I never really did a lot of drugs besides smoking pot but I tried crack once at a party in college and I felt pretty ashamed of myself immediately after despite high. I didn’t try it again and am actually a “California” sober adult now, not because I had a drug problem but I just grew out of wanting to try them and never liked to drink alcohol.

I never met anyone else who would ever admit to trying it though or even cocaine despite statistically knowing many people have haha. Any crack smokers on lemmy?

  • NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml
    1·
    3 months ago

    It’s chemically different

    “Sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3, common baking soda) is a base used in the preparation of crack, although other weak bases may substitute for it.[7][8] The net reaction when using sodium bicarbonate is Coc-H+Cl− + NaHCO3 → Coc + H2O + CO2 + NaCl With ammonium bicarbonate: Coc-H+Cl− + NH4HCO3 → Coc + NH4Cl + CO2 + H2O With ammonium carbonate: 2(Coc-H+Cl−) + (NH4)2CO3 → 2 Coc + 2 NH4Cl + CO2 + H2O”

    You’re removing a Hydrogen and a Chlorine ion respectively. I’m not a chemist but I’d guess that makes the base cocaine molecule more bioavailable. I think the confusion stems from the fact that conventional cocaine is not true-cocaine (it’s Cocaine Hydrochloride) in the sense that crack is. An alternative commonly used name for crack is “freebase cocaine” which would suggests it’s more exact nature.