Crack is actually a less pure sort of freebase cocaine. Unlike old-fashioned free-base, however, its production doesn't involve any flammable solvents.

Crack is usually made by mixing two parts of cocaine hydrochyloride with one part baking soda in about 20 ml of water. The solution is then heated gently until white precipitates form. Heating is halted when precipitation stops. The precipitate is filtered and retained. The precipitate may then be washed with water; this procedure is usually omitted in the street product. The product may then be dried for 24 hours under a heat-lamp. Crack is then cut or broken into small 'rocks' weighing a few tenths of a gram.

The traditional method of taking cocaine in the West involves snorting the hydrochloride salt. But absorption through the nasal mucosa is relatively modest. This is because their surface-area is small and cocaine is vasoconstrictive. Freebase, on the other hand, is smoked and inhaled directly into the lungs. Therefore much higher doses are possible. Inhalation is followed by an intense euphoric rush. The euphoria doesn't last long. The user becomes irritable and craves more of the drug.

Chronic cocaine-use causes a decrease in the production of enkephalin, one of the brain's natural opioids. This in turn causes a compensatory increase in the number of mu-receptors. The number of unoccupied mu-receptors may be associated with the craving and abstinence syndrome.

After chronic exposure to cocaine, the number of post-synaptic dopamine receptors in the CNS is reduced. The amount of dopamine transporter protein is increased. Tolerance to cocaine's effects does exist over prolonged use; but the extent of this physiological adaptation is relatively modest. The cocaine-user still gets high; but in the absence of cocaine, his pre-synaptic neurons sequester dopamine in the synaptic cleft with greater efficiency. This may induce depression, and sometimes profound despair.

No one ever feels contented after taking cocaine. They just want more.

The high from crack cocaine is intensely rewarding. So it's reckless to try the drug at all - at least until one's death-bed] - because it's extraordinarily hard to forget. If one succumbs to curiosity, then other things in life can easily pall in comparison. Tragically, family and loved ones may suffer almost as much as the addict.

So is a fallen crackhead inescapably doomed? Or are there ways (s)he can escape from the abyss?

Perhaps. Most of the GIs who got hooked on unmistakably physically addictive heroin in Vietnam kicked the habit when they returned to the USA. They quit, often without undue difficulty, because most of the "conditioned cues and reinforcers" associated with drug-use in South-East Asia were missing back home.

Thus a complete change of environment, especially in the company of supportive family and (drug-free) friends, can help break a user's self-destructive cycle of coke-binges. Good food, particularly an idealised stone-age diet fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, wholemeal bread, pasta, rice etc should help too. Regular vigorous exercise is useful as well and probably Faith In Jesus, though this isn't always a realistic option

Some drug-pundits recommend Total Abstinence: "Just Say No." The ex-addict is encouraged to renounce "unnatural" chemical highs altogether. This course of action may indeed be prudent. Unfortunately, godliness, virtue and clean living aren't always the recipe for a happy life either.

For many cocaine-users have a pre-existing psychiatric disorder - even by today's dismally impoverished conception of mental health. In effect, they are self-medicating, even if they ostensibly take coke "for kicks". So in place of cocaine, clinically useful mood-brighteners (e.g. desipramine, a noradrenaline reuptake blocker; or more daringly, amineptine, a dopamine reuptake blocker) and/or anti-anxiety agents may be considered instead.

Alternatively, if the user wishes to Say No To Drugs completely, then a "natural", gentle mood-brightener and anti-anxiety agent, hypericum(St John's wort), may be taken indefinitely. Unfortunately, this traditional herbal remedy is not a dependable cure for deep melancholic depression - coke-induced or otherwise.

Inevitably, today's ordinary mood-brighteners, whether herbal or clinical, won't stand comparison with tomorrow's designer-drugs. Nor will they deliver the rapturous but addictive rush of a fast-acting euphoriant. And they yield desperately little joy compared to the lifetime of genetically pre-programmed superhealth on offer to our descendants. But often dirty stopgaps are better than nothing at all. For our genes didn't design us to be happy.

crack

[warez d00dz] 1. v. To break into a system (compare cracker). 2. v. Action of removing the copy protection from a commercial program. People who write cracks consider themselves challenged by the copy protection measures. They will often do it as much to show that they are smarter than the developer who designed the copy protection scheme than to actually copy the program. 3. n. A program, instructions or patch used to remove the copy protection of a program or to uncripple features from a demo/time limited program. 4. An exploit.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

Crack can work with unusual password encryption algorithms, or with a password database managed by NIS (just ypcat the database to a file and run Crack on the file). It is also possible for the sysadmin to modify Crack's dictionaries or transformation rules. Typically Crack is left running in the background at low priority, but it can also be set up to run only during certain hours, or paused and restarted manually by the sysadmin.

In Irish slang, "crack" is a versatile term used to characterize stimulating conversation, witty banter, or more generally, a fun time in a social setting. In recent years, it has become common to find the word spelled as "craic" in print, but it is almost always pronounced as "crack." It is seldom used as an adjective, but instead as a noun, often in a possessive construction (e.g. "we had great crack").

