#5 street names for cocaine crack#
The slang terms for these routes are, respectively, “chewing,” “snorting,” “mainlining,” “injecting,” and “smoking” (including freebase and crack cocaine). The principal routes of cocaine administration are oral, intranasal, intravenous, and inhalation. Cocaine is generally sold on the street as a fine, white, crystalline powder, known as “coke,” “C,” “snow,” “flake,” or “blow.” Street dealers generally dilute it with such inert substances as cornstarch, talcum powder, and/or sugar, or with such active drugs as procaine (a chemically-related local anesthetic) or with such other stimulants as amphetamines. The freebase form of cocaine is smokable. Freebase refers to a compound that has not been neutralized by an acid to make the hydrochloride salt. There are basically two chemical forms of cocaine: the hydrochloride salt and the “freebase.” The hydrochloride salt, or powdered form of cocaine, dissolves in water and, when abused, can be taken intravenously (by vein) or intranasally (in the nose). Today, cocaine is a Schedule II drug, meaning that it has high potential for abuse, but can be administered by a doctor for legitimate medical uses, such as a local anesthetic for some eye, ear, and throat surgeries. In the early 1900s, it became the main stimulant drug used in most of the tonics/elixirs that were developed to treat a wide variety of illnesses. Pure cocaine was first extracted from the leaf of the Erythroxylon coca bush, which grows primarily in Peru and Bolivia, in the mid-19th century. The pure chemical, cocaine hydrochloride, has been an abused substance for more than 100 years, and coca leaves, the source of cocaine, have been ingested for thousands of years. In fact, it is one of the oldest known drugs. Cocaine has been labeled the drug of the 1980s and ’90s, because of its extensive popularity and use during this period. What is cocaine? Cocaine is a powerfully addictive stimulant that directly affects the brain.