WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How Crack Works 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:03.640 Hello everyone, It's me Josh and for this week's s 0:00:03.760 --> 0:00:07.600 Y s K Selects, I've chosen our episode how Crack Works, 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:11.320 and Boyle Boy does the title ever say at all? 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:16.439 Because we really really explain how crack works. So enjoy 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:23.520 How Crack Works. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:32.120 production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:35.199 welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:39.760 Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there, and uh, this is Stuff 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:43.760 you should Know. Jerry just waved like she's waving at 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:46.880 the audience of the anger. She's waving to the world. 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:51.240 It's a little weird. She may be on home Bloom. Uh, Josh, 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:58.279 you know what's whack? Uh? Zach Attack from Saved by 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:00.280 the Bell. I don't even know what it is. You 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:02.040 don't know it's Saved by the Bell? Is what's wrong 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:04.000 with No? I know that I know what that show is, 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:05.880 but I've never heard of the Zach Attack. It's just 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:10.679 Zack being zack. Gotcha? That is whack? Yeah, well, never mind. 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:12.880 I thought Crack was whack, but the Zach Attack is 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:15.640 truly whack. No, I disagree. I was gonna say no, 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.039 it's not right because that's actually a pretty good show. 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.360 But okay, yes, you crack his whack this. We're like 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.640 imminent up in here. We're what we're like eminem up 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:30.640 in here. Yeah, I guess so refer to R hip 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:35.280 Hop episode now. No, I'm just saying people that they're 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.600 confused about why we sound so stilted and square, just 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:41.200 go listen to hip hop and that explains everything. People 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:43.880 like that one. Surprisingly, Yeah, it's a good one. Man. 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:46.160 We got a good email from a or a Facebook 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:48.880 post from a graffiti artist. Oh yeah, yeah, good stuff. 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:52.160 I can't remember his tag, but it was like really nice. 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:54.960 But he was complimenting us or he was just saying hey, No, 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:57.240 he's like, hey, I'm a graffiti artist and here's my 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:00.800 my work. And I was very impressed. And he is 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:05.280 not on crack no, because he's not whack right exactly, 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.280 So Chuck, I have a little, uh a little intro 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:17.160 just if you'll bear with me. And the year was okay, 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.480 I was fourteen, Okay, what is it? It's one year 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:29.760 p b G very early on um cocaine, which is 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.160 a drug that had been sweeping the nation for about 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:36.280 ten years by then. Yeah, uh, was up to a 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:41.480 hundred and fifty dollars a graham. That's thanks to the 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:46.840 demand um and the available income of its well healed 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:49.840 yuppie users who were willing to spend that kind of 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:54.320 money on it. Sure, it's very much an expensive, white, 0:02:55.520 --> 0:03:02.919 upwardly mobile person's drug. Cocaine was wall st Yeah, and 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:07.280 there were at the time articles that kind of said, 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.600 cocaine's probably not that addictive. We shouldn't worry that much 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:15.680 about cocaine. It's not a very big deal. It was mostly, 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:20.000 like I said, a white drug. That same year, a 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:24.000 new drug hit the scene. It was cheap, five to 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:29.520 ten bucks pop. It gave you a very quick, very 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:35.640 intense high, short lived, and it swept through lower income 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:40.640 African American areas of the United States, and all of 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:45.120 a sudden we had a problem, an epidemic. Yes, because 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.520 it was cocaine in a different form. Yeah, the country 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:50.840 went crazy for it. And not only was it cocaine 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:53.120 in a different form, it was cocaine being used by 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:58.000 a different demographic that as we'll see, America has always 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:02.640 been threatened by and always made legislation to damp and 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.960 drug use among Yeah, it's pretty interesting when you dig 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:10.280 into this stuff, and so in when people started to 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:15.520 get worried, Nancy Reagan became concerned. And when Nancy Reagan 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:21.440 became concerned, as as usual, she started to lie. And 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.719 we will we will get into what allegedly might have 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:27.760 happened and why crack might have been introduced in this 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:30.320 country because some people think it was the U. S. 