Crack and Freebase Cocaine

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Updated Nov. 2015

NOTE: Don’t forget to check out our article on Cocaine -How do You Take Yours? This looks at the ways in which we take our coke, talks to the peeps involved and gives some useful harm reduction tips for users.

This information has been collected from using in-depth research online (from the best users/cooks) from our crews own experiences, and some brilliant books -or rather one brilliant book -The Cocaine Handbook -from Dave Lee (avail in reprint I believe).

Now it wouldn’t be right to start this article without saying that The Cocaine Clean-Up is truly a double-edged sword; In our black market world of horrid adulterants and ‘God knows what the fuck’ is in our street cocaine these days -it is a really good thing to be able to do something to take the control back into your own hands and do something to clean up your cocaine from the adulterants in it. And true, while we cannot get rid of them all, even via freebasing the old school way (levisomole, the cattle de-wormer is believed to survive that process!), it significantly makes for a better tasting product -in that you will feel MUCH less wired, speedy, agitated etc and will quickly realise that the cleaned up product is a very different drug from the street stuff. But, when there is a good thing -there’s a shitty thing around the corner -in this case -the incredible craving after one pipe of base, is waaaay more than lines or even injecting…You MUST really consider things hard before embarking down this road -yes clean up your product if you are a regular user -but put down some strict rules at the start -ie Never use your cash card a 2nd time (take out enough cash that you can afford -and score ONCE -hand over the card to your partner or leave it at the office etc). Don’t keep using after midnight. Only use after you have eaten and slept and only on a Friday nite, etc. These kinds of rigid rules can help from the get go. Keep to them. There is nothing more desperate, frighteningly outa control and upsetting than someone you love, or yourself, who has lost it on the rocks. The scale of loss can be mindblowing. You have been warned! Don’t embark on this when you have nothing else to do -otherwise this will soon be the only thing you want to do. Okay, to the text…

How To Make Crack

And How To Make Freebase Cocaine

This 1st piece (not from our mag) came from David Lee’s bible – The Cocaine Handbook. At least you’ll know what’s in it eh?

Procedures

Procedures for both substances (crack and freebase cocaine) are based on the fact that while cocaine hydrochloride (regular cocaine) requires a high temperature to ignite, base cocaine requires a much lower temperature to ignite. This makes it ideal for smoking.

These methods are based on personal experience and information found in an out of print book called the cocaine handbook, by David Lee. A truly excellent book, and a must-have for any coke user. Refs at the end of this article.

How To Make Crack (common street method)

This is the most common method, but pretty rough to be honest and not the best way to get the best product.

Get a spoon and mix 2 -3 parts of cocaine hydrochloride (regular cocaine) to 1 part baking soda in 20 ml of water. (Some say 3-1, others say 2-1: best to start smaller and add a bit more if needed)

Heat solution gently (with a lighter) until white precipitates form, and stop heating when precipitation stops.

After gentle heating, the freebase cocaine will float to the top, any excess soda will settle on the bottom.

Just collect the compound that rises to the top, and you have the finished product, it is ready to use.

Note that what you’re trying to do is start and sustain a chemical reaction (bonding the hydrochloride with the base-soda) so as long as the reaction is happening you don’t have to continue heating.

Dig this dudes crack pipe!  What you can’t see too well is the rubber tube pushed into the end of the glass pipe, which then trails about a foot or maybe even 45 cm or so, into the dudes mouth. I reckon this would work well, creating a low heat burn and burning that crack nice and slow and low temperatures, which is the recommended way. None of this WHOOSH! And its all gone up in one lungful of smoke. It should be sipped, shall we say, like the cheap wine that she is. But apart from Whitney Houston’s 8 balls wrapped up in a cannabis joint, all wrapped tightly in a…now whats the name of those cigar papers that big ass smokers roll their weed in??? Is it a bomb?  Memory has escaped me, funny that. (gee,  his thumb has seen some better days, lighting pipes till the sun goes down in Texas…

How To Make Crack (uncommon method)

