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Usual apology of "excuse my ignorance"... Isn't crack made from cocaine? Didn't crack destroy many communities, neighborhoods, cities, families, etc...? Aren't

Usual apology of "excuse my ignorance"... Isn't crack made from cocaine? Didn't crack destroy many communities, neighborhoods, cities, families, etc...? Aren't we as a society still struggling with the long term effects of this crisis? What's to stop a similar kind of crisis if cocaine was legalized? Why wouldn't a significant number of users turn to its more formidable (my assumption) and potent form if cocaine was legalized? Just to clarify, I'm not arguing that cocaine shouldn't be legalized, just genuinely curious.

chronofar 5y ago
Proper legalization and regulation would mean it wouldn’t be sold as crack and wouldn’t have the potential to contain fentanyl, eliminating much of the physiological risk. Proper drug legalization would also divert funds currently used for drug enforcement (swat teams, dea, private prisons, etc) to drug treatment facilities accessible to those who need it. In general the negative effects of most any drug are best fought with education, regulation, and treatment, not prohibition. Cocaine and crack were illegal in the 80s and 90s when the crack epidemic raged, so obviously legal status was not preventing such crises in the first place. The important factors there were more around support of impoverished communities than tepid laws that serve only to further the cycle of social disruption caused by petty arrests and adversarial tension between police and downtrodden communities and the empowerment of gangs by creating a thriving black market. The struggles we’re having related to crack or other drugs are related to a great many things aside from the drug itself, prohibition itself causing some of the largest problems on a global scale. What if Mexico could have cocaine as a legitimate export? Would we have violent cartels or legitimate businesses that improve the community (though surely they’d also leach as businesses are wont to do, but surely less violently than illegal organizations)? I’d posit the latter, though the transition from one to the other won’t be smooth.
- chrisjc 5y ago
  > Proper legalization and regulation would mean it wouldn’t be sold as crack I didn't mean to imply that it would. But from what I "know", crack is very easy to "cook" from cocaine, and is much more potent and addictive in this form. Throw cocaine in the microwave, something, something, and you have crack... So what's to stop anyone with a microwave from producing their own crack from legally regulated and obtained cocaine, and why would they want to do that instead of just using the cocaine as is? Were you suggesting that bc it's purer crack (nothing added to increase potency or mass), it's not an issue? I also understand how crack was weaponized against certain communities, minorities, vulnerable and "undesirable" groups of citizens... but again, I just wonder why and if individuals would start to synthesize their own crack if cocaine was legalized.
  - chronofar 5y ago
    The main motivator for doing so would be to sell it more cheaply to those who can’t afford the cocaine sold elsewhere as crack requires lower dosages for effect. You’ll find this in patterns of cocaine use already, the affluent use cocaine and the impoverished are more likely to use crack. I don’t think anything changes on that front with legalization except you trade arrests for outreach. I don’t see why we should expect demand for crack would suddenly grow and become more rampant with legalization, I’d expect the opposite, but in either case the solution is outreach not prohibition.
    - chrisjc 5y ago
      Thanks for taking the time to explain... I have no doubt that prohibition, after demonstrating years of failure on a catastrophic scale, will not continue to work. However I wanting to get an idea of some of the consequences we might expect to see if cocaine were to be legalized/regulated.
retrac 5y ago
Crack is a form of cocaine that survives heating so you can vaporize it. Chemically, the freebase rather than a salt compound. As with other drugs, the inhalation route is probably more addictive. It's certainly faster onset and more euphoric. You could very easily make crack cocaine from regular cocaine in your kitchen with cheap supplies. One would have to truly enforce a cocaine ban to effectively prohibit crack availability. So what happened to crack? That's a fair question. It's much less commonly used today than 30 years ago. My impression is that the American legal changes probably had some influence in suppressing it. Laws which make it much cheaper and safer to hold cocaine rather than crack obviously dis-incentivize producing the freebase form until the final consumer. And a new user is unlikely to go through the hassle of attempting to perfect cooking crack with their first gram of coke. So a simple influence there about the method of consuming the drug may have done a lot of the work. Here in Canada, we had no legal changes in the 80s/90s during the so-called crack epidemic. (We treat crack cocaine like cocaine, legally.) Crack's use waxed and waned with its popularity in American culture. The crack epidemic is also part of a much larger story about North American urban decay and shifting economic patterns. The conditions that gave birth to it are no longer true, so one wouldn't expect it to necessarily repeat. At least not in the same form. The epidemic of cheap inhaled stimulant abuse you are worried about is arguably happening right now with methamphetamine, anyway.
- suzzer99 5y ago
  Most crackheads either died, went to jail or got clean. It's not a sustainable lifestyle. Cocaine takes a lot longer to bring someone down.