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:34.960 Government straight up. C I A, yeah, that's a really 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:38.279 um good point. So what you're referring to is um 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:42.960 Gary Webb's Dark Alliance article, right, yeah, series of articles 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:47.960 in our book from I believe. Gary Webb was an 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:52.400 investigative journalist for the San Jose Mercury News, and um, 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:56.040 they had a front page story where he basically figured 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.960 out the connection between the CIA and the crack epidem 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:04.760 that started in I think in Los Angeles south central. 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:07.440 There was a dude named Freeway Ricky Ross who's still 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:11.719 around I think, yeah, Um, And he was the largest 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:17.440 cocaine distributor UH African American cocaine distributor in l A. 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:20.560 He was big time, and all of a sudden, out 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:24.360 of nowhere, he had a new product called crack, and 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:28.840 it became very popular, very quickly. Um, and Gary webb 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:34.240 In traced the origin of this epidemic back to through 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:40.159 Ricky Ross, back to some Nicaraguan freedom fighting guerrillas that 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:45.400 were backed and trained and possibly commanded by the CIA. 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:49.200 We're getting into this, so we just go ahead and 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:52.560 dive in. Dive in. Yeah, do you want to? Yeah? 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.080 Why not? Okay? Um, all right, here's the deal. In Nicaragua, 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:00.280 Central American country. Um, in the nineteen thirties, a man 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:05.719 name Anastasio uh Samosa took power, and then about forty 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:10.200 years later, in nineteen seventy nine, the people revolted, um 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:14.880 overthrew him, and they were called the Sandinistas. Yes, so 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:19.159 you know the whole Contra Sandinista war in Nicaragua that 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:22.360 raged in the seventies and eighties, that's what we're talking about. Yes, 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:26.720 and the Sandinistas. Um, we're a communist and that didn't 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:30.039 fly so well with the US who had long uh 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.440 cherished Nicaragua for their farmland and like to have a 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:36.800 toe in their pond, so to speak. And so communism 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:38.480 there didn't fly. And so they said, you know what, 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.640 I think maybe we should fund the contrast, maybe give 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:44.039 them a little bit of financial assistance. Yeah, and the 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:46.200 contrasts weren't just one group. They were it was like 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:52.320 an umbrella term for any democratic or UM an anti 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:58.200 communist group that was trying to paramilitarily overthrow the socialist 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.560 leadership in Nicaragua. That's right. So we decided to help 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:05.160 fund their civil war. And UM. The problem was that 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:09.240 there wasn't a lot of dough like that we could say, like, hey, 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:11.520 let's use this money to do this, because it was 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:14.360 a secret war. There was no congressional approval. It was 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:16.920 a proxy war with the Soviet Union at the time. 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:21.280 So some allege that this is when UM, the Reagan 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:27.200 administration and the CIA got together to literally introduce cocaine 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:33.160 dealers in cocaine UH to South Central and crack cocaine 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.160 to spread throughout the ghettos, to raise money and use 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:40.280 that money to fund the contrast. Right, So here's the thing, 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:43.600 like that was never proven and Gary Webb never ever 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.760 said he did not. He didn't say that the government 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:51.120 directly introduced it on purpose or with the aim of 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.600 creating an epidemic in the ghetto. He found connections between 0:07:54.600 --> 0:08:00.440 the CIA and drug lords, specifically Ricky Ross on one end, 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:08.840 and then the CIA backed impossibly commanded. UM, the Nicaraguan 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:15.520 Democratic Force. Yes, the this Contra force. UM. So their 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:22.600 their business, their group was funded entirely from cocaine sales 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:27.400 and trafficking. And they all went to this guy, Ricky Ross. 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:32.200 And there's no way that the CIA didn't know about this. Yeah, 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.080 and there were at the time. Well we'll get back 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:37.040 to Webb in a second. But UM, in the eighties 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:39.679 there was you know, when the whole Iran Contra thing 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:43.040 broke out, there was the Carry Committee who did some investigating. 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:48.840 The Carry Committee report, UH from John Carey. Obviously, UM 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:53.160 found that quote the Contra drug links included payments to 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:56.920 drug traffickers by the U. S. State Department funds authorized 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:01.200 by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the con tris UH. 