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Crack |
Some users prefer to smoke rather than to snort cocaine. Normal cocaine cannot be smoked so the cocaine powder must be converted into what is known as “freebase” or “crack”. This is done by means of a simple chemical conversion procedure using household products. The end product is a crystallized substance resembling small “rocks”.
Perhaps is thought that smoking a drug is less harmful than injecting, snorting or oral administration. In fact, smoking a drug delivers higher doses of it into the brain than any other route of administration. Crack reaches the brain in only 8-10 seconds.
The high from smoking crack is short-lived, lasting two to five minutes, after which the user “crashes”. The drop in mood can be as sudden and as extreme as the high. The symptoms of the crash are irritability, depression and anxiety accompanied by severe cravings.
Crack is like a fast-food version of cocaine - its prepared, cheap, readily available, doesn’t last long, and leaves the user wanting more.
By making this highly addictive, smoke-able form of cocaine available at affordable prices, dealers have expanded their market astronomically in a short period of time.
Crack, however, is not cheap. It only seems cheap because it is sold in such small quantities. On a weight for weight basis, it is actually twice as expensive as cocaine powder. In addition, addiction to crack occurs so fast that the user often buys greater and greater quantities, more and more often, resulting in a very expensive habit indeed. Many crack addicts report spending hundreds of Rands a day for the drug. Hardly an inexpensive bargain!
Because of the intense crash and cravings, crack smokers often chain smoke until their supply is gone in a marathon binge. This leaves the user in a state of total dysfunction.
Consequences of regular crack use cause users to:
- Become addicted more quickly
- Display more psychiatric symptoms, such as paranoia, severe depression, emotional outbursts and mood swings
- Erupt into violent, suicidal or homicidal acts
- Experience seizures because of the high doses reaching the brain
- Experience respiratory failure or cardiac arrest
- Be prone to heart attacks and strokes, because the blood vessels constrict and restrict the flow of blood to the heart or brain
- Have lung and chest problems; cough up black phlegm, bronchial infections, pneumonia and other respiratory problems from inhaling hot vapors for long periods of time and from the irritation cause by cocaine.
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