Crack

Crack cocaine is the freebase form of cocaine that can be smoked. It may also be termed rock or just crack. Crack cocaine, often nicknamed "crack" after the sound made during its manufacture, appeared primarily in impoverished inner-city neighborhoods in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami in late 1984 and 1985. Because of the dangers for manufacturers of using ether to produce pure freebase cocaine, producers began to omit the step of removing the freebase precipitate from the ammonia mixture. Typically, filtration processes are also omitted. The end result is that the cut, in addition to the ammonium salt (NH4Cl), remains in the freebase cocaine after the mixture has evaporated. The "rock" that is thus formed also contains a small amount of water.