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:03.760 And then later on there was an internal CIA investigation 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:07.280 in the nineties where they found that there is no 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:12.000 evidence that UM, the CIA actually brought drugs into the 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:16.400 United States. UM. However, and these are these are aal quotes. However, 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:19.160 during the Contra era, the CIA worked with a variety 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.280 of people to support the Contrat program. And let me 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.720 be frank, there are instances where the CIA did not 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:30.000 in an expeditious or consistent fashion cut off relationships with 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.560 individuals supporting the CONTRAT program who are alleged to have 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:40.359 engaged in drug trafficking activity. So basically, the internal investigation said, well, 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:42.240 there might have been some people we were dealing with 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:44.760 that we're doing this, and as it turns out, we 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:49.480 didn't really do much about it. Right, So, as far 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.480 as you can go without hyperbole, and it's still pretty shocking. Sure, 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:59.600 the CIA backed, trained, and possibly commanded UM at least 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:05.479 one Perilla group, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force and the Nicaraguan 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:11.959 Democratic Force the f d n UM sold cocaine to 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:15.840 Freeway Ricky Ross. Freeway Ricky Ross is where the crack 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:19.240 epidemic originated. And so just to finish up with web 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.320 though Um after he wrote this Dark Alliance series, he 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:27.959 was shunned by mainstream press in the United States. Sadly, 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:32.640 all three of the major newspapers, UM, you know, the 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:34.240 l A Times, New York Times, and I guess was 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.880 that Washington Post Post came out and they were not 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:41.840 only shunned, they like tried to discredit him. Oh yeah, 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:45.280 they wrote articles they put UM seventeen reporters in twenty 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:48.880 words to a three day rebuttal of Dark Alliance that 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.240 was the The l A Times. Yeah. Rather than pick 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:55.480 up the story, they tried to de demolish it, and 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.840 Webb New York Times um suggested he was a reckless 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.160 reporter prone to getting his facts wrong. He already had 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:04.599 wanted pull a surprise at this point, I think for 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:08.719 something else, and um The Mercury News defended it for 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:12.320 a little while and then backed off and apologized. He 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:19.400 ended up quitting and committed a very weird suicide in 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:25.040 which he shot himself in the head twice. Uh, who knows. Obviously, 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:26.840 if you get on the internet, there are tons of 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:29.960 outlets that say, well, obviously it's not a suicide. It 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:34.120 was a murder. Um, so who knows about that? Other 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.600 other people have said, no, it does look kinky, but 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.400 the first shot wasn't fatal and he was able to 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:44.160 do it twice. Who knows, draw your own conclusions. Some 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:46.600 raw nerve right there. But he claimed that there were 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:50.719 people like you know, he saw what he thought were 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:53.560 c i A. People like climbing up his fire escape 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:56.920 and stuff the previous days. And who knows. All I'm 0:11:56.920 --> 0:11:58.880 saying is they're making a movie about it with Jeremy 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.800 Renner this summer is it right? Great good? I'm glad 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:05.680 he I ran across him when I wrote an article 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:10.880 on America's Army Jeremy Renner. Yeah, he wrote an expose 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.360 America's Army is this. Uh, it's a video game and 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.760 it's basically like a training game for the army where 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:23.040 you can play this free game. Um, but you sign 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:25.240 up to be contacted. If you're any good at it, 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.280 the Army contacts you. And he did this. It's like 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:31.360 a recruiting tool through video games. But the Army categorically 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.080 denied that's what it was. But that's obviously what it was. 