From
Coca-Cola® To Crack
a history of Cocaine in the
US Coca has been used for the elevation
of mood, to stimulate tired workers, and to produce euphoria for
thousands of years in Central and South America. In the mid-nineteenth
century the US and Europe took note of it’s seemingly beneficial
properties and began to extract it’s principal active ingredient
and made cocaine available as a water-soluble powder. It was discovered
by physicians that the drug had potential use as an antidepressant,
an asthma remedy and as a local anesthetic.
At the same time, many companies
emerged extolling the virtues of several new tonics that used cocaine
hydrochloride, te active ingredient in the coca leaf, as an additive.
These patented tonics could be bought without prescription for the
relief of many common ailments, including, of course, chronic fatigue.
 Toward
the late nineteenth century cocaine began to be marketed as a recreational
drug by such corporations as Coca-Cola,who claimed the seemingly
mild intoxicant could be used as a “temperance beverage”
as an alternative to booze.
At the dawn of the twentieth century however, anti-cocaine legislation
grew considerably. People began to see the rise of violence among
abusers of the drug in the lower socioeconomic stratum and a rise
in the awareness of cocaine’s harmful physical effects. The
first Federal Legislation regarding cocaine was with the 1906 Pure
Food and Drug Act that required products precisely label the content
therein. And in 1914, US Congress passed the Harrison Act that imposed
taxes on products containing cocaine. Soon, Drug Enforcement Officials
quickly transformed the law to prohibit all recreational use of
cocaine.
As legislation and enforcement thereof stiffened so the general
use of the drug decreased, and by 1930 synthetic stimulants like
amphetamine became available and replaced much of the black market
for cocaine. The drug began to be used almost strictly by artists
and entertainers and as an occasional alternative for heroin addicts.
However, in the 1960’s we saw an increase in the use of all
drugs, including cocaine and through the 1970’s and 1980’s
cocaine use increased steadily among the younger populations. And
as medically prescribed amphetamine became less available, and the
prices of other drugs like marijuana increased cocaine enjoyed a
steep rise in popularity.
By the early 80’s the use of freebase cocaine became popular
among those searching for the “highest” high. Freebase
is a form of cocaine produced when the user takes cocaine hydrochloride
and mixes it with a liquid base such as baking soda or ammonia to
remove the hydrochloric acid and then dissolving the resultant alkaloidal
cocaine in a solvent, such as ether and heating it to evaporate
the liquid. The result is pure smokable cocaine.
Although this seemed to be a way of getting the most out of cocaine,
users were uncomfortable with the volatile process of cooking down
the solvent mixture. Around 1985 the drug dealers got wise to the
idea of a more potent form of cocaine. The conversion process in
freebasing was dangerous and time consuming and was not suitable
for mass production. This was when Crack became the option. In the
conversion process of Crack, the drug is similarly cooked down to
a smokeable substance, but the risky process of removing the impurities
and hydrochloric acid is taken out. So all that is required is baking
soda, water and a heat source, often a home oven. As this process
allowed a person to essentially get more bang out of their buck,
by delivering the drug more efficiently, we saw cocaine become available
to the lower socioeconomic stratum. This gave rise to the “Crack
epidemic” and all classes from low to high became affected
by the scourge of cocaine use spreading across the US.
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All rights reserved. Narconon and the the Narconon logo are trademarks
and service marks owned by the Association for Better Living and
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Addiction
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