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Cocaine in its purest form is an off-white or pink chunky product. Cocaine appearing in powder is a salt, typically cocaine hydrochloride. Cocaine is frequently adulterated or "cut" with various powdery fillers to increase its volume; the substances most commonly used in this process are baking soda, sugars, such as lactose, inositol, and mannitol, and local anesthetics, such as lidocaine. Adulterated cocaine is often a white or off-white powder.
The colour of "crack" cocaine depends upon several factors including the origin of the cocaine used, the method of preparation — with ammonia or sodium bicarbonate, and the presence of impurities, but will generally range from a light brown to a pale brown. Its texture will also depend on the factors which affect color, but will range from a crumbly texture, which is usually the lighter variety, to hard, almost crystalline nature, which is usually the darker variety.
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 hot and close to the temperature at which it burns; however, cocaine base vaporizes at a low temperature making it suitable for smoking.
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 "slamming" 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) disassociates into protonated cocaine ion (HCoc+) 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), is added to the solution to remove the extra proton from the cocaine. The following net chemical reaction takes place:
As freebase cocaine (Coc) is insoluble in water, it precipitates out and the solution becomes cloudy. To recover the freebase, 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 insoluble in water, it can be siphoned off. The ether is then left to evaporate, leaving behind the nearly pure freebase.
This procedure is dangerous because of the hazards of handling 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.
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