I’ve never seen anyone try this method. You make crack as described above, then wash it with water and allow to dry for a day. Its for the connoisseur no doubt,  but the patient sort…

Mix 2 parts of cocaine hydrochloride to 1 part baking soda in 20 ml of water -or enough water to make a thickish paste -pancake style. Heat solution very gently until white precipitates form; This is best done by putting a glass pyrex bowl (with the crack paste inside it) gently placed into a saucepan of simmering water; it will heat your crack gently without cooking it and degrading your product. Keep stirring adding drops of water if needed. Turn your knife (copper penny, or steel knife tip) over and over as it begins to collect a cracky blob. Stop heating when precipitation stops.

Collect the freebase cocaine that floats to the top.

Ideally, you should wash this crack freebase once with water (this procedure usually omitted in the street product).

Dry 24 hours under a heat lamp. Voila (this procedure usually omitted in the street product by the impatient!).

How To Make Freebase Cocaine -Old School Way

These days, and after a lot of accidents ala Richard Pryor, ether is not really recommended as a method to encourage in cooks. It is believed that just using acetone is the overall safest method which has the best result. Ammonia is also used -however you must be patient and prepared for both of these things to thoroughly dry -48hours dry -before smoking -or you will be damaging your lungs.

For information sake – here is the Old School Ether way.

Crack cocaine is less pure than using ether to make freebase cocaine (there is lots of baking soda left), but the procedure is safer. Ammonia appears to do real damage to the lungs, particularly because the coke is often not dried properly before it is smoked, thus one inhales ammonia fumes.

Mix about 1 g of coke in 10 ml of water in a small vial. Slowly add drops of ammonia to the solution. A white milky precipitate will form. Stop adding ammonia when additional drops no longer result in precipitation.

Add 5 ml of ethyl ether, close vial, and shake. The precipitate (freebase) will dissolve in the ether. Siphon off the ether with a pipette (ether and water don’t mix), and slowly drip it on a plate.

As the ether evaporates, white crystals will form. This is the evil freebase. Crush the crystals and put under a heat lamp for at least 24 hrs to let the solvent evaporate.

ETHYL ETHER IS EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE. IN THE PRESENCE OF AIR, IT CAN FORM PEROXIDES WHICH WILL SPONTANEOUSLY EXPLODE! ALSO, ETHER CAN CRAWL FROM AN OPEN BOTTLE AND TRIGGER AN EXPLOSION MANY FEET AWAY.

This is how Richard Pryor almost died. A lot of untrained people killed themselves doing that procedure, and this is why crack is now more popular.

What Does This Accomplish?

By doing something like one of the methods above, the resulting freebase cocaine is easy to smoke, it requires a lower temperature to ignite than nonfreebase cocaine.

If one were to smoke cocaine as is, there would be too much waste. Some people do smoke cocaine as is, but it is much more efficient to freebase or make crack.

Warning

You feel great when you inhale crack or freebase cocaine, but start to come down soon after exhaling. Once you start, it’s super hard to put the pipe down.

Never inject crack or freebase cocaine, it can cause a heart attack or stroke. Both of which will probably kill you.

Note – Using baking soda to FREE the cocaine BASE from cocaine hydrochloride (regular cocaine) results in a substance people call crack.

Crack is a less pure form of freebase cocaine than using ammonia and ether and gets its name from the crackling sound it makes when smoked.

Using ammonia (and ether) to FREE the cocaine BASE from cocaine hydrochloride (regular cocaine) results in a substance people call freebase cocaine.

This form of freeing the base is more time consuming and dangerous than making crack, but the result is more pure, and can give a larger yield than converting the same amount of cocaine to crack would.

While both forms of the drug can be called freebase cocaine, only using the baking soda method results in a product that can be called crack. See how cocaine is made for a better understanding of how cocaine itself is produced.

Related articles:

Cocaine research – Nearly one in five whites could carry a genetic variant that substantially increases their odds of being susceptible to severe cocaine abuse, according to new research. (dec 2010)

Using Ammonia to Free the Base

Written by the famous Le Junk from Bluelight, thanks, dude!

