Most people have assuredly heard of cocaine, even though it goes by many different names. Names for cocaine, such as coke, crack, and blow, are typical street terms for anyone looking to buy or sell cocaine in its different forms. This is a stimulant and an extremely addictive drug that has made inroads in society, from rural farm towns to major cities everywhere.
Cocaine is produced from the coca plant, a tropical shrub easily grown in hot, damp climates in places like South America. Taking cocaine from plant material to the final product involves using solvents for an acid-base extraction, bringing the drug to its common forms for consumption. Would you recognize cocaine on the street? Have you ever wondered what cocaine tastes like?
Appearance of Cocaine
People often think of cocaine as a snowy white powder, technically cocaine hydrochloride, a salt, which creates a water-soluble drug. You can snort the powder or mix it with water, creating a version that is injected directly into your veins.
Depending on your preference, cocaine also comes in rock form, known as crack. Smoking crack in a glass pipe is typical when using the rock form of cocaine. Crack is made by mixing the white powdered form, most commonly with baking soda, and boiling until the moisture leaves behind crack cocaine. Crack ranges from white to beige, and sometimes even pink or brown, mixed with various substances, from caffeine to laundry detergent, providing a range of colors.
The Smell
Smells associated with cocaine depend on its current form and will vary depending on what the maker has mixed into the batch. Pure cocaine has an almost floral smell and can be rather pleasant. The smell differs when combined with additives such as baking soda, talcum powder, laundry detergent, or any other ingredients found in cocaine. You may also pick up traces of chemical odors such as acetone. But what does cocaine taste like?
Other Characteristics
When watching movies, you always see the person buying cocaine split open the bag and take a taste. The reason for this is that cocaine is tasted to help determine purity. So, what does cocaine taste like? Both crack and cocaine should taste bitter and make your mouth and tongue go numb. The more additives the cocaine contains, the less bitter it will taste, meaning the less pure the product is. So, if the cocaine isn’t bitter, it probably isn’t the purest lot on the market and has been cut with any combination of unidentified substances.
Identifying Cocaine
Identifying it can be challenging unless you know what you are looking for. You will often find drug paraphernalia, such as straws for snorting powdered cocaine or pipes for smoking crack cocaine. Staying on top of current trends in the drug market is necessary when ferreting out illegal substances. Following the information above, if you find what you believe to be cocaine, remember to wear gloves for safety and do not ingest the suspected substance.
