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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards

Do you, or do you know anyone who can use crack 'casually'?

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I don't mean to sound like I am pro one drug and anti another.... but I think that successful people are more likely to use drugs like heroin or meth, because you can't very well sit in an office and work a job and have to hit the crack pipe every 3 to 5 minutes.

This comment is more in reference to "successful addicts/daily users" than it is "casual hard drug users", which may be off topic.

However to connect the two I would also imagine there are more casual heroin or meth users. This is because I know a lot of people who have used heroin or meth casually, and I don't know many people to have used crack casually. Casual opiate use isn't impossible to begin with, and meth is often casually used even in unsuspecting people (when people take E and it's actually a meth bomb).
 
Yup socio we are in agreement.

My interest is that I want ot try it (again). I tried it once though didn't give it much thought after that but since recently vaping MPA and having been disappointed by it though liking the ROA and liking dopamine drugs in general (though not ones with bad comedowns, in terms of body-load) that is why I am looking into crack.

Coke is prob the best high I've had but coke is no good cos insufflation is out of the question for me- hate that ROA due to usual reasons but also due to added complications with allergies and rhinitis. I really liked vaping as a 'clean' ROA with significantly decreased bodyload. I hadn't vaped before thinking it would be the same as smoking so I'd ruled out coke as a DOC for a long time but the recent jaunt with MPA led me to my current interest.

So proceeding with caution I have been trying to study whether alot of the scare stories with crack are indeed propoganda/not representative of reality.

I think what you and I have been saying about the most troubled users being more visible also accounts for why most people on here and in general say 'everyone I know gets addicted'.

Thing is as we also say this is hard to prove although the stats from those studies seem to confirm this.

So it seems generally what they are saying is those addicted to crack would have been heavy coke users anyway and just wanted a more efficient ROA rather than it being any more inherently addictive.

So in that sense I am kind of appeased since I have gone through a coke phase before and just stopped once I saw it was detrimentally affecting my health and my studies/life in general. Since they are saying crack is the same in terms of addictive potential then it kind of puts my mind at ease- not to take it as gospel of course as I won't know for sure till I try it again but I think it's made me confident enough to give it a go.

This is especially since the 'one hit and you're hooked' has been debunked. Well I guess I'm already proof of that as I have already tried it once and wasn't hooked. I do remember instantly wanting more for 15 mins or so but then it passed and I went to sleep.

So I plan to buy a gram of coke when the opportunity arises and cook it myself sometime after I have given it some more thought and then suck it and see (pun unintended).

Socio you allude that you too have tried it, what has your personal use shown?
 
Harambulus said:
This is especially since the 'one hit and you're hooked' has been debunked.
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This is bullshit all around. Statistically the most "addictive" drug is heroin and even with that, only about 23% of people who try it ever become dependent.

I think people tell themselves they were hooked the first time so they can alleviate their personal responsibility and blame the drug... "It was SO addictive that IT hooked me the first time I tried it!"
 
I would invite everyone to read a great 2002 article by the fantastic NYTimes journalist Adam Schatz, about Glenn Loury, a mega-famous former Harvard (now Boston University) semi-conservative economist who was riding out to the ghetto in Boston to smoke crack on a regular basis. Awesome read!!
"About Face," Adam Schatz, New York Times, June 20, 2002.​
...At the same time as [Glenn Loury, Harvard's prodigy-economist] was lunching with fellows from the American Enterprise Institute, he began to immerse himself in a black urban world much like the neighborhood in which he grew up. ....
As a black critic of racial liberalism, Loury rose rapidly in Republican public-policy circles.
... his trips to Dudley Square became all-nighters. He was staying out on the street until 2 a.m. and venturing into ''some really rough spaces.'' He began freebasing cocaine and picking up women, spending much of his time in public housing projects. ''It was pathological,'' he says. ''I was castigating the moral failings of African-American life even as I was deeply caught up in it.'' All the while, he managed to maintain appearances at Harvard -- according to colleagues, he was lecturing more brilliantly than ever -- and to keep his other life a secret from his wife.

''I was bridging the extremities of two worlds,'' he recalls. ''Nobody at the Kennedy School could have known about this other world, and nobody in that world where I was a familiar character because I came regularly with a pocketful of money could have imagined the sophistication and power of the society of which I was a part. So you achieve a kind of uniqueness moving back and forth between those worlds. It was fun. There was a sense of power. There was a real rush. You weren't just breaking the rules. Rules didn't have anything to do with you. This was new territory.''
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Captain.Heroin said:
I don't mean to sound like I am pro one drug and anti another.... but I think that successful people are more likely to use drugs like heroin or meth, because you can't very well sit in an office and work a job and have to hit the crack pipe every 3 to 5 minutes.
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Totally agree with that. Again, the practical dynamics and the social rituals of introducing the drug into the body, and the situational constraints where it is used, are at least as important as the drug's chemistry and pharmacodynamics and the user's specific characteristics -- in my opinion.
Captain.Heroin said:
However to connect the two I would also imagine there are more casual heroin or meth users. This is because I know a lot of people who have used heroin or meth casually, and I don't know many people to have used crack casually. Casual opiate use isn't impossible to begin with, and meth is often casually used even in unsuspecting people (when people take E and it's actually a meth bomb).
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I think also part of it is what you were saying above -- if people have to keep hitting the pipe every three minutes, then it doesn't really look casual anymore, 'innit? Yet that same compulsive user may be sober the other 29 days a month. Who is more "casual," more "outta control"? No one perfect answer. Different drugs, different time-patterns of use, no? A terrible crack addict might keep a serious job for a long time by simply waiting until after work or weekends to go on a brain-boiling rampage of sex-crazed crack-cocaine-anal sex debauchery. If necessary, taking a sick day here and there. Some do it. Sure, recipe for disaster for many individuals, and a risk for all.
 