The correct method for making 100% pure freebase cocaine is to dissolve 1 gram of adulterated cocaine in 40 ml.s of water in either a large glass beaker or glass mason jar. Whatever you decide on, just make sure it’s glass.

If any remains undissolved, it’s not cocaine, so we need to get it out of there before wasting any time on that crap. Therefore, if any does remain undissolved, simply filter it into a separate glass container via a standard round coffee filter and plastic funnel. Once all of the liquid has drained thru, add 20 more ml.s of water thru the same filter to gather any cocaine water than may have permeated the filter paper. Our final objective is to have a total of 60 ml.s of water per every one gram of cocaine. In other words, if all of your original cocaine dissolved completely in the original 40 ml.s, then simply add 20 more ml.s of fresh water to that and move on……..

In a separate beaker or shot glass, add 20 ml.s of 10% ammonia (Ace Hardware brand) to 20 ml.s of distilled water. Stir thoroughly. Your ammonia must be unscented and contain absolutely nothing but ammonia and water. It’s extremely difficult to find, and the only place I could find it was Ace Hardware. I know this because I first looked at Home Depot, Menards, Lowes, all grocery stores and pharmacies. I’m just saving you the trouble, so go to Ace Hardware. The tall thin white bottle will say, “Ammonia 10%”. -or 5-10% -containing no perfumes or surfactants and it MUST be clear. That’s the one you’ll be needing……

Now this next part is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT! Using a glass eye dropper, slowly add exactly 1 ml. of the ammonia solution to the dissolved cocaine water. A cloudy bright white precipitate will form with each and every drop. Between each 1 ml. added, stir for 2-3 minutes each time. Now, there’s a HUGE reason for doing it this slowly, so don’t just go and precipitate all of the freebase out in one big shot, okay? With each 1 ml. of the ammonia soln., stir for 2-3 minutes each time, preferably with a glass stir rod or better still, a copper rod. Try extremely hard to not touch any part of the glass container with the stir rod while stirring.The reason for switching containers is that once the actual cocaine freebase starts forming, you don’t want it possibly tainted by anything that formed previously that wasn’t cocaine freebase. That is why it’s also extremely important you do not ever touch the edges of the glass while the goo is forming. Once you accidentally free up any of the goo, it will not reattach itself to the glass, thus ultimately ending up in your real cocaine freebase. So just don’t touch the glass with the stir rod, okay?

After about 4-5 ml.s and 2-3 minutes between each ml. added, an extremely nasty and unpleasant looking goo will start to form on your stir rod. This is not cocaine freebase, but instead one of the easier forming bases like amphetamine etc. There will be 2 different substances that form during this entire process. One will be the yellowish goo that forms first. The goo is NOT cocaine and should be ignored. The second substance that forms will be the actual cocaine base. It’s bleached white in appearance and is solid flakes to rocks.

Remember: the initial goo that sticks to the copper rod is rubbish/junk. The next thing to form on the copper will be the bleach white freebase. From that point on, anything that forms in the water will be freebase and that may or may not stick to the rod. Regardless, once the freebase starts to form, it’s all freebase from that point on until no more precipitate forms from the addition of ammonia.

Continue slowly adding the 1 ml. of ammonia soln. and keep checking the stir rod after the 3-minute stirring period. The goo will continue to grow on the stir rod as all of the other freebases other than cocaine continue to precipitate out first. After awhile, you’ll finally start seeing the final base, cocaine, start forming on the stir rod as a bleach white, rock hard substance.

So, to reiterate;  now you have continued slowly adding the ammonia until the goo has completely stopped forming and the white base starts forming. It’s at that point you switch glass beakers. You can discard any oily goo in the first beaker. Make sure you wipe off any goo that formed on the stir rod prior to freebase forming, though.

Pour the contents of the beaker straight into a 2nd beaker; no coffee filter is needed for the 2nd pour, but you will need a 3rd beaker ready and waiting, with the coffee filter primed to catch anything from the top.

