itude toward marijuana and cocaine use continued until the 1980s. In the United States, the use of powdered cocaine reached its peak in 1985. Although once considered a "safe high," the abuse of snorted cocaine produced physiological damage to chronic users in the form of disintegration of nose cartilage.
Crack cocaine, also known as "rock," first appeared in the United States during the mid-1980s. Crack cocaine is a crystalline form of freebase, powdered cocaine. The active ingredient in powdered cocaine is hydrochloride, which is mixed with other compounds. The method of freebasing, which first appeared in California during the mid-1970s, releases the base cocaine from the cocaine hydrochloride powder. Freebasing is a complicated, highly volatile process of "cooking" cocaine with ether, using a flame-producing device such as a butane torch. The complexity of the freebase method, and the danger involved, prompted drug dealers to search for a simpler, safer means to manufacture smokable cocaine. The solution was crack cocaine, which can be produced with an easy baking soda recipe.
Once drug dealers recognized the profit potential in crack cocaine, many began selling crack exclusively to escalate customer addiction. Whereas the cost of powdered cocaine can average $75 per gram, a hit of crack cocaine averages only $5. The selling of crack turned into a mass marketing craze: "Crack was not invented; it was created by a sharp crowd of sinister geniuses who took a simple production technique to make a packaged, ready to consume form of the product with a low unit price to entice massive numbers of consumers" (U.S. News, 1991, p. 44).
The three classes of crack entrepreneurs who created the current epidemic in the United States were Caribbean drug traffickers, American crime organizations, and gangbangers who franchised crack operations throughout the country. In its formative stages during the mid-1980s, crack ...