[ SECRET POST #153 ]

[shahni.livejournal.com]

⌈ Secret Post #153 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 page, 08 secrets from Secret Submission Post #022.
Secrets Not Posted: 0 broken links, 0 not!secrets, 0 not!fandom.
Next Secret Post: Tomorrow, Friday, June 8th, 2007.
Current Secret Submission Post: Here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

11 - wikipedia

[(Anonymous)]

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. 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; however, freebase cocaine base vaporizes at a low temperature, which makes it suitable for inhalation.

Smoking freebase is preferred by many users because the cocaine is absorbed immediately into blood via the lungs, where it reaches the brain in about five seconds. The rush is much more intense than sniffing 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 afterwards. What makes freebase a particularly dangerous drug is that users typically don't 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 "banging" cocaine hydrochloride, but without the risks associated with intravenous drug use (although 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 protonated cocaine ion (CocH+) and chloride ion (Cl-). Any solids that remain in the solution are not cocaine (they are part of the cut) and are removed by filtering. A base, typically ammonia (NH3) in the case of traditional "freebase" or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) in the case of crack freebase, is added to the solution. Using ammonia as an example, the following net chemical reaction takes place:

NH3 + CocH+ + Cl- → NH4Cl + Coc

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. Alternatively, the freebase solution is simply evaporated until the freebase/cut solution "rocks up"—thereby producing the form commonly known as "crack" or "rock" cocaine.

Since the manufacture of "traditional" freebase involves the use of flammable solvents, it is a dangerous process, particularly since it is often carried out outside a controlled laboratory environment without sufficient safety precautions.

The "traditional" procedure is dangerous because of the hazards of handling diethyl ether: it 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. It is due both to these dangers and to the relative complexity of the "traditional" ammonia/ether method that the simpler "crack" method with sodium bicarbonate became the norm.

Although freebase cocaine prepared with ammonia and ether is generally purer than freebase cocaine prepared with baking soda but no solvent, the cocaine fumes produced when the product is smoked are approximately equally pure, and the active ingredient ingested is exactly the same. Despite this, for many years "traditional" freebase smokers scorned "crack" freebase smokers—asserting incorrectly that these were fundamentally different drugs.

Re: 11 - wikipedia

[(Anonymous)]

Good aim! Shot that fucker right down off their high horse.

Re: 11 - wikipedia

[(Anonymous)]

guess they don't visit their neighbors

[(Anonymous)]

Re: 11 - wikipedia

[(Anonymous)]

What the hell does this have to do with me hating those overused words?

Re: 11 - wikipedia

[(Anonymous)]

"and every time someone says 'pure crack' i'm like what the fuck other kind of crack is there."

This is the definition of another kind of crack.

Re: 11 - wikipedia

[(Anonymous)]

Uh. Gotcha. Again, what the hell does this have to do with me hating those overused words?

Also, if we're going to argue semantics, both of those are "pure crack" because crack, by the tl;dr definition you provided, is freebased, pure cocaine. There are different ways to DO it, but the result is the same. So yeah.

Re: 11 - wikipedia

[ladydragonspaw.livejournal.com]

Forgive me for saying this but... crack is usually not pure. In fact, usually it's cut with something else to make it more profitable for the seller. This is the reason there are grades of drugs avaliable on the streets.

That's the only real disagreement I have.

As far as your dislike of 'crack' being used to describe someone's drug-like addiction/fix from something... it's not just a fandom thing. It's used in that sense rather widely from my experience, and personally I prefer someone calling something pure-crack rather than say 'the shit'.

It'll go out of fashion eventually. Except for people like those now who say 'groovy' and 'peachy keen'. So, stay strong.