If you're visiting Ireland, and you happen to be a dumb American (where "crack" invariably refers to crack cocaine), this is extremely useful information, allowing you to avoid embarrassing exchanges such as the following:

On their first night of a vacation in Ireland, a girl and her sister walk into a pub in Galway, where they are approached by some good-looking Irish boys offering to buy a round of pints. As often happens following such an offer, small talk ensues.

Lad #1 exclaims, "Wahey! Yanks on holiday!"

Lad #2 inquires, "Have ye good crack, yeah?"

Our clueless heroines, erroneously suspecting that they've run into a couple of rock fiends looking for a fix, emphatically gesture in the negative while hastily disengaging from the conversation.

The origins of the word in this context are a matter of debate. A small but devoted faction postulates that it is a derivation of another Gaelic word, "craig," which means a rocky formation or crag. This is the least likely explanation, requiring quite a few implausible linguistic contortions to explain the evolution from "craig" to "craic", as there is no evidence that the two terms are related other than the somewhat similar pronunciation.

The Gaelic spelling is a relatively recent development, leading some to believe that it originated in Hiberno-English slang, only to be assimilated into Gaelic later (perhaps as a plebeian addition to the government's efforts to rescue the Irish language from the brink of extinction). A related theory is that the term was borrowed from the Ulster-Scots dialect, where the word "crack" (alternatively spelled as "crak") has a similar meaning to the Irish "craic." This is the most plausible explanation, as the Ulster-Scot word appears in writing in the 18th century (with references to the residents of Belfast possessing "guid crak"), and may have been in use in Scotland as early as the 15th century. When attempting to trace the etymology of the term farther back than that, the trail grows cold, but it almost certainly has Anglo-Saxon origins. In contrast, "craic" first appeared in an Irish dictionary in 1927, and the Gaelicized spelling did not achieve the ubiquitous status it enjoys today in Ireland until the mid-1980s.

Sources:
http://www.ulsterscotsagency.com/didyouknow.asp
http://www.local.ie/content/41090.shtml/arts_and_culture/arts/general
http://www.beyondthecommons.com/Ch4.pdf
http://ulsterloyal.freeservers.com/ulsterscots.html

Crack (kr?k), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Cracked (kr?kt); p. pr. & vb. n. Cracking.] [OE. cracken, craken, to crack, break, boast, AS. cracian, cearcian, to crack; akin to D. kraken, G. krachen; cf. Skr. garj to rattle, or perh. of imitative origin. Cf. Crake, Cracknel, Creak.]

1.

To break or burst, with or without entire separation of the parts; as, to crack glass; to crack nuts.

2.

To rend with grief or pain; to affect deeply with sorrow; hence, to disorder; to distract; to craze.

O, madam, my old hear is cracked. Shak.

He thought none poets till their brains were cracked. Roscommon.

3.

To cause to sound suddenly and sharply; to snap; as, to crack a whip.

4.

To utter smartly and sententiously; as, to crack a joke.

B. Jonson.

5.

To cry up; to extol; -- followed by up

To crack a bottle, to open the bottle and drink its contents. -- To crack a crib, to commit burglary. [Slang] -- To crack on, to put on; as, to crack on more sail, or more steam. [Colloq.]

© Webster 1913.

Crack, v. i.

1.

To burst or open in chinks; to break, with or without quite separating into parts.

By misfortune it cracked in the coling. Boyle.

The mirror cracked from side to side. Tennyson.

2.

To be ruined or impaired; to fail.

The credit . . . of exchequers cracks, when little comes in and much goes out. Dryden.

3.

To utter a loud or sharp, sudden sound.

As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack. Shak.

4.

To utter vain, pompous words; to brag; to boast; -- with of.

Ethoipes of their sweet complexion crack. Shak.

© Webster 1913.

Crack, n.

1.

A partial separation of parts, with or without a perceptible opening; a chink or fissure; a narrow breach; a crevice; as, a crack in timber, or in a wall, or in glass.

2.

Ropture; flaw; breach, in a moral sense.

My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw. Shak.

3.

A sharp, sudden sound or report; the sound of anything suddenly burst or broken; as, the crack of a falling house; the crack of thunder; the crack of a whip.

Will the stretch out to the crack of doom? Shak.

4.

The tone of voice when changed at puberty.

Though now our voices Have got the mannish crack. Shak.

5.

Mental flaw; a touch of craziness; partial insanity; as, he has a crack.

6.

A crazy or crack-brained person.

I . . . can not get the Parliament to listen to me, who look upon me as a crack and a projector. Addison.

7.

A boast; boasting.

8.

Breach of chastity.

Shak.

9.

A boy, generally a pert, lively boy.

Val. 'Tis a noble child. Vir. A crack, madam. Shak.

10.

A brief time; an instant; as, to be with one in a crack.

11.

Free conversation; friendly chat.

What is crack in English? . . . Acrack . . . a chat with a good, kindly human heart in it. P. P. Alexander.

© Webster 1913.

Crack, a.

Of superior excellence; having qualities to be boasted of.

One of our crack speakers in the Commons. Dickens.

© Webster 1913.