chronofar 5y ago

Proper legalization and regulation would mean it wouldn’t be sold as crack and wouldn’t have the potential to contain fentanyl, eliminating much of the physiological risk. Proper drug legalization would also divert funds currently used for drug enforcement (swat teams, dea, private prisons, etc) to drug treatment facilities accessible to those who need it. In general the negative effects of most any drug are best fought with education, regulation, and treatment, not prohibition. Cocaine and crack were illegal in the 80s and 90s when the crack epidemic raged, so obviously legal status was not preventing such crises in the first place. The important factors there were more around support of impoverished communities than tepid laws that serve only to further the cycle of social disruption caused by petty arrests and adversarial tension between police and downtrodden communities and the empowerment of gangs by creating a thriving black market. The struggles we’re having related to crack or other drugs are related to a great many things aside from the drug itself, prohibition itself causing some of the largest problems on a global scale. What if Mexico could have cocaine as a legitimate export? Would we have violent cartels or legitimate businesses that improve the community (though surely they’d also leach as businesses are wont to do, but surely less violently than illegal organizations)? I’d posit the latter, though the transition from one to the other won’t be smooth.

chrisjc 5y ago
> Proper legalization and regulation would mean it wouldn’t be sold as crack I didn't mean to imply that it would. But from what I "know", crack is very easy to "cook" from cocaine, and is much more potent and addictive in this form. Throw cocaine in the microwave, something, something, and you have crack... So what's to stop anyone with a microwave from producing their own crack from legally regulated and obtained cocaine, and why would they want to do that instead of just using the cocaine as is? Were you suggesting that bc it's purer crack (nothing added to increase potency or mass), it's not an issue? I also understand how crack was weaponized against certain communities, minorities, vulnerable and "undesirable" groups of citizens... but again, I just wonder why and if individuals would start to synthesize their own crack if cocaine was legalized.
- chronofar 5y ago
  The main motivator for doing so would be to sell it more cheaply to those who can’t afford the cocaine sold elsewhere as crack requires lower dosages for effect. You’ll find this in patterns of cocaine use already, the affluent use cocaine and the impoverished are more likely to use crack. I don’t think anything changes on that front with legalization except you trade arrests for outreach. I don’t see why we should expect demand for crack would suddenly grow and become more rampant with legalization, I’d expect the opposite, but in either case the solution is outreach not prohibition.
  - chrisjc 5y ago
    Thanks for taking the time to explain... I have no doubt that prohibition, after demonstrating years of failure on a catastrophic scale, will not continue to work. However I wanting to get an idea of some of the consequences we might expect to see if cocaine were to be legalized/regulated.

retrac 5y ago

Crack is a form of cocaine that survives heating so you can vaporize it. Chemically, the freebase rather than a salt compound. As with other drugs, the inhalation route is probably more addictive. It's certainly faster onset and more euphoric. You could very easily make crack cocaine from regular cocaine in your kitchen with cheap supplies. One would have to truly enforce a cocaine ban to effectively prohibit crack availability. So what happened to crack? That's a fair question. It's much less commonly used today than 30 years ago. My impression is that the American legal changes probably had some influence in suppressing it. Laws which make it much cheaper and safer to hold cocaine rather than crack obviously dis-incentivize producing the freebase form until the final consumer. And a new user is unlikely to go through the hassle of attempting to perfect cooking crack with their first gram of coke. So a simple influence there about the method of consuming the drug may have done a lot of the work. Here in Canada, we had no legal changes in the 80s/90s during the so-called crack epidemic. (We treat crack cocaine like cocaine, legally.) Crack's use waxed and waned with its popularity in American culture. The crack epidemic is also part of a much larger story about North American urban decay and shifting economic patterns. The conditions that gave birth to it are no longer true, so one wouldn't expect it to necessarily repeat. At least not in the same form. The epidemic of cheap inhaled stimulant abuse you are worried about is arguably happening right now with methamphetamine, anyway.

suzzer99 5y ago
Most crackheads either died, went to jail or got clean. It's not a sustainable lifestyle. Cocaine takes a lot longer to bring someone down.