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:37.679 And Gary Gary Webb, one of his last expose a 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.920 was on that, and you know, we should mention that 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.520 today all three of those major news outlets all say, boy, 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.640 we kind of got that one wrong. Yeah, um, we 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.600 shouldn't have done that. Maybe we shouldn't have driven Gary 0:12:50.640 --> 0:13:11.200 Webb to his possible suicide. So Gary Webb did all 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:13.920 this investigation, did all this leg We're canning connect to 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:17.920 the dots pretty well, but there's still this maddening question 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:23.640 of tantalizing question who invented crack it came out of nowhere, 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:27.680 and so to kind of answer that which we can't, UM, 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:30.400 you have to look at how crack is made, and 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:32.360 look at how crack is made. You have to go 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:34.480 back a lot further than the nine eighties. You have 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:36.640 to go back to the eighteen eighties, and actually a 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:40.640 little further before then, when cocaine first was introduced to 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:44.760 the United States after it was isolated the alkaloid was 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.840 isolated from the coca plant in the mid nineteenth century. Yeah, 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.160 and that's when it was isolated in I mean for centuries. 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.440 People in South America were wise to the fact that 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:58.120 if you chew on this plant, it'll give you some 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:01.640 go juice you can work more. Yeah, and people still 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:03.800 chew the heck out of it. Yeah, So it was 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:05.920 it was no secret to the South Americans. But like 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.319 you said, it was the mid eighteen eighties when it 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:15.280 was actually isolated and UM became a narcotic, an abused 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:18.600 narcotic drug. Right. But first UM you could buy it 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.480 all over the place. You could order it through catalogs. 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:26.520 UM you can doctors could prescribe it. Sigmund Freud was 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:31.480 an ardent prescriber of it UM and it was a 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:37.840 very popular drug found in tonics. Coca cola for real, 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:43.200 that's not a myth. Um and cocaine was everybody loved 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:47.240 it for a while, yeah until well not until they 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.440 still loved it and still do today, I imagine. But 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.440 in nineteen fourteen it was made illegal with the Harrison 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:57.480 Narcotics Tax Act and UM, right, which do you remember 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:01.000 I said earlier that like everything like this, crack has 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:04.880 a real history of um. It shows the history of 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:09.720 racism in regards to drug laws. So the Harrison Narcotic 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:14.600 Act UM outlawed opiates and cocaine for the first time 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:18.520 in the United States, and it was based on concerns 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:23.320 like Chinaman were luring white women there were to their 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:28.720 to their dens of iniquity and open Chinatown through opium 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:35.080 and uh, Southern blacks were sniffing cocaine and it gave 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:37.800 them superhuman strength and they were raping white women as 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:40.960 a result. So those two things were passed, and we 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.440 have federal legislation from as a result of those kind 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:46.760 of fears. And if you kind of if you keep 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:48.360 that in the back of your mind and then pay 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.200 attention to the drug policy that comes out later on 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:55.120 from crack. You'll it's been going on since then and 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:57.840 it continues to today. Are you saying a pattern emerges? 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:03.520 A pattern emerges? So, uh, cocaine is um. Cocaine powder 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:06.240 is You have to actually manufacture it it. You don't 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:09.120 find a cocoa plant and like not shake it and 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.000 shake it and white powder falls out. It makes like 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:16.040 a tinkling sound in It is made by dissolving the paste, 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:19.280 the cocoa paste um in a mixture of hydrochloric acid 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.640 and water. Then you had some potassium salt separate out 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:26.360 the bad junk, maybe had a little ammonia, and then 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:29.880 the powder is separated out and you've got cocaine powder, 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:32.480 cocaine and from there you can sniff it. You can 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.000 add a little water to it and inject it. Yeah, 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:37.920 or you can make something called free base. Yeah. I 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.080 never quite understood what free base was. I thought it was. 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:44.200 I thought free basing was a thing. It is, yeah, 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.440 but free base is also and it's a noun anniverb Okay, 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:52.040 so maybe I do free base free base. Oh you see, 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:54.760 I've been doing it wrong. You've verb the noun. Okay, 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:58.680 so you've been doing it just just stuff doesn't work. 