THERE’S a popular game in town and everyone’s playing it. It’s called baseball, but instead of hitting balls, participants are hitting rocks of cooked cocaine.
There’s nothing new about freebasing cocaine, or batting, as it’s commonly called. But, in the past, it was a sport confined to the very rich and the very foolish.
But soon, if statistics are anything to go by, it might become as common as smoking dope. And almost as cheap. In Johannesburg alone, the quantity of confiscated cocaine has escalated from 125g in 1990 to 65kg in the first six months of this year. This is estimated to be a mere 15 percent of the total amount of the drug in circulation.
Whereas, in the past, a gram of cocaine cost from R300 upwards, these days it can be bought in very small units, which makes it affordable to virtually anyone. Most of the cocaine sold on the Johannesburg streets today — from Berea, Hillbrow and Yeoville, stretching to the affluent northern suburbs — is targeted at the freebasing
The coke is either cooked into small rocks, sold by the half gram for R20-R100, or it is sold in its “raw” form for about R140-R200 per gram. Cooking the coke involves mixing it with bicarbonate of soda and burning it over a hot flame. This rids it of impure ingredients which dealers use to dilute it, such as baby laxative, lactose or even strychnine.
The rocks are then smoked on a pipe covered with wire mesh. And the rush users experience – – vastly different to snorting coke — can only be described as explosive.
The problem is that after the first “hit” or “klap”, the high is never the same again. This causes an insatiable hunger for more, and freebasers tend to use an ever-increasing quantity of the drug.
Severe addiction can happen in a very short space of time and prolonged use brings insomnia, appetite loss, lethargy, extreme paranoia and even psychosis. In addition, it weakens the heart muscles and irreparably damages the lungs.
In order to take the edge off the withdrawal symptoms, freebasers often resort to taking barbiturates or large quantities of alcohol.
The cost to lives is incalculable. Freebasing has produced some of the most severe addictions in the history of illegal substance abuse.