WEBVTT - How Crack Works 0:00:01.520 --> 0:00:04.960 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from House Stuff Works 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:13.480 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:17.160 and Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there, 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.919 and uh, this is stuff you should know. Jerry just 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:24.440 waved like she's waving at the audience of this anger. 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:28.000 She's waving to the world. It's a little weird. She 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:35.200 may be on something. Uh, Josh, you know what's whack? Uh? 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.840 The Zach Attack from Saved by the Bell. I don't 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:40.640 even know what it is. You don't know what's Saved 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:42.159 by the Bell is what's wrong with No? I know 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:44.080 that I know what that show is, but I've never 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:48.400 heard of the Zach Attack. It's just Zach being Zach. Gotcha? 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:50.840 That is whack? Yeah, well, never mind. I thought Crack 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:53.199 was whack, but the Zach Attack is truly wack. No, 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.520 I disagree. I was gonna say, no, it's not right, 0:00:56.600 --> 0:01:00.560 because that's actually a pretty good show. But okay, Crack 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:03.640 his whack. This we're like imminent up in here. We're 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:07.479 what we're like eminem up in here. Yeah, I guess, 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:13.840 so refer to Hip Hop episode now. No, I'm just 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:16.440 saying people that they're confused about why we sound so 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:19.480 stilted and square. Just go listen to hip hop and 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:22.840 that explains everything. People like that one. Surprisingly, Yeah, it's 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:24.920 a good one. Man. We got a good email from 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:27.880 me or a Facebook post from a graffiti artist. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:31.000 good stuff. I can't remember his tag, but it was 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:33.679 like really nice. But he was complimenting us or he 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:35.319 was just saying hey. No, he's like, hey, I'm a 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.480 graffiti artist and here's my my work. And uh, I 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:42.280 was very impressed. And he is not on crack, no, 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.240 because he's not whack right exactly, So Chuck, I have 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:51.240 a little, uh, a little intro. Great, just if you'll 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:58.480 bear with me. And the year was okay, I was fourteen. Okay, 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:04.280 what is it when you p b g very early 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:10.240 on UM cocaine, which is a drug that had been 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:14.080 sweeping the nation for about ten years by then. Yeah, 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:19.799 uh was up to a hundred and fifty dollars a graham. 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:25.200 That's thanks to the demand um and the available income 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:28.320 of its well healed yuppie users who are willing to 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:31.720 spend that kind of money on it. It's very much 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:42.160 an expensive, white, upwardly mobile person's drug. Cocaine run. Yeah, 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:46.880 and there were at the time articles that kind of said, 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:50.200 cocaine's probably not that addictive. We shouldn't worry that much 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:55.280 about cocaine. It's not a very big deal. It was mostly, 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:59.600 like I said, a white drug. That same year, a 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:03.600 new drug hit the scene. It was cheap, five to 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:09.119 ten bucks pop. It gave you a very quick, very 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:15.239 intense high, short lived, and it swept through lower income 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:20.239 African American areas of the United States, and all of 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:24.760 a sudden we had a problem, an epidemic. Yes, because 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:28.200 it was cocaine in a different form. Yeah, the country 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:30.440 went crazy for it. And not only was it cocaine 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:32.720 in a different form, it was cocaine being used by 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:37.680 a different demographic that, as we'll see, America has always 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:42.280 been threatened by and always made legislation to damp and 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.560 drug use among Yeah, it's pretty interesting when you dig 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:50.520 into this stuff. And so when people started to get worried, 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:56.160 Nancy Reagan became concerned. And when Nancy Reagan became concerned, 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:01.600 as as usual, she started to lie. And we will 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.040 we will get into what allegedly might have happened and 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.680 why crack might have been introduced in this country because 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:11.360 some people think it was the U. S. Government straight 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:15.600 up c I A. Yeah, that's a really um good point. 