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.560 I don't know what everybody so excited about. Um. So 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:07.400 with free base, you take cocaine and you add something 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:15.080 highly flammable, say ether um, and you after you dissolved 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:18.359 the the cocaine in ammonia, you add ether to it 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:20.919 and then you smoke it. But you're smoking something that 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:24.679 has like a highly flammable solution involved. All that to 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:29.040 Richard Pryer, Yes, when he was filming Busting Loose, he 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.159 caught himself on fire. He was smoking free base and 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:37.720 drinking one one proof rome one night and I think 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.199 he was doing it in his garage to which so 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.639 it was unventilated and he caught fire. Yeah, but you 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:46.119 know what, there's also reports that he set himself on 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:48.960 fire on purpose, that he poured the stuff all over 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:50.639 his head and let him match. Oh we went a 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:54.679 little little cocko self immolation. Um. I think that may 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:57.200 be the right story. Now. I just saw a documentary 0:17:57.200 --> 0:17:59.359 on him, and I think that's what they say. I'm 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:02.520 so glad you just corrected me mid podcasts. Do you 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:05.399 have any emails you prevented? Well, I mean that was 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.120 the long stories that he free based, and I think 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.280 he even came out later and said like, yeah, I 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:12.760 was free basing, but I also purposely set myself on 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.640 fire in the ravages of a free basing binge. Okay, 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:20.600 so free basing it was a thing at least as 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:24.840 early as but it was it was difficult to do 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:28.680 multi step process and you needed something like ether. Ether 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:30.359 is not the easiest thing to get your hands on 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:34.760 and dangerous obviously. Sure, um, but there was a way 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.800 to smoke cocaine, and free base was the way to 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:40.880 do it. But that never really got a big foothold 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:44.160 in any demographic in the country. It was just kind 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:46.520 of a thing that some people like Richard Pryor did 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.680 looking for a more intense high. I guess then all 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:54.480 of a sudden, mysteriously, out of nowhere, there is crack cocaine. Yeah, 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.920 crack is also manufactured um, but it doesn't require something 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:02.080 like either or anything flammable. Um. You dissolve it in 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:06.159 a mixture of water and either baking soda, sodium bicarbonate, 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:10.480 UM or ammonia, and you boil it up, separate it 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.359 out into the solid, cool it down, and then break 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:17.160 it up and you've got your little whiteish or tan 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:19.960 crack rocks. And if you buy it on the street. 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:22.879 Supposedly they range in size from point one to point 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:27.639 five grams um and they contain the d e A 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:32.840 says between seventy pure cocaine. So it's quite a rush 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:39.080 for you, sure, um, because it's so easy to make 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:44.159 crack from cocaine. Um. Like, nobody imports cracked across the 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:46.760 border into the US. It's all coke that comes into 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:51.919 the US and then Wesley Snipes converts it into crack 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:56.080 uh in a factory operated and run by naked people 0:19:56.119 --> 0:20:00.600 because he doesn't trust them. What was that new Jack City? Oh? Man, 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:07.120 I was like blade, Yeah, man, I forgot all about 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:09.919 the Jack City. That was great. And they call it 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:12.719 crack because it makes a crackling sound. That's the baking 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:15.520 soda when you put the fire on it, and speaking 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:17.919 you put the fire on it. That's how you do it. Um, 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:20.200 you have a little I mean, there's different kinds of pipes, 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:23.439 but the most often crack pipe you will see is 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:27.200 the little straight shooter, a little glass tube. Yep, find 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:29.280 him on my dog walks in my neighborhood. Do you 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:32.960 really still yeah, crack is still around. It's not like 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:37.240 it went anywhere. Um, he thought oh, they got that 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:40.800 problem all under control. It's lift uh. So you you 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:42.119 you know, you have the crack in one end and 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:44.200 then a filter of some kind like a steel wool 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:46.640 or something in the other. You heat it up with 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:49.800 your lighter, yeah, under like on the outside of the 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:51.840 glass tube, or you can yeah, I guess hit it 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:53.639 with the flame. But I think if you light it 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:56.480 under the glass tube, that's generally the way to do it. 0:20:56.480 --> 0:20:58.679 I think, Yeah, it vaporizes it, that's right, and you 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:03.560 smoke it and and um, pretty much immediately, Uh, you're 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:06.080 going to feel the effects. It's it's an immediate rush 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:08.680 