What is Crack?

Crack is a light brown or beige pellet of ready-to-smoke freebase cocaine

• Powdered cocaine is melted with water, mixed with baking soda, cut into small pieces, which then harden
• Smoke-able cocaine reaches the brain faster than when cocaine is snorted, causing a more intense reaction 

Street Names

• 24-7, Badrock, Beat, Candy, Chemical, Cloud, Cookies, 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, Nuggets, Paste, Piece, Prime time Product, Raw, Rock(s), Scrabble, Sleet, Snow coke, Tornado, Troop

Who Uses Crack?

• Individuals of all ages starting at the age of 12
• Well employed, highly functional individual
• High-school students

Routes of Administration

• Smoke it – “Freebase” – street cocaine converted to a pure base
• “Spaceballing” – the sprinkling of liquid PCP on crack before smoking

Short - Term Effects

• Smoking freebase
• 2-5 minute intense high
• Smoking increases the risk of using the drug
• Risks include:
• Confusion
• Anxiety
• Slurred speech
• Psychological problems

• Smoking Crack
• 3-5 minute high followed by an unpleasant crash
• Intense and rapid euphoria known as “flash high”
• Feeling of irritability & agitation
• Intensive craving for more
• The initial high is never reached again – the user’s “low” - gets lower after each use

Long - Term Effects

• Constrict the heart’s blood vessels
• Chest pain
• Sudden Heart attacks
• Irregular heart beat
• Stroke
• Brain seizures
• Disturbance in the brain’s electrical signals
• More and more sensitivity to cocaine
• Suicidal tendencies
• Dramatic mood swings
• Chronic nose bleeds, runny nose and sore throat
• Loss of friends and former values
• Miscarriage
• Birth defects
• Weight loss
• Chronic headaches
• Respiratory ailments
• Addiction
• Death

Signs & Symptoms of Crack Use

• Definite changes in personality or behavior
• Loss of concentration
• Weight loss
• Loss of household valuables or unexplained vanishing cash
• Association with people known to use drugs
• Marked agitation
• Animosity toward family members and friends
• Altered sleep patterns
• Loss of interest in appearance
• Extreme paranoia (suspicious of everyone)
• Restlessness
• Anxiety

References:

• Florida Alcohol & Drug Abuse Association Resource Center, “Just the Facts, What is Cocaine?” (October 1998)
• http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs3/3978/index.htm#Who%20uses
• http://www.hcso.tampa.fl.us/Drugs%20and%20Alcohol/fcrack.htm

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