Cocaine
Cocaine is one of the most well known drugs out there, it has been around for thousands of years. It caused the famous Miami Drug war between government officials (DEA, FBI) and The big drug cartels from Miami (Medellin cartel and the Cali Cartel).
Cocaine is known to be cut with several different ingredients, here is a small list of popular substances coke is cut with:
- talcum powder
- flour
- cornstarch
To get the crystal look cocain has and for it to stick together, these substances are often sprayed with hairspray.
Why is cocaine cut?
Cocaine is a huge business, so why cut the cocaine instead of selling the pure substance? Drug manufacturers and dealers often cut the drug with cheaper substances in order to gain more profit and stretch the use of the product.
Pure?
Extracting cocaine
The process of extracting cocaine is unique, since you can't do it
anywhere in the world, coca leaves are known to grow in certain
parts of south America (Colombia, Perú etc) due to their tropical
climate and altitude (It grows on mountains). People have tried to
grow it in other places and have succeeded but it was immediately
banned so the only place were it is possible to find these leaves is
south America.
Process of extraction
To start off, to make a kilo, the amount of leaves needed is around 370kg, for this we will need over two acres of land to grow the plants.
Once we have our 370kg of leaves they will need to soak in gasoline, mix with sulfuric acid. Once we have stirred our mixture for a while and let the gasoline and sulfuric acid settle in burning the leaves, we will need to filter the mixture using some piece of cloth, can be an old shirt etc. We let our mixture sit there for a day or so, for it to dry up. After our mixture has dried up we must mix it with a solvent, acetone works best, the more powerful the solvent, the better our mixture. Finally we must press it into which ever shape you want it and there we have it, a kilo of cocaine.
Overdosing
It is estimated that a dose of 1.2g could lead to a potential overdose if the person's metabolism has never experienced cocaine.
Most deaths are accidental since effects of cocaine could trigger preexisting health conditions and worsen them. A lethal mix is cocaine and alcohol, several OD's are triggered by this lethal mix.
4