The Truth About Drugs Booklets / The Truth About Crack Cocaine
The Truth About Crack Cocaine
What is Crack Cocaine?
Crack cocaine is the crystal form of cocaine, which normally comes in a powder form.* It comes in solid blocks or crystals varying in color from yellow to pale rose or white.
Crack is heated and smoked. It is so named because it makes a cracking or popping sound when heated.
Crack, the most potent form in which cocaine appears, is also the riskiest. It is between 75% and 100% pure, far stronger and more potent than regular cocaine.
Smoking crack allows it to reach the brain more quickly and thus brings an intense and immediate—but very short-lived—high that lasts about fifteen minutes. And because addiction can develop even more rapidly if the substance is smoked rather than snorted (taken in through the nose), an abuser can become addicted after his or her first time trying crack.
Because of cocaine’s high cost, it has long been considered a “rich man’s drug.” Crack, on the other hand, is sold at prices so low that even teens can afford to buy it—at first. The truth is that once a person is addicted, the expense skyrockets in direct ratio to the increasing amount needed to support the habit.
“I lived with a crack addict for nearly a year. I loved that addict, who was my boyfriend, with all my heart but I couldn’t stick [with] it anymore.
The police stopped and searched me; we were raided at 6:00 A.M. My ex stole incessantly and couldn’t tear himself away from his pipe.
I think crack is more evil than heroin—one pipe can be all it takes to turn you into an immoral monster.”
Street Names for Crack Cocaine
24-7
Apple jacks
Badrock
Ball
Base
Beat
Candy
Chemical
Cloud
Cookies
Crack
Crumbs
Crunch & munch
Devil drug
Dice
Electric kool-aid
Fat bags
French fries
Glo
Gravel
Grit
Hail
Hard ball
Hard rock
Hotcakes
Ice cube
Jelly beans
Kryptonite
Nuggets
Paste
Piece
Prime time
Product
Raw
Rock(s)
Rock star
Rox/Roxanne
Scrabble
Sleet
Snow coke
Sugar block
Topo (Spanish)
Tornado
Troop
International Statistics
In US Federal courts in 2007, 5,477 individuals were found guilty of crack cocaine-related crimes. More than 95% of these offenders had been involved in crack cocaine trafficking.
The situation is different in Europe. The European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction reports abuse of crack cocaine is commonly restricted to minority communities in large cities with high levels of unemployment and poor living conditions. In 2006, 20 European countries reported that crack cocaine abusers represented only 2% of all drug users entering substance abuse treatment, and most of them were reported by the United Kingdom.
Crack & Crime
The 2006 US National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that 8.6 million Americans aged 12 and older reported having used crack. Among those 18 to 25, 6.9% of those surveyed said they had used cocaine (including crack) within the last year. The 2007 US Government’s Monitoring the Future survey found that among high-school students, 3.2% of twelfth graders had used crack cocaine at some point in their lives.
In the United States, crack cocaine was the primary drug of abuse in 178,475 admissions to treatment in 2006. This represented 71% of all primary cocaine admissions to treatment that year.
“It’s a totally selfish drug, this crack. It takes over your life. Crack grabs ahold quickly. It doesn’t take long at all. The cravings it produces are massive. And you end up using it more frequently because the high is short-lasting.”
Why is Crack Cocaine So Highly Addictive?
Crack cocaine is one of the most powerful illegal drugs when it comes to producing psychological dependence. It stimulates key pleasure centers within the brain and causes extremely heightened euphoria. Compulsive crack use develops soon after the person starts using, because the substance is smoked and enters the blood stream rapidly. A tolerance develops quickly—the addict soon fails to achieve the same high experienced earlier from the same amount of crack cocaine.
“I had acquired a $2,000 per week crack cocaine habit and desperately wanted to be free from the chains.”
Effects of Crack Cocaine
What Are the Short-Term Effects of Crack Cocaine?
Crack causes a short-lived, intense high that is immediately followed by the opposite—intense depression, edginess and a craving for more of the drug. People who use it often don’t eat or sleep properly. They can experience greatly increased heart rate, muscle spasms and convulsions. The drug can make people feel paranoid,* angry, hostile and anxious—even when they aren’t high.
Regardless of how much of the drug is used or how frequently, crack cocaine increases the risk that the user will experience a heart attack, stroke, seizure or respiratory (breathing) failure, any of which can result in sudden death.