that lasts only about ten or fifteen minutes. And that's 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:10.960 something that I didn't used to know. I learned it 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:13.240 a few years ago, but I had no idea. I 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:16.560 thought a crack, Hi, I was like, you know, a 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:18.520 couple of hours or something. No. I think it's one 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:21.440 of the shortest ties on the market, which is I 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:25.480 guess why it's so addictive and dangerous rampant, because you 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:27.679 come down and you're like, I'd like to do that 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:31.120 again exactly minutes. It's a short high, but it's also 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:35.320 an extremely intense high too, So um. Yeah, the the 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:40.680 the it's addictiveness or potential for addictiveness is really high. Yeah, 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:43.719 and so I know this article summarized very nicely for 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:48.040 you exactly how it reacts with the brain, and so 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:50.720 why don't you go ahead and just lay it on people? Alright. 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:53.159 It has to do with dopamine, as we know. Yeah, dopamine. 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:56.920 It's like your pleasure center. It's it's the the basis 0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:59.560 of the reward system that we have, which is how 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:02.159 we learn to eat and how we learn to have sex, 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:05.159 to reproduce. Like we we feel good when we do 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:07.280 certain things, we want to do it again, and the 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:10.359 basis of that is dopamine. So in the brain, the 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:14.760 way it functions normally is UH neuron will release dopamine 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:18.719 and it will travel to a neighboring neuron, causing it 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:23.520 to fire and release a pleasurable sensation. And then that 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:28.960 dopamine UH molecule travels back to the original neuron via 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:32.280 a transporter and is reabsorbed. So it does its little 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:35.400 thing and then goes back home and it's good. Right, 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:40.119 There's a certain finite amount of pleasure humans are designed 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:44.280 to experience naturally, because when we say reabsorbed, we said 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:46.160 it said that a lot. I don't think people understand 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:49.520 that means basically, it turns that off again. Right, It 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:52.120 does its thing and it's done. It doesn't do its 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:53.439 thing and do its thing and do its thing and 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:55.320 do its thing. It does its thing once and goes 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:58.119 back to the original neuron exactly, sits on the couch 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:01.000 and its little neuron waits to be released again. Let 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:03.119 me know when you have sex again or eat something 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:08.720 or some pizza. UM. So with with crack or other 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:13.960 drugs that UM target the dopamine system, UM, they interrupt 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:19.600 the process. Crack specifically interrupts the process of reuptake or reabsorption. 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:24.880 So you're you're smoking the crack, right, and it triggers 0:23:24.960 --> 0:23:31.200 this dopamine release flood. But crack attaches to the transporter 0:23:31.760 --> 0:23:35.880 which keeps the UH, the dopamine from being reabsorbed, which 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:38.680 means it's just floating around in the synapse, the area 0:23:38.760 --> 0:23:42.280 between two neurons, like hitting that one neuron again and 0:23:42.320 --> 0:23:45.399 again and again. And it does it all throughout the 0:23:45.480 --> 0:23:51.159 brain or all throughout the ventral tegmental area. And you 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:53.600 have this long or well not long, but you have 0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:57.520 this very intense pleasurable sensation. Right, So basically the re uptake, 0:23:57.600 --> 0:23:59.320 they just shut that down, so you're out there on 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:03.000 your own and then just floating around. Yes, your brain 0:24:03.080 --> 0:24:05.680 is a big pleasure center. And then after I guess 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:08.080 five to fifteen minutes, like the crack wears off in 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:11.640 the dopamine is taken up once more. That's right, and 0:24:11.680 --> 0:24:15.199 the high is over and your are left going I 0:24:15.240 --> 0:24:19.120 want to do that again, exactly. I guess we should 0:24:19.160 --> 0:24:24.040 talk about some of the effects of crack use. Um. Obviously, 0:24:24.160 --> 0:24:26.439 just like with cocaine any kind of stimulant like that 0:24:26.560 --> 0:24:30.159 or in phetamine, you're gonna be at risk for heart attack. Yeah, 0:24:30.359 --> 0:24:33.320 sometimes on the spot and because you smoke it too, 0:24:33.480 --> 0:24:37.080 Like it has real, um, real potential for problems with 0:24:37.119 --> 0:24:40.960 your respiratory system and your cardio pulmonary system in general. Yeah, 0:24:40.960 --> 0:24:45.520 stroke is also a risk. Um. It's gonna make you 0:24:45.600 --> 0:24:49.240 very energize at first. You might although your senses may 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:52.359 be heightened temporarily, your heart rate is gonna shoot through 0:24:52.400 --> 0:24:55.399 the roof, your pupils are gonna dilate, your temperature is 0:24:55.400 --> 0:25:00.000 gonna rise. Um, you're gonna be pretty anxious or irritable 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:03.760 as you start to come down, and then you could 0:25:03.760 --> 0:25:06.600 be really aggressive and you could you know, be more 0:25:06.640 --> 0:25:10.320 prone to start a fight with a cop yeel like 0:25:10.359 --> 0:25:13.240 you have superhuman strength or say some crazy stuff to 0:25:13.320 --> 0:25:15.359