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:19.080 So what you're referring to is UM Garry Webb's Dark 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:24.600 Alliance article. Yeah, series of articles in our book from 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:28.880 I believe. Garry Webb was an investigative journalist for the 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:32.760 San Jose Mercury News, and Um, they had a front 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:36.800 page story where he basically figured out the connection between 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:41.080 the CIA and the crack epidemic that started in I 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:45.080 think in Los Angeles south central. It was a dude 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:49.440 named Freeway Ricky Ross, who's still around I think, yeah. Um, 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:55.400 And he was the largest cocaine distributor UH African American 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.839 cocaine distributor in l A. He was big time, and 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.279 all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he had a 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:07.600 new product called crack and it became very popular, very quickly. UM, 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:12.200 and Gary Webb in trace the origin of this epidemic 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:17.960 back to through Ricky Ross, back to some Nicaraguan freedom 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:24.000 fighting guerrillas that were backed and trained and possibly commanded 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:28.440 by the CIA. We're getting into this, so we just 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:32.200 go ahead and dive in. Yeah, do you want to? Yeah? 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.680 Why not? Um? All right, here's the deal. In Nicaragua, 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:40.400 Central American country. UM, in the nineteen thirties, man named 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:45.920 Anastasio uh Samosa took power, and then about forty years later, 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:51.359 in nineteen seventy nine, the people revolted, um overthrew him, 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:54.960 and they were called the Sandinistas. Yes, so you know 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:59.320 the whole Contra Sandinista war in Nicaragua that raged in 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.240 the seventies and eighties, that's what we're talking about. And 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:06.520 the Sandinista's um, we're a communist and that didn't fly 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:10.920 so well with the US, who would long cherished Nicaragua 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:13.440 for their farmland and like to have a toe in 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.600 their pond, so to speak. And so communists and there 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:18.800 didn't fly. And so they said, you know what, I 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.400 think maybe we should fund the contrast maybe give them 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:24.080 a little bit of financial assistance. Yeah, And the contrasts 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:25.960 weren't just one group. They were it was like an 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:32.720 umbrella term for any democratic or um an anti communist 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:38.440 group that was trying to paramilitarily overthrow the socialist leadership 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:41.440 in Nicaragua. That's right. So we decided to help fund 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:45.000 their civil war. And UM, the problem was that there 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.880 wasn't a lot of dough like that we could say, like, hey, 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:51.120 let's use this money to do this. Because it was 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.960 a secret war. There was no congressional approval. It was 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.600 a proxy war with the Soviet Union at the time. 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:00.920 So some allege that this is when um, the Reagan 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:06.839 administration and the CIA got together to literally introduce cocaine 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:12.760 dealers in cocaine H two South Central and crack cocaine 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.800 to spread throughout the ghettos, to raise money and use 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:19.920 that money to fund the contrast. Right, So here's the thing, 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.240 like that was never proven and Gary Webb never ever 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:26.400 said he did not He didn't say that the government 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.720 directly introduced it on purpose or with the aim of 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:34.200 creating an epidemic in the ghetto. He found connections between 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:40.040 the CIA and drug lords, specifically Ricky Ross on one end, 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:48.480 and then the CIA backed impossibly commanded UM, the Nicaraguan 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:55.160 Democratic Force, the this contra force. UM, it's so their 0:07:55.240 --> 0:08:02.200 their business. Their group was funded entirely from cocaine sales 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:07.000 in trafficking, and they all went to this guy, Ricky Ross. 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:11.800 And there's no way that the CIA didn't know about this. Yeah, 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:14.720 and there were at the time, well we'll get back 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:16.640 to web in a second. But UM, in the eighties, 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:19.280 there was you know, when the whole Iron Contra thing 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:22.640 broke out, there was the Carry Committee who did some investigating. 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:28.440 The Carry Committee report, UH from John Cary. Obviously, UM 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:32.760 found that quote the Contra drug links included payments to 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:36.520 drug traffickers by the U. S. State Department funds authorized 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:40.960 by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the contrash. And 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:43.480 then later on there was an internal CIA investigation in 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:47.520 the nineties where they found that there is no evidence 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:53.920 that UM, the CIA actually brought drugs into the United States. UM. However, 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:57.040 and these these royal quotes. However, during the Contra era, 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:00.080 the CIA worked with a variety of people to support 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.440 the Contract program, and let me be frank, there are 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.920 instances where the CIA did not in an expeditious or 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:11.560 consistent fashion cut off relationships with individuals supporting the contract 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:15.000 program who are alleged to have engaged in drug trafficking activity. 