Smoking crack further presents a series of health risks. Crack is often mixed with other substances that create toxic fumes when burned. As crack smoke does not remain potent for long, crack pipes are generally very short. This often causes cracked and blistered lips, known as “crack lip,” from users having a very hot pipe pressed against their lips.
“The only thing on my mind was crack cocaine. And if somebody offers you any of it, you’ll jump at it and take it. It’s like offering a starving man a loaf of bread if he walks for miles....
Things came to a head for me when I’d been smoking constantly for a couple of weeks. One day I just decided I’d had enough—I couldn’t live like this anymore. And I tried to commit suicide.
I’m going to have to try and fight....I hope my survival instincts kick in.”
What Are the Long-Term Effects of Crack Cocaine?
In addition to the usual risks associated with cocaine use, crack users may experience severe respiratory problems, including coughing, shortness of breath, lung damage and bleeding.
Long-term effects from use of crack cocaine include severe damage to the heart, liver and kidneys. Users are more likely to have infectious diseases.
Continued daily use causes sleep deprivation and loss of appetite, resulting in malnutrition. Smoking crack cocaine also can cause aggressive and paranoid behavior.
As crack cocaine interferes with the way the brain processes chemicals, one needs more and more of the drug just to feel “normal.” Those who become addicted to crack cocaine (as with most other drugs) lose interest in other areas of life.
Coming down from the drug causes severe depression, which becomes deeper and deeper after each use. This can get so severe that a person will do almost anything to get the drug—even commit murder. And if he or she can’t get crack cocaine, the depression can get so intense it can drive the addict to suicide.
“I retired as a successful corporate exec who had put two daughters through college and had earned my retirement. My retirement party was, however, the beginning of five years of hell. That was when I was introduced to crack cocaine for the first time. Over the next five years, I would lose my home, my wife, all my financial resources, my health and almost my life. I also spent two years in prison.”
Physical & Mental Effects
Short-Term Effects
Because it is smoked, the effects of crack cocaine are more immediate and more intense than that of powdered cocaine.
Loss of appetite
Increased heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature
Contracted blood vessels
Increased rate of breathing
Dilated pupils
Disturbed sleep patterns
Nausea
Hyperstimulation
Bizarre, erratic, sometimes violent behavior
Hallucinations, hyperexcitability, irritability
Tactile hallucination that creates the illusion of bugs burrowing under the skin
Intense euphoria
Anxiety and paranoia
Depression
Intense drug craving
Panic and psychosis
Convulsions, seizures and sudden death from high doses (even one time)
Long-Term Effects
Permanent damage to blood vessels of ear and brain, high blood pressure, leading to heart attacks, strokes and death
Liver, kidney and lung damage
Severe chest pains
Respiratory failure
Infectious diseases and abscesses if injected
Malnutrition, weight loss
Severe tooth decay
Auditory and tactile hallucinations
Sexual problems, reproductive damage and infertility (for both men and women)
Disorientation, apathy, confused exhaustion
Irritability and mood disturbances
Increased frequency of risky behavior
Delirium or psychosis
Severe depression
Tolerance and addiction (even after just one use)
Children: The Most Innocent Victims of Crack Cocaine
The most innocent victims of crack cocaine are babies born to mothers who use the drug during pregnancy. The March of Dimes, a nonprofit organization for pregnancy and baby health, reports that use of cocaine in either powdered or crack form during pregnancy can affect a woman and her unborn baby in many ways. During the early months of pregnancy, it may increase the risk of miscarriage. It also may cause an unborn baby to have a stroke, permanent brain damage or heart attack.
The National Institute for Drug Abuse reports that exposure to crack cocaine during pregnancy may lead to significant later problems in some children.
“I was introduced to smoking crack cocaine, and that is when everything stopped functioning. I was out with some people who at that time I considered real close friends. You know, it is true what they say about crack: when you take that first hit, that high you will never get again....It ruined me completely. It took total control over me.
Crack cocaine has ruined my reputation, my self-worth and my self-respect.”
Crack Cocaine: A Short History
While the use of coca leaves as an intoxicant dates back three thousand years, crack cocaine, a crystallized form of cocaine, was developed during the cocaine boom of the 1970s and its use spread in the mid-1980s.
