Class Implications and Science of Crack Cocaine

[Ocean Seal]

I have an important question regarding crack cocaine. Is it actually more dangerous/addictive than powder cocaine. I've always thought that they were both more or less chemically the same thing, but that they acted on different pathways. With that being said I assumed that the crack panic was purely class and race based; however, why then would the Mayor of Toronto use crack-cocaine? A user on this forum pointed out that crack is much more potent and delivers a better high. That makes me rethink my position on crack, certainly if it is more potent then it is likely to be more dangerous.

[Sasha]

Its the same substance, crack is cocaine washed/purified with ammonia. The change is in the way its taken, smoking cocaine gives a really short but intense high. But there would be little to no diffrence between smoking crack and freebasing quality cut coke. (obviously there is a difference between snorting coke and smoking it, your nose is just better suited for dealing with powder than your lungs are with hot filthy smoke with burning metal fragments) but yeah, the societal and legal differences that are made are purely classist/racist.
It's like the difference between heroin and fynatyl users, sure heroin junkies are in poorer health but thats all down to class issues (like not having access to laboratory grade stuff)

[Ocean Seal]

Its the same substance, crack is cocaine washed/purified with ammonia. The change is in the way its taken, smoking cocaine gives a really short but intense high. But there would be little to no diffrence between smoking crack and freebasing quality cut coke. (obviously there is a difference between snorting coke and smoking it, your nose is just better suited for dealing with powder than your lungs are with hot filthy smoke with burning metal fragments) but yeah, the societal and legal differences that are made are purely classist/racist.
It's like the difference between heroin and fynatyl users, sure heroin junkies are in poorer health but thats all down to class issues (like not having access to laboratory grade stuff)
So why then did the conservative mayor of Toronto smoke crack, rather than freebasing cocaine which he could have done in the company of his fellow wealthy reactionaries. Or is he just a man of the people in disguise.

[Sasha]

Another user who grew up near the ford family said fords brother was a low level dealer himself and his sister hung with the Nazi crowd, doesn't sound like old money with good Columbian connections to me, more dodgy second hand car salesmen who made a break on the back of populism and direct elections.

[Os Cangaceiros]

^he does come from a family of substantial wealth, though.

[Sasha]

there is always the options of that he was slumming it, he is harly a rational man by the looks of it.
that or that by now any smoking of cocaine has become to be known as crack, even here the word has started to show up in everyday use.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Is crack very big in Europe? Was there a crack boom over there like there was in the mid 80's-early 90's in the USA?

[Sasha]

i stand corrected though, crack can be washed with sodiumbicarbonate, or cooked with ammonia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_cocaine

[Sasha]

Is crack very big in Europe? Was there a crack boom over there like there was in the mid 80's-early 90's in the USA?

yes, its pretty common, but mostly as an polly drug heroin junkies take to "pick themselves up", so its a different scene than the US. junkies use H with the occasion coke hit, its not their primary drug, most street dealers who supplie the junkies therefor sell both "brown" (heroin) and "white" (base coke), meth is in contrast used almost exclusively in the gay sex scene.
but here, hence my confusion above, coke is cooked with ammonia and not washed with baking soda as in the US which makes it way more pure and doenst give it its distinct crackling sound when its smoked (which gave it its name in the US, the baking soda remains in the product and acts as an bulking agent).

[Crabbensmasher]

So why then did the conservative mayor of Toronto smoke crack, rather than freebasing cocaine which he could have done in the company of his fellow wealthy reactionaries. Or is he just a man of the people in disguise.

It sounds like he has a wide circle of friends. His family has gang connections or something too. He was probably hammered, and got offered crack by one of them.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I would say so in most contexts. It's always seemed silly to me but I have it on good authority today that crack today is largely bullshit. As to why this cat was doing it? Who knows, cocaine is a helluva drug, no one has freebased it since the 70s and it's cheap as shit.

[Sasha]

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[RedWaves]

Crack is the cheap version of Cocaine.