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''The point is this: if 1000 people smoke crack once a year, but 30 (i.e. about 3% ) people smoke crack every day (roughly what the evidence shows), then 91% of the people you meet on the street are going to be daily users (30*365)/(30*365 + 1000*1). That doesn't mean 91% of users are addicts. It simply means addicts use hundreds of times more often. (This ignores the intermediate levels of use for the sake of simplicity, but the principle remains the same if you add more categories.)

It is simply a mathematical feature of population dynamics. You're hardly ever going to encounter a first time user, or a one-time user, because that happens, well, once. Whereas the 100th - 10,000th time smoking crack happens 9,900 times. Does that makes sense? If not, say so. I won't press the point if no one cares.

Even though the actual number of high-use crack smokers is smaller, they are vastly over-represented in a "snapshot" sample of people smoking crack now out on the streets. (This dynamic is further compounded by the fact that the one-time users or once-a-year users are using in different, less visible contexts, like private apartments with friends, not public streets; and they don't end up in treatment centers or NA/AA where they are also vastly over-represented and hyper-visible.)

This is the great difficulty for researchers trying to build samples of "controlled" or low-level users. They are basically invisible because they don't use often, aren't desperate, aren't using in public, and don't end up in institutions like jails, hospitals, and rehabs''





I love this type of thing. Socio, you sound like you are in U.K. Have you read a book called 'Bad Science' by Ben Goldacre? There is a chapter on this kind of methodological artefact. This explanation demonstrates clearly why anecdotal 'evidence' of the ''well i seen a lot of people smoke crack and get addicted' kind is not useful.
 
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^great post... its something we discuss in a lot of my classes (I'm going into addiction treatment).

Such a large amount of people who use drugs never require treatment, get incarcerated and may not be open about their use so the research in nearly every regard on the subject comes from the worst of the worst and misrepresent the overall picture of drug use in society.
 
Shit that got really long. Just skip to bottom couple paragraphs if you don't wanna read it all.

Ye to go on a bit of a (albeit equally interesting) tangent I am a big big fan of the scientific method and find it extremely useful to throws its gaze on whatever task.

I began my 'rational training' in philosophy which is where I have a degree although after my study I found the scientific method a much more practical application of reason (though philosophy is always a good starting base).

I was up last night in bed thinking that the main 'problem' with crack would be that it is used irresponsibly. I think that's the main issue. I.e. going on benders when you know you have to allocate the money somewhere else or you know you should do other things with your time.

I was thinking it probably is not the most practical drug for me to want to get into for the profile I want in a drug atm IF the impulses to take it were really hard to control. It has the profile in terms of its effects but the price keeps it prohibitively expensive and part of what I want is something I could potentially do twice a week; not every week but every couple months maybe.

Someone replied in another thread that they buy a 20 dollar rock which I think they said is .2 grams? I'm UK so I wouldn't know. Anyway the guy said that he found that a 20 rock was ideal because the effects diminish with each blast and a 20 gets you 4 good blasts and you feel ok after 30 mins or so.

I was thinking are the 'problems' people have with crack not just the same as having to leave anything on a 'high point'? Like I know I've been at parties/just having a great time with friends when I know I had to work the next day but I still pull myself away. So I understand crack may be a super high thus relatively more difficult than 'normal' activities to pull away from but is it really that much better/different than a situation like this?

I mean if the high only last a couple mins then surely it couldn't be so much about the high but rather wanting back into the party after being left out in the cold- hence the feinding. Surely though the decision to want to take crack again rather than put it down due to the dysphoria is indeed a choice. Could you not just as easily associate the dysphoria with wanting to stop taking it?

I think what I want to know most is even in the height of feinding COULD you control it if you wanted? Like the guy said the effects become diminishing returns anyway so why do people bother? I know people did that with other drugs like E's taking them in the morning when it will just make you more scattered and I just thought it stupid. So I guess I'm wondering if it's the same type of people who would be taking those extra E's are the ones saying crack is so feindish whereas for most it could be controlled wiht a little willpower.

It's like come on dude the party is over for now get some rest.

