Smoking - Meth vs Crack

[hello there]

Recently swim's rabbit decided instead of reupping on ingredients, he'd just pick up some hard from downtown.

It was swim's rabbit's first time with crack, and his hampster friend was showing him how the smoking technique is a little different.

Swim's rabbit decided to drop a little in a bulb, and it still fired up just fine and produced the same effect as the tube + brass filter method he was being taught.

Swim's rabbit is wondering, why is the 'appropriate' method different from meth? Why was the hampster teaching him to let the flame hit the hard? Is there something behind that method that makes it better?

(Swim USFSE for his hampster first but didn't find a clear answer)

[ncsponger]

SWIM's crack fiend friends almost always smoke hard out of a soda can with holes punched in it. Sometimes they use a "stem"(glass tube with brillo(choreboy) stuffed in it. They always put the flame directly on the rock.

SWIM thinks that most people who smoke crack are not very educated and do not realize that freebase cocaine would be more effective if it was vaporized like in a meth style lightbulb pipe. SWIM is sure that the intense heat of direct flame destroys some of the freebase and it never gets vaporized therefore wasting product.

Modern "crack" is generally basified with sodium bicarbonate and much of the soda remains in the rock swim thinks. This preperation may actually need direct flame heat to vaporize the freebase. The stuff in the 1980s was primarely basified with ammonia and extracted with ether, leaving a more pure freebase which would probably vaporize much easier than crack made with baking soda.

[fiveleggedrat]

Based on Swim's experience with cocaine and crack, most today is made using sodium bicarbonate and water. However, it is a very poor method that causes impurity in the final product. Older crack was made using ammonia and cocaine only. It produces a remarkably pure, clean product without taste/smell issues, like baking soda rock.

Is crack not just base form of cocaine? Swim was under the impression there were three common cocaine forms: Salt, Base, And Freebase, being Cocaine powder, Crack, and Freebase cocaine.

Freebase was made with ether.

Crack is smoked directly, whereas freebase has to be vaporized, like in those funny glass bong like freebase pipes that they used to sell.

The cleaner the crack the better it will burn. Bad product can need the direct flame more than clean crack.

[hello there]

Well, swim's rabbit noticed a higher ability to control the crack in the bulb vs. the stem. It could be vaporized and recrack and hit again for 30 minutes or more (on two 'hits' worth) when a hit or two in the stem was burning up within 3-4 minutes.

Swim's rabbit thinks he'll grab a few more grams worth and see how it works next time, keeping more in-line with his tweaker side and using the bulb. Swims hampster definately thinks he can make it last like tweak using a bulb (or any other non-direct-flame method).

[ncsponger]

SWIM has always wanted to get an 8-ball of good quality coke and try the ammonia/ether method of making freebase. He says this would vaporize nicely. As many people know, this is how Richard Pryor set himself on fire. He was jacked up and lit his lighter while the room was full of ether vapor. BOOM!!

[fiveleggedrat]

Which is generally better, freebase or crack? Ease of use can't be all that made crack so popular. Why did freebase disappear? Was it the restriction of ether?

[ncsponger]

From what SWIM has read, generally it was young black males with no knowledge of the hazards of volatile chemicals that were making freebase. Overtime they had a lot of incidents involving fires and burns from improperly using ether. Because of these accidents they switched to sodium bicarb. People began calling it "crack" because of the sound it made when it was smoked. The water left in the crack boiled and made the crackling sound. Before this people just called it "freebase".

[fiveleggedrat]

Freebase

Main article: Freebase (chemistry)
As the name implies, “freebase” is the base form of cocaine, as opposed to the salt form of cocaine hydrochloride. Whereas cocaine hydrochloride is extremely soluble in water, cocaine base is insoluble in water and is therefore not suitable for drinking, snorting or injecting. Whereas cocaine hydrochloride is not well-suited for smoking because the temperature at which it vaporizes is very high and close to the temperature at which it burns; cocaine base vaporizes at a much lower temperature, which makes it suitable for inhalation.
Smoking freebase cocaine has the additional effect of releasing methylecgonidine into the user's system due to the pyrolysis of the substance (a side effect which insufflating or injecting powder cocaine does not create). Some research suggests that smoking freebase cocaine can be even more cardiotoxic than other routes of administration[22] because of methylecgonidine's effects on lung tissue[23] and liver tissue.[24]
Smoking freebase is a popular route of ingestion because the cocaine is absorbed immediately into blood via the lungs, reaching the brain in about five seconds. The rush is much more intense than snorting the same amount of cocaine nasally, but the effects do not last as long. The peak of the freebase rush is over almost as soon as the user exhales the vapor, but the high typically lasts 5–10 minutes afterward. What makes freebasing particularly dangerous is that users typically do not wait that long for their next hit and will continue to smoke freebase until none is left. These effects are similar to those that can be achieved by injecting or “slamming” cocaine hydrochloride, but without the risks associated with intravenous drug use (though there are other serious risks associated with smoking freebase).
Freebase cocaine is produced by first dissolving cocaine hydrochloride in water. Once dissolved in water, cocaine hydrochloride (Coc-HCl) dissociates into the protonated cocaine ion (Coc-H+) and the chloride ion (Cl−). Any solids that remain suspended in the solution are impurities from the cut and are removed by filtration. A base, typically ammonia (NH3), is added to the solution. The following net acid-base reaction takes place:

Coc-H+ + NH3 → Coc + NH4+

As freebase cocaine (Coc) is insoluble in water, it precipitates and the solution becomes cloudy. To recover the freebase in the "traditional" manner, diethyl ether is added to the solution. Since freebase is highly soluble in ether, a vigorous shaking of the mixture results in the freebase being dissolved in the ether. As ether is practically insoluble in water, it can be siphoned off. The ether is then left to evaporate, leaving behind the nearly pure freebase.
Handling diethyl ether is dangerous because ether is extremely flammable; its vapors are heavier than air and can "creep" from an open bottle, and in the presence of oxygen it can form peroxides, which can spontaneously combust. Comedian Richard Pryor performed a skit poking fun at himself for a 1980 incident in which he caused an explosion and ignited himself attempting to smoke "freebase", presumably while still wet with ether (though his ex-wife Jennifer Lee Pryor said that he poured high-proof rum over his body and torched himself in a drug psychosis).

Crack cocaine

Main article: Crack cocaine
In its creation process, due to the dangers of using ether to produce pure freebase cocaine, cocaine producers began to omit the step of removing the freebase cocaine precipitate from the ammonia mixture. Typically, filtration processes are also omitted. The end result of this process is that the cut, in addition to the ammonium salt (NH4Cl), remains in the freebase cocaine after the mixture is evaporated. The “rock” that is thus formed also contains a small amount of water. Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) is also preferred in preparing the freebase, for when commonly "cooked" the ratio is 50/50 to 40/60% cocaine/bicarbonate. This acts as a filler which extends the overall profitability of illicit sales. Crack cocaine may be reprocessed in small quantities with water (users refer to the resultant product as "cookback"). This removes the residual bicarbonate, and any adulterants or cuts that have been used in the previous handling of the cocaine and leaves a relatively pure, anhydrous cocaine base.
When the rock is heated, this water boils, making a crackling sound (hence the onomatopoeic “crack”). Baking soda is now most often used as a base rather than ammonia for reasons of lowered stench and toxicity; however, any weak base can be used to make crack cocaine. Strong bases, such as sodium hydroxide, tend to hydrolyze some of the cocaine into non-psychoactive ecgonine.

Some info there that explains crack vs freebase.