According to the US Drug Enforcement Agency, by the late 1970s there was a huge glut of cocaine powder being shipped into the United States. This caused the price of the drug to drop by as much as 80%. Faced with dropping prices for their illegal product, drug dealers converted the powder to “crack,” a solid form of cocaine that could be smoked.
Broken into small chunks, or “rocks,” this form of cocaine could be sold in smaller quantities, to more people at bigger profit. It was cheap, simple to produce, easy to use, and highly profitable for dealers.
As early as 1980, reports of crack use were appearing in Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston and the Caribbean.
The biggest surge in the use of the drug occurred during the “crack epidemic,” between 1984 and 1990, when the drug spread across American cities. The crack epidemic dramatically increased the number of Americans addicted to cocaine. In 1985, the number of people who admitted using cocaine on a routine basis increased from 4.2 million to 5.8 million.
By the end of 1986, crack was available in twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia. By 1987, crack was reported to be available in all but four states in the United States. Since then, use of the drug has continued to spread throughout North and South America and into Europe and the rest of the world.
By 2002, the United Kingdom was experiencing their own “crack epidemic,” with the number of crack addicts seeking help climbing nearly 50% that year. The UK reported an increase of 74% in seizures of crack cocaine in drug raids between 2000 and 2006.
The majority of European crack cocaine users are located in three cities—Hamburg, London and Paris. But crack cocaine use has also been reported as a significant problem in three French overseas territories—Guadeloupe, French Guiana and Martinique—and in some communities in the Netherlands.
What Dealers Will Tell You
When teens were surveyed to find out why they started using drugs in the first place, 55% replied that it was due to pressure from their friends. They wanted to be cool and popular. Dealers know this.
They will approach you as a friend and offer to “help you out” with “something to bring you up.” The drug will “help you fit in” or “make you cool.”
Drug dealers, motivated by the profits they make, will say anything to get you to buy their drugs. They will tell you “just try crack once and everything’s gonna be okay; it will make everything go away.”
They don’t care if the drugs ruin your life as long as they are getting paid. All they care about is money. Former dealers have admitted they saw their buyers as “pawns in a chess game.”
Get the facts about drugs. Make your own decisions.
The Truth About Drugs
Drugs are essentially poisons. The amount taken determines the effect.
A small amount acts as a stimulant (speeds you up). A greater amount acts as a sedative (slows you down). An even larger amount poisons and can kill.
This is true of any drug. Only the amount needed to achieve the effect differs.
But many drugs have another liability: they directly affect the mind. They can distort the user’s perception of what is happening around him or her. As a result, the person’s actions may be odd, irrational, inappropriate and even destructive.
Drugs block off all sensations, the desirable ones with the unwanted. So, while providing short-term help in the relief of pain, they also wipe out ability and alertness and muddy one’s thinking.
Medicines are drugs that are intended to speed up or slow down or change something about the way your body is working, to try to make it work better. Sometimes they are necessary. But they are still drugs: they act as stimulants or sedatives, and too much can kill you. So if you do not use medicines as they are supposed to be used, they can be as dangerous as illegal drugs.
Why Do People Take Drugs?
People take drugs because they want to change something in their lives. Here are some of the reasons young people have given for taking drugs:
To fit in
To escape or relax
To relieve boredom
To seem grown up
To rebel
To experiment
They think drugs are a solution. But eventually, the drugs become the problem.
Difficult as it may be to face one’s problems, the consequences of drug use are always worse than the problem one is trying to solve with them. The real answer is to get the facts and not to take drugs in the first place.
Make Sure Others Get the Facts
These pages are based on the content of our fourteen easy-to-read booklets in The Truth About Drugs series.
These booklets are free and can be ordered as a set or individually. You can give them to friends, family and others who should know the facts they contain.
Refer others to this website.
References
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction,
State of the Drug Problem in Europe, 2008National Institute of Drug Abuse: NIDA Info Facts: Crack and Cocaine, April 2008
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2008
“Crack Facts & Figures,” Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2008
“Research Report Series—Cocaine Abuse and Addiction,” National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
“Cocaine use among young reaches shocking levels,” thisislondon.co.uk
“Monitoring the Future, Overview of Key Findings 2007,” NIDA
“Crack ‘epidemic’ fuels rise in violent crime,” The Observer, 17 Feb 2002
* For more information about cocaine in its powdered form, see The Truth About Cocaine.
* Paranoid: suspicious, distrustful or afraid of other people.