Others have said that crack will still get you high every time you hit it which is why you wanna keep redosing but then aren't you able to control the fact that you are wasting money? I know most say not but some people do right? Are the apparent majority again just the 'troubled minority'? I.e. are these the same people who, instead of crack, would just as quickly spend their dole money on beer and cigarettes instead of pay their rent (no judgment :D).

I was thinking due to it being prohibitively expensive it probably isn't a good idea for me to try it at this point anyway unless I could ration myself to like .2 per session- whcih is why I want to know if it COULD be rationed in this manner. So most would say that is unrealistic though a couple dudes I read on here say they indeed do that without trouble.

I just want a dopamine agonist which has a small comedown and coke has the most forgiving comedown of them all from my exp (in terms of bodyload, I have hypothesiszed this is due to it being a natural/organic compound rather than synthetic and also that coke is broken down in the body whereas speed for instance is not, just a guess based on what I have read about the makeup of diff. substances). Drone was relatively small comedown bodyload wise except it seemed to leave me with weeklong depressions and the general feeling of braindamage. I don't really recall depression associated with toxity or whatever with coke. I just felt tired and maybe any depression would be due to my taking it in excess and/or taking it irresponsibly.

So I want to be able to 'experiment' with it to see if I could keep a handle on it but my worry before was that 'one hit and it will be the only thing you can think of'. Is it not just like anything in life? You could have an amazing meal which cost TONS of money but you know that it is 'prohibitively expensive' so you don't go for those lavish meals every night. Why should crack be any different than this? I understand that acutely under the feind you may be more impulsive but still even without drugs and having something which blasts your dopamine you'd still act just as impulsively if it was firing the same amount of dopa.

Granted I imagine crack blasts it more acutely than most/any natural things in life though I know sex/love/attraction can hit it pretty hard...I've had times when I've been really attracted to a girl and it felt phenomenologically identical to some good coke. Now I understand crack may hit it more acutely which is why I'm interested to hear from those who have experienced it what it is like phenomenologically + how much it differs form 'natural highs'.

I guess my main issue here is back to- are these troubled minorities exaggerating the feindishness of crack just cos they find they are unable to control their use?

This is why I want to try it myself but was worried about the one hit and your hooked thing.

If I could try a gram and then after be able to assess the situation rationally so as to decide whether it would be faesible to try again or not that is what I want to know.

Usually people say stuff about drugs that I think 'ye ok, I'll see for myself' and find they were sort of true but alot didn't apply to me but the problem with this one is the whole 'no going back' mystique crack has about it. So can anyone affirm/deny my query here (to the best of their knowledge of course)?
 
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I've smoked crack a couple times. It was interesting to try, but that was the only reason I did it. I don't particularly like the feeling, so I have no urge to do it often. Even the first time I got high on crack, I took a hit, and was so high I didn't want another.

I personally don't like stimulants, but I like to go with the flow and will have an occasional hit. This seems pretty casual to me...I have never once looked for it, or payed money for it.
 
Once you become fully tolerant to crack, you don't even have any use for it at all. At best you re-acidify it for IV.
 
Well for a time I was 'addicted' I guess to cocaine already so maybe I'd fit the post addiction category...

i.e. fitting the criteria of doing it to the detriment of other things and that stuff.
 
My moms boyfriend thought he could use it once in a while without consequences............then he lost his jobs his friends and money... before I knew it my mom started using....they kicked my 16 year old sister out on the streets.....started selling weed and pills to support his habbit....and know he's made my life fukn hell....so basically what I'm saying is shit rolls down and if u want to ruin your life and the people you love go ahead and use.
 
I actually have known someone who used crack casually; he was my oxy connect back in the day and I had no idea that he smoked crack until he mentioned it. I couldn't believe it. I asked him all about it, and he was so nonchalant about it.

That being said, I've also known people who have gone absolutely balls crazy on it. Being around someone who has just smoked crack is, in my opinion, a terrible, terrible experience.
 
This has to be hands down the most interesting and informative post about crack Ive ever seen or had the pleasure to read after years on drug forums and boards.
 
stuckinaloop said:
Honestly I've never heard anyone say they were hooked the first time. Thats the REASON they got hooked, becuase at first you feel in control. Then it sneaks up on you.
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This has been claimed by addicts and propagandists for decades. Just google phrases like "addicted first time" and check out some of the over 80,000,000 results.
 
I've always been able to use crack recreationally without fiending too badly for it. I find it difficult to save any once I've started smoking, but I usually accept it when it's gone.

I'm addicted to opiates, though, and I always have plenty of opiates and benzos ready to take near the end of a crack sesh - I try to time it so that they're kicking in when I run out. It's a social thing for me, though, never really like to do any stims alone, and most of my friends use crack casually like I do - afaik, anyway.

I normally do it once every couple months, but if I have cash and there's nothing better around, I'll buy some - most I've ever done is a sesh every weekend for a couple months when I was friends with a crack dealer. Never gone out and got any after I ran out, though.
 
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