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:20.560 So basically, the internal investigation said, well, there might have 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:22.640 been some people, we were dealing with it, we're doing this, 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:25.959 and as it turns out, we didn't really do much 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:29.640 about it. Right, So, as far as you can go 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:35.720 without hyperbole, and it's still pretty shocking. Sure, the CIA backed, trained, 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:41.400 and possibly commanded UM at least one guerrilla group, the 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:46.679 Nicaraguan Democratic Force and the Nicaraguan Democratic Force the f 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:54.040 d n UM sold cocaine to Freeway Ricky Ross. Freeway 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.600 Ricky Ross is where the crack epidemic originated. And so 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.400 just to finish up with web though Um, after he 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:05.480 wrote this Dark Alliance series, he was shunned by mainstream 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:09.960 press in the United States. Sadly, all three of the 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:12.880 major newspapers. Um, you know, the l A Times, New 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.760 York Times, and I guess was that Washington Post came 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:20.000 out and it was not only shun they like tried 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.760 to discredit him. Oh yeah, they wrote articles they put 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:27.080 um seventeen reporters in twenty words to a three day 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:30.240 rebuttal of Dark Alliance. That was the the l A Times. Yeah. 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:34.600 Rather than pick up the story, they tried to demolish it. 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.000 And Webb New York Times um suggested he was a 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:41.520 reckless reporter prone to getting his facts wrong. He already 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:43.960 had wanted pull a surprise at this point, I think 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:48.240 for something else, and Um the Mercury News defended it 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.400 for a little while and then backed off and apologized. 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:58.720 He ended up quitting and committed a very weird suicide 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:02.880 in which he shot himself in the head twice. Uh, 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:05.640 who knows. Obviously, if you get on the internet, there 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.839 are tons of outlets that say, well, obviously it's not 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:12.640 a suicide. It was a murder. Um so who knows 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:16.480 about that? Other other people have said no, it does 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.520 look kinky, but the first shot wasn't fatal and he 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:22.480 was able to do it twice. Who knows. Draw your 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.400 own conclusions. It's some raw nerve right there. But he 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:28.680 claimed that there were people like, you know, he saw 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.200 what he thought were c i A. People like climbing 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:34.680 up his fire escape and stuff the previous days. And 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:37.640 who knows. All I'm saying is they're making a movie 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:41.800 about it with Jeremy Renner this summer. Oh is that right? Great? Good? 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:44.800 I'm glad he I ran across him when I wrote 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:49.960 an article on America's Army. Jeremy Renner. Yeah, he wrote 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:52.480 an expose a America's army. Is this Uh it's a 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:56.240 video game and it's basically like a training game for 0:11:56.360 --> 0:12:01.680 the army where you can play this free game. Um, 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.400 but you sign up to be contacted. If you're any 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:07.439 good at it, the Army contacts you. And he did this. 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:10.000 It's like a recruiting tool through video games. But the 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.280 Army categorically denied that's what it was. But that's obviously 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:16.199 what it was. And Gary Gary Webb, one of the 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.760 last expose as was on that, and you know, we 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:22.720 should mention that today all three of those major news 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:27.120 outlets all say, boy, we kind of got that one wrong. Yeah, um, 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.920 we shouldn't have done that. Maybe we shouldn't have driven 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:34.839 Gary Webb to his possible suicide. Um. So, so Gary 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:37.480 Webb did all this investigation, did all this leg We're 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:41.120 canning connect to the dots pretty well, but there's still 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:46.840 this maddening question of tantalizing question, who invented crack? It 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.160 came out of nowhere? And so to kind of answer that, 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.679 which we can't, Um, you have to look at how 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.160 crack is made, and look at how crack is made. 0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:58.520 You have to go back a lot further than the nineties. 