High Price

be home and glad I was not yet done with my travels and education. Just being away for such a short time had given me a new perspective on my neighborhood. But I wasn’t yet able to accurately interpret how drugs like cocaine and the harsh drug policies that were starting to be adopted in its name affected my hometown. I did observe changes, however.
    Although crack wasn’t yet big in Miami, powder and freebase cocaine had already become quite popular by December 1984. As far back as July 1981, Time magazine had called cocaine “A Drug with Status and Menace” in a cover story illustrated by a martini glass full of sparkling powder. Newsweek connected cocaine to champagne, caviar, and other icons of wealth that same year. Eric Clapton’s cover of J. J. Cale’s “Cocaine” had been a major hit even earlier, back in 1977. Little gold or silver coke spoons had begun appearing around celebrities’ necks in the late 1970s and early 1980s, along with winking (and some blatantly obvious) references in popular culture, especially Saturday Night Live , then at the peak of its popularity.
    In the black community—as was true at the time for whites as well—cocaine had long been seen as a rich man’s drug. But the price began to come down as the supply increased. This was especially true in Miami, which was a key shipping point where the drug came in from South America to be distributed to the rest of the country.
    In the 1970s, marijuana had been the major Latin American illegal drug export to the United States. Miami was a major transshipment point. However, the use of the American military to interdict cannabis headed for America helped produce a shift to growing and selling the less bulky, more profitable, and easier to hide cocaine. Beginning in the late 1970s, the price of cocaine dramatically dropped for at least a decade, as the market became glutted. 3 The “rich man’s” drug was about to become available to almost everyone. The South American marijuana trade began to collapse, but at the cost of creating a much more lucrative cocaine business.
    I should explain here a bit of chemistry and pharmacology that is important to understanding the major distinctions between powder and crack cocaine, as well as many of the incorrect assumptions that have been made about these forms of cocaine and their effects. Powder cocaine is chemically known as cocaine hydrochloride. It is a neutral compound (known as a salt) made from the combination of an acid and a base, in this case, cocaine base.

    Figure 1. Chemical structure of cocaine hydrochloride (powder cocaine), left, and cocaine base (crack).
    This form of cocaine can be eaten, snorted, or dissolved in water and injected. Cocaine hydrochloride cannot be smoked, however, because it decomposes under the heat required to vaporize it. Smoking requires chemically removing the hydrochloride portion, which does not contribute to cocaine’s effects anyway. The resulting compound is just the cocaine base (aka freebase or crack cocaine), which is smokable. The important point here is that powder and crack cocaine are qualitatively the same drug. Figure 1 shows the chemical structures of cocaine hydrochloride and cocaine base (crack). As you can see, the structures are nearly identical.
    So, why do so many people believe that powder and crack cocaine are entirely different animals? This belief stems from a lack of knowledge of basic pharmacology, information that can help you to understand the effects of all drugs, not just cocaine.
    Before a drug can affect mood and behavior, it must first gain access to the blood. From the blood, it then needs to reach the brain, where it can influence what you feel and the choices you make. An important basic principle here is that the faster a drug arrives into the brain, the more intense its effects will be.
    Consequently, if we want to understand drug effects, it’s essential to consider how the drug is taken, or in pharmacology-speak, the “route of administration.” Route of administration is a key factor in determining the speed at which the drug enters the brain, and therefore, the intensity of the high.
    Like most drugs, cocaine can be ingested in several ways. In the United States, it’s rarely taken by mouth, although in some South American countries the oral route is common, usually in the form of chewing coca leaves, the plant from which cocaine is derived. Eating or swallowing a drug is convenient and tends to be