Once this happens, – the entire contents of the water/cocaine mixture having been poured into a 2nd fresh glass beaker or mason jar, ideally without using a filter yet, because all that is left to form now will be the last and final base, cocaine! You need to continue slowly adding the ammonia drip by drip to the new beaker, stirring without touching the sides or bottom, until no more precipitate forms from the addition of any new ammonia. If you add any additional ammonia past the point of new precipitate forming, it will decompose your actual base.  

You’ll pour everything through a coffee filter into the 3rd fresh beaker. Now clean off the goo from the stir rod containing all the other bases, or junk, and make sure it’s clean for the last and final stage of the process.
Using the 3rd beaker, having poured the contents of beaker 2 through the coffee filtered beaker 3, continue adding the ammonia solution, drip by drip to the cocaine/water mixture until no more white precipitate forms with the addition of more ammonia soln. Once all of the 100% pure cocaine freebase is completely done precipitating, pour the contents into a filter and let drain thoroughly. One drained, open the filter and pour the freebase into a glass beaker with a small amount (20 ml.s per gram) of plain fresh water in it. Stir completely to completely rinse off all of the ammonia soln. and then once again pour into a filter. Once drained and while still in the filter, pour a little more fresh water over the now pure cocaine freebase to wash away any final traces of ammonia.

Remove the filter paper containing the pure cocaine freebase and place the filter paper still containing the freebase inside between a few paper towels, press firmly on the clump portion to absorb any additional moisture and then while still in the filter paper, blow dry until dry to the touch. Carefully open over a ceramic plate and let all of the freebase fall out onto it. Let air dry for as long as it takes to become completely dry (especially if your planning on reconverting it back to 100% pure cocaine hydrochloride). This could be as long as overnight.

Make sure you weigh your adulterated coke beforehand, and then once again after the pure freebase dries. Do your calculation to determine the EXACT purity of the crap you were originally sold. Call your dealer and tell him to fuck off that it’s only 26%, and then find a new dealer.

Thanks to Le Junk for this excellent info!

Now, either smoke an entirely different freebase than anything you’ve ever smoked before, or turn the freebase back into your very first batch of nearly pure cocaine hydrochloride. Enjoy a cleaner product!

Le Junk says “Using the bi-carb method is an absolute ghetto method way of making cocaine/amphetamine/ephedrine/pseudoephedrine freebase mix, nothing more. There should never be heat involved in the making of cocaine freebase.”

Using Acetone to Free the Base

Taken from Dave Lee’s Cocaine Handbook but written up by NickyFab who, for the purposes of the article refers to a user as SWIM (someone who isn’t me!) at http://drugsforum.com

“Id like to say this method was taken from David lee’s book on cocaine which swim told me is on most torrent websites, and some smaller bookstores (at a high price). This book is amazing and although 20 years old is a great companion for any connoisseur. Also, Le Junks amazing threads from a few years ago are of great use to any reader wishing to learn more about this product.

Ok so here is the simple steps to clean out your stash, swim did this with a mere 1g but recommends highly that you do this with at least 3g to make it worth it, you will be so pissed when you see how nice it comes out and so little you have if done with less.

items you need are
1, 1 ltr can of acetone available online and small DIY shops, don’t bother with the big stores, they don’t sell it and they know why they don’t! it has to be pure acetone, not nail varnish.

