "nose candy" is no match for crack. NIDA estimates that an addiction to regular coke develops after three to four years, while crack abusers are usually hooked after only six to ten weeks. A snort of classic coke penetrates the mucous membranes slowly, circulating to the brain in about eight minutes and producing a high, much milder than crack's, that lasts for 20 minutes or so. Crack is absorbed rapidly through...
Using crack is easier and less complicated than free-basing cocaine. Since powdered coke cannot be ignited and smoked, free-basers wash a cocaine base with ether to clean out impurities. Once dried, the residue is heated with a torch and smoked. The extreme volatility of ether makes this a dangerous way to get high--as the general public learned in 1980 when Comedian Richard Pryor set himself on fire while free-basing...
...contrast, the process used to make crack is simple. Ordinary coke is mixed with baking soda and water into a solution that is then heated in a pot. This material, somewhat purer and more concentrated than regular cocaine, is dried and broken into tiny chunks that dealers sell as crack rocks. The little pellets are usually smoked in glass pipes. "Crack is a whole new ball game," says James Hall, executive director of Up Front, a Miami drug-information center. "It's an extremely compulsive drug, much more so than regular cocaine. The rush is so intense and the crash...
...year-old patient at New York City's Phoenix House drug rehabilitation center who got hooked on crack two years ago. The product of a troubled middle-class family, she was already a heavy drinker and pot smoker when she was introduced to coke by her older brother, a young dope pusher. "When you take the first toke on a crack pipe, you get on top of the world," she says...