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:00.400 You have to go back to the eight and eighties 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:03.600 and actually a little further before then, when cocaine first 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:08.160 was introduced to the United States after it was isolated. 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.440 The alkaloid was isolated from the coca plant in the 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.400 mid nineteenth century. Yeah, and that's when it was isolated 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:18.679 in I mean for centuries. People in South America were 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:20.880 wise to the fact that if you chew on this plant, 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:25.120 it'll give you some go juice. You didn't work more, yea, 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:27.439 and people still chew the heck out of it. Yeah, 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:29.840 so it was it was no secret to the South Americans. 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:32.040 But like you said, it was the mid eighteen eighties 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:38.040 when it was actually isolated and UM became a narcotic, 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.560 an abused narcotic drug. Right. But first UM you could 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:44.520 buy it all over the place. You could order it 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:49.720 through catalogs. UM you can, doctors could prescribe it. Sigmund 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:55.319 Freud was an ardent prescriber of it um and it 0:13:55.400 --> 0:14:02.080 was a very popular drug found in tonic cocacola for real, 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:07.480 that's not a myth. Um and cocaine was. Everybody loved 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:11.520 it for a while, ye until well not until they 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:14.720 still loved it and still do today, I imagine. But 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:17.720 in nineteen fourteen it was made illegal with the Harrison 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.760 Narcotics Tax Act and UM right, which do you remember 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.280 I said earlier that like everything like this, crack has 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:29.120 a real history of um. It shows the history of 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:33.960 racism in regards to drug laws. So the Harrison Narcotic 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:38.840 Act Um outlawed opiates and cocaine for the first time 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:42.760 in the United States, and it was based on concerns 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:47.560 like Chinaman were luring white women there were to their 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:52.960 to their dens of iniquity in open Chinatown through opium 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:59.320 and Uh, Southern blacks were sniffing cocaine and it gave 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:01.600 them super him and strength, and they were raping white 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.480 women as a result. So those those two things were past, 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:08.280 and we have federal legislation from as a result of 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:10.560 those kind of fears. And if you kind of if 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:12.280 you keep that in the back of your mind and 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:14.800 then pay attention to the drug policy that comes out 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:19.080 later on from crack, you'll it's been going on since 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:21.320 then and it continues to today. Are you saying a 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:26.720 pattern emerges, a pattern emerges? So, UH, cocaine is um. 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:30.200 Cocaine powder is you have to actually manufacture it. You 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.280 don't find a cocoa plant and like not shake it 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:36.160 and shake it and white powder falls out. It makes 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:38.840 like a tinkling sound of the way. Uh. It is 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:42.080 made by dissolving the paste, the cocoa paste um in 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:44.680 a mixture of hydrochloric acid and water. Then you had 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:48.800 some potassium salt separate out the bad junk, maybe had 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.320 a little ammonia, and then the powder is separated out 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.520 and you've got cocaine powder cocaine and from there you 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:57.720 can sniff it. You can add a little water to 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.720 it and inject it. Yeah, or you can something called 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:03.800 free base. Yeah. I never quite understood what free base was. 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:06.320 I thought it was. I thought free basing was a thing. 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:10.160 It is, yeah, but free base is also and it's 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:14.280 a noun aniverb Okay, so you free base, free base. 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.760 Oh you see, I've been doing it wrong. You verb 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:22.920 the down So he've been doing this stuff doesn't work. 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.840 I don't know what everybody's so excited about. Um. So 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.680 with free base, you take cocaine and you add something 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:39.400 highly flammable, say ether um, and you after you dissolved 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:42.600 the the cocaine in an ammonia, you add ether to it. 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:45.480 Then you smoke it. But you're smoking something that has 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:49.920 like a highly flammable solution involved. To Richard, Parker. Yes, 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:53.680 in night when he was filming Busting Loose, he caught 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:56.960 himself on fire because he was he was smoking free Base. 