2, bag of Epsom salts (skip these if you somehow can get anhydrous acetone from a chem lab supply store)

3, two 50 or 100ml glass beakers, glass eye dropper, plastic funnel (preferably 16cm, but not too important), filter paper- medium flow, glass stirrer (must be glass), lab stand to hold funnel (you can make shift these at home easily just improvise or get your buddy to hold it lol, don’t!) glass cover for beaker, paperclip, toothbrush.

right first off swim has got to get all the water that’s hiding in the acetone down to the bottom, swim bakes around 3 handfulls of the Epsom salts in the oven at around gas mark 6 – 400 degrees f, after around 2 hours take them out and crush them up real fine with a spoon then put back in for another 10 minutes, leave to cool but not for too long,

swim takes around 10-15 grams of the now ash-like powder and a few grams at a time add it to the can of acetone, shake the can well for around 2 minutes and then leave it to settle for 24 hours. all your ash has collected the water molecules in the acetone and sank it to the bottom, note that you cant really move the can around much after this as the ash in the bottom will be disturbed and rise up into the acetone.

from now on when swim needs some acetone collect it from the can direct using the eye dropper, which must be glass, collect it into the bottle and keep the lid on at all times when not in use.

this is based on 1g but recommended that 3g be used, just adjust the measurements accordingly.

1: chop up the most likely dirty coke into a fine powder and pour it into the beaker add 10ml of acetone to the beaker and stir for around 2 minutes. the mixture will become very cloudy, cover and leave for around 5 minutes to let the crystals settle at the bottom.

2: pour the acetone into the filter which is setup inside the funnel attached to the lab stand standing over the other glass beaker. dont let any crystals leave the beaker yet, just gently pour the acetone out while keeping the crystals in the beaker.

3: add another 10ml of acetone to the beaker with the coke crystals in it, stir for about 2 minutes cover and leave to stand for 3 minutes or so.

4: pour the entire contents of the beaker through the filter then add another 5ml of acetone to the beaker and swirl to pick up any last few crystals that remain then pour into the filter. cover the filter and wait a couple of minutes now pour another 5ml of acetone direct into the filter for the final wash. leave for 5 minutes minimum.

5: gently lift up the filter from the funnel with the crystals inside it fold the top and sides over to close it, now place a paperclip over the folds to hold it in place.

6: place the filter holding your lovely shiny crystals onto a magazine or a clean surface and press down on the clump of crystals inside the filter, place under a gentle lamp for 10 minutes, place the filter somewhere dry and cool and leave for at least 24 hours, this drying process is what gives it the look and strength swiy is after so is crucial to quality, it compares to the curing of meat. the longer the curing the better the taste!

7: now the best part, gently open up the filter onto a plate or mirror and tap out the (what will now be) amazing flakey white crystals, gently use the toothbrush to brush off any crystals that have stuck to the filter paper

8: chop up your now roughly 75% pure but more importantly CLEAN real coke into the lovely fine powder it was always meant to be and enjoy the feeling of quality cocaine. goodbye stuffy nose!

after doing this with 1g swim got a .3 yield so has been getting pretty shit stuff, swim sees no point in doing this with less than 3g, with that you should get roughly 1g of top quality stuff, unless you get a better product, saying this though you can do this with 1g just to see with your own eyes how good or bad your stuff is and then let your dealer know he sucks!!

this may seem long winded as swim is a very longwinded twat lol, but it is very quick ( the process aside from drying time and making the acetone anhydrous takes about 15 minutes) and is well worth it, its very easy to get the items needed, there is no danger involved in this process unlike the a/b extraction, its quick and very easy, highly recommended for those of you who are not fiends but connoisseurs, if your a fiend you won’t be able to stand the drying time anyway lol.

swim would like to thank Le Junk for his method on making the acetone anhydrous, his threads have been of great help to swim.

well i hope this helps people wishing to clean up their stash and health at the same time, drugs are unhealthy but that does not mean you should not care about all the gunk and crap that’s in your product which in turn goes in you! for swim its more about cleaning than strengthening but the strength is awesome, rocket fuel! one last word, if swiy struggles to afford this product then its suggested that you don’t perform this, it makes the cost skyrocket (although you do indeed do far less, one small line is a kick up the ass big time) and once you try this you won’t be able to look at the street stuff again in the same way, so really only perform this if your wallet is comfortable or for a special occasion!

NOTE: This is another persons thread on the acetone way, which is useful to explain a bit about the Epsom salts, helping to shed a bit more light before you start. Click here for the good Danish site Psychedia.dk/forum