Free Base, 1982
Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 11 Jul 2026 13:43:23 GMT
I spent the last two months of 1982 making and imbibing free base cocaine, later named "crack" due to the sound it makes while being cooked with baking soda.
I used a different method. A gram of cocaine hydrochloride (the white powder you snort up your nose) will dissolve in a gram of distilled water (about an inch high in a test tube). A few drops of ammonia in that liquid will cause the base cocaine to drop out of solution, as a powder at the bottom of the test tube. Cocaine base melts at a lower temperature than water boils, so you can aim a torch at the bottom of the test tube to cause the base to form a liquid puddle at the bottom of the test tube. Cooling causes the base to solidify, giving you a glob of base to lift the water from with blotter paper.
This gives about 10 hits of free base.
1. heat up a spoon, vice-gripped to the table, to red hot, with the torch.
2. break off a hit.
3. Drop the hit on the hot spoon.
4. It instantly liquifies, and vibrates more as it approaches boiling temperature.
5. Prepare a turkey baster, with a couple of inches of wide tube coupled to a couple of inches of narrow tube.
6. Just before the base evaporates, breathe over it with the turkey baster.
7. The lowered pressure causes the base to instantly evaporate into the turkey baster.
8. The smoke cools as it expands into the larger diameter of the turkey baster.
9. The entire hit goes into your lungs, causing an intense rush that lasts about 10 minutes.
10. The other nine hits are used trying to reproduce the initial rush, without luck.
11. Then you crawl on the floor on hands and knees looking for the hit you didn't drop.
There goes $150 (in 1982 money. I got really good coke).
It is best to have only one gram of cocaine hydrochloride in your house. Otherwise, you risk doing them all, and causing your heart to stop.