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.200 He was smoking free Base and drinking one if do 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:04.480 you want proof rome one night and I think he 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:07.040 was doing it in his garage to which so it 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.520 was unventilated and he caught fire. Yeah, but you know what, 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:13.520 there's also reports that he set himself on fire on purpose, 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:16.080 that he poured the stuff all over his head and 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:20.760 lit a match. Oh, we went a little little self immolation. Um, 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:22.960 I think that may be the right story. Now. I 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:24.920 just saw a documentary on him, and I think that's 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.399 what they say. I'm so glad you just corrected me 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:31.000 mid podcasts. Do you have any emails you prevent? Well? 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:33.840 I mean that was the long stories that he free based, 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.840 and I think he even came out later and said like, yeah, 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:39.359 I was free basing, but I also purposely set myself 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:43.160 on fire in the ravages of a free basing binge. Okay, 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:47.520 so free basing it was a thing, at least as early, 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:52.960 but it was it was difficult to do multi step 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.600 process and you needed something like ether. Ether is not 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:58.800 the easiest thing to get your hands on and dangerous obviously, 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.639 sure um. But there was a way to smoke cocaine, 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:04.919 and free base was the way to do it, but 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:09.600 that never really got a big foothold in any demographic 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:11.280 in the country. It was just kind of a thing 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:13.960 that some people like Richard Pryor did right looking for 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:17.720 a more intense high. I guess then all of a sudden, mysteriously, 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:21.639 out of nowhere, there is crack cocaine. Yeah, crack is 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:25.040 also manufactured UM, but it doesn't require something like either 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:29.119 or anything flammable. UM. You dissolve it in a mixture 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:34.119 of water and either baking soda, sodium bicarbonate UM, or ammonia, 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:37.960 and you boil it up, separate it out into the solid, 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:40.720 cool it down, and then break it up and you've 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:45.359 got your little white, ish or tan crack rocks. And 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.040 if you buy it on the street, supposedly they range 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.840 in size from point one to point five grams UM 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:55.680 and they contain the d e A says between seventy 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:59.879 five and pure cocaine. So it's quite a rush for you, 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:06.800 sure um, because it's so easy to make crack from 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:11.360 cocaine UM. Like nobody imports cracked across the border into 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:13.960 the US. It's all coke that comes into the US, 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:19.680 and then Wesley Snipes converts it into crack uh and 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.080 a factory operated and run by naked people because he 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:27.240 doesn't trust them. What was that new Jack City? Oh man, 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:34.400 I was like played, Yeah, I forgot all about Jack City. 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.280 That was great. And they call it crack because it 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.320 makes a crackling sound. That's the baking soda when you 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:42.560 put the fire on it, and speaking you put the 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:44.760 fire on it. That's how you do it. Um, you 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:46.840 have a little I mean, there's different kinds of pipes, 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.080 but the most often crack pipe you will see is 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:53.560 the little straight shooter, a little glass tube. Yep. I 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:58.200 find him on my dog walks in my neighborhood. Yeah, 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:00.440 crack is still around. It's not like it when anywhere. 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:04.959 Um he thought, Oh they got that problem all under control. 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:07.960 Lickt uh. So you you you know, you have the 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:09.720 crack in one end and then a filter of some 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:11.680 kind like a steel wool or something in the other. 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.560 You heat it up with your lighter, yeah, under like 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:17.600 on the outside of the glass tube or you can 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:19.360 I guess hit it with the flame. But I think 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:22.600 if you light it under the glass tube, that's generally 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:24.600 the way to do it. I think it vaporizes it, 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:30.000 that's right, and you smoke it and um pretty much immediately, Uh, 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:32.760 you're gonna feel the effects. It's it's an immediate rush 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:35.320 that lasts only about ten or fifteen minutes. And that's 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:37.600 something that I didn't used to know. I learned it 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:39.919 a few years ago, but I had no idea. I 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:43.480 thought a crack high was like, you know, a couple 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:45.280 of hours or something. No, I think it's one of 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.360 the shortest ties on the market, which is I guess 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:52.400 why it's so addictive and dangerous rampant because you come 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:54.720 down and you're like, I'd like to do that again, 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.959 exactly because it's a short high, but it's also an 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:02.320 extremely intense high to so um. Yeah, the the the 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:07.400 it's addictiveness or potential for addictiveness is really high. Yeah. 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:10.399 And so I know this article summarized very nicely for 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:14.760 you exactly how it reacts with the brain. And so 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:17.439 why don't you go ahead and just lay it on people? Alright? 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:19.840 It has to do a dopamine, as we know, Yeah, dopamine. 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:23.600 It's like your pleasure center it's it's the the basis 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:26.240 of the reward system that we have, which is how 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:28.800 we learn to eat and how we learn to have sex, 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.800 to reproduce. Like we we feel good when we do 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:33.919 certain things, we want to do it again, and the 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:37.000 basis of that is dopamine. So in the brain, the 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:41.399 way it functions normally is UH neuron will release dopamine 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:45.359 and it will travel to a neighboring neuron, causing it 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:50.200 to fire and release a pleasurable sensation. And then that 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:55.600 dopamine UH molecule travels back to the original neuron via 0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:58.920 a transporter and is reabsorbed. So it does it's little 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:02.080 thing and then goes back home, and it's good. Right, 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:06.800 there's a certain finite amount of pleasure humans are designed 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:10.720 to experience naturally because that when we say reabsorbed, we 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:12.280 said it said that a lot. I don't think people 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:16.040 understand that means basically, it turns that off again. Right, 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:18.560 It does its thing, and it's done. It doesn't do 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:19.959 his thing and do its thing and do its thing 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:21.760 and do its thing. It does its thing once and 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:24.439 goes back to the original neuron exactly sits on the 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:27.480 couch in this little neuron waits to be released again. 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:29.400 Let me know when you have sex again or eat 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:35.080 something to some pizza. UM. So with with crack or 0:22:35.160 --> 0:22:40.120 other drugs that UM target the dopamine system, UM, they 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:45.120 interrupt the process. Crack specifically interrupts the process of reuptake 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:50.879 or reabsorption. So you're you're smoking the crack, right, and 0:22:50.960 --> 0:22:57.040 it triggers this dopamine release flood. But crack attaches to 0:22:57.080 --> 0:23:02.159 the transporter which keeps the the dopamine from being reabsorbed, 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:04.960 which means it's just floating around in the synapse, the 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:08.800 area between two neurons, like hitting that one neuron again 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:11.960 and again and again, and it does it all throughout 0:23:12.000 --> 0:23:17.320 the brain or all throughout the ventral tegmental area, and 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:20.159 you have this long or well not long, but you 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:23.640 have this very intense pleasurable sensation. Right. So basically the 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:25.719 re uptake, they just shut that down. So you're out 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:29.360 there on your own and then floating around. Yes, your 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:32.040 brain is a big pleasure center. And then after I 0:23:32.080 --> 0:23:34.640 guess five to fifteen minutes, like the crack wears off 0:23:34.640 --> 0:23:37.960 in the dopamine is taken up once more. That's right, 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:41.000 and the high is over and your are left going 0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:45.520 I want to do that again, exactly. I guess we 0:23:45.520 --> 0:23:50.680 should talk about some of the effects of crack use. Um. Obviously, 0:23:50.840 --> 0:23:53.119 just like with cocaine any kind of stimulant like that 0:23:53.200 --> 0:23:56.840 or in phetamine, you're gonna be at risk for heart attack. Yeah, 0:23:57.000 --> 0:23:59.960 sometimes on the spot. And because you smoke it too, 0:24:00.160 --> 0:24:03.760 like it has real, um, real potential for problems with 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:07.600 your respiratory system and your cardio pulmonary system in general. Yeah, 0:24:07.640 --> 0:24:12.199 stroke is also a risk. Um. It's gonna make you 0:24:12.280 --> 0:24:15.920 very energize at first. You might although your senses may 0:24:15.920 --> 0:24:19.040 be heightened temporarily, your heart rate is gonna shoot through 0:24:19.040 --> 0:24:22.080 the roof, your pupils are gonna dilate, your temperature is 0:24:22.080 --> 0:24:26.720 gonna rise. Um, you're gonna be pretty anxious or irritable 0:24:26.760 --> 0:24:30.400 as you start to come down, and then you could 0:24:30.400 --> 0:24:33.280 be really aggressive and you could, you know, be more 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:37.000 prone to start a fight with a cop, feel like 0:24:37.000 --> 0:24:39.919 you have superhuman strength, or say some crazy stuff to 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:42.000 a passer by on the sidewalk because you have and 0:24:42.040 --> 0:24:43.800 you have a went to a gunk on the corners 0:24:43.840 --> 0:24:46.600 of your mouth. That's true. Uh, if you have it 0:24:46.600 --> 0:24:50.160 with alcohol, that's not a good combination, because that produces 0:24:50.200 --> 0:24:54.320 a chemical called uh coca ethylene. Yeah, lifts up like 0:24:54.359 --> 0:24:57.720 this is a thing. It's like toxic, is I'll get out. Well, 0:24:57.760 --> 0:25:03.159 it's the crack or cocaine and alcohol, um produce a 0:25:03.359 --> 0:25:07.960 third drug, basically a hybrid drug that's more than the 0:25:08.040 --> 0:25:12.040