Chapter 2 Chasing Heroin and Cocaine: A Basic Description

Like many other drugs, heroin and cocaine can be taken into the body in a number of ways, e.g. via the mucous membranes of the stomach (swallowing) or the nose (sniffing), by smoking or inhaling the fumes when heated and by injecting. Oral use (swallowing) has a very mild effect and is for that reason hardly practiced. Sniffing is the most common mode of cocaine administration in non deviant users.1 In the USA it is probably the second important mode of heroin administration. Heroin is mostly chased in the Netherlands, whereas cocaine is mostly chased or based.

2.1 Chasing Heroin
2.1.1 A first Impression
The descriptive term chinezen refers to the behavior of trying to inhale the curling fumes of heroin vapor with a tube as the heated liquid heroin flows along a piece of foil. It is usually mentioned as a form of drug smoking. However, contrary to the logic of the word ‘smoking’, the drug is actually not smoked. Technically, when heated, the drug melts and subsequently vaporizes. The vapors are then inhaled. So the drug is not burned, causing smoke, like with tobacco. For practical reasons the term smoking will be used, as it is most common used. The following fieldnote presents a representative depiction of heroin chasing:


With a small pocket knife she takes a knife tip of heroin from the paper package and puts it on the oblong strip of aluminum foil that lies in front of her on the table. She takes the foil in her left hand and with her right hand she puts a tube with a length of i 7 cm and a diameter of + 0.5 cm in her mouth. With the same hand she takes the disposable lighter from the table and lights it Before holding the flame under the foil she checks the height of the flame. Then she bends a little over and brings the foil at approximately 10 cm from her mouth, a little tilted and parallel to her body. The end of the tube is now + 1 cm away from the little pile of light brown powder on the foil, slightly behind it Simultaneously, she carefully positions the lighter, so that the top of the flame is + 1 cm under the foil where the heroin lies. The heroin powder melts, turns into a dark reddish brown drop and starts to run slowly along the length of the foil leaving a brown track behind. With the tube she carefully follows the drop and inhales the fumes that curl up from the heated liquid. When the drop approaches the end of the foil she stops heating it, while continuing to inhale for a second. The drop solidifies and spreads out a little. She puts the foil back on the table and takes the tube from her mouth. After about 10 seconds she exhales.

This fieldnote shows several important features of heroin chasing. In order to chase heroin one needs, besides the drug, certain distinctive paraphernalia, such as a knife, aluminum foil, a lighter, and a tube-shaped pipe. Furthermore, one needs the knowledge and skills to use these tools in the required manner. Some of these need special preparation. Finally, there are some requirements for the place where chasing takes place. In the following paragraph the use and instrumental functions of these paraphernalia will be described.

2.1.2 Paraphemalia for Heroin Chasing
Both chasers and IDUs habitually carry knives. Although some users may think of their knives as a status symbol or weapon for self defense or robbery, they will find themselves using it mainly in handling drugs. A dealer uses a knife to scoop the drugs from her/is stash into the balance or to eyeball the smallest sales unit, a ‘halve streep’ (a half stripe = ffi 0.05 gram) at the point of the knife. With a knife the user takes the heroin out of the package and puts it on the foil or, when injecting, in the spoon. The primary function of knives is instrumental in the process of drug use. Therefore, most of the observed drug users use a small, easy to handle pocket knife. Only once a large, dagger type, knife was observed in the process of preparing a considerable amount of cocaine for smoking. In contrast, the blade of the smallest knife observed measured only 3 cm. When a knife is unavailable, users may turn to less preferable alternatives, such as a screw driver, a dining knife or a stanley knife. But, pocket knives are favored as these are more appropriate in handling small quantities of the precious powder.

The aluminum foil from which heroin is smoked is ordinary kitchen foil and can be obtained in any supermarket, where it is sold on roles of 25 meter x 30 cm. The common size of the smoking foil is + 5-7 x 15 cm, which is half of the width of the roll. Chasers were observed just tearing off a piece of foil to have a quick "chineesje". This happens often when they are in a hurry or in withdrawal. But frequently they put relatively considerable time in the preparations of the foil and also the pipe (see below). Then the foil is cut or torn neatly at the preferred size, and stretched and rubbed to take out the wrinkles.

The lighter is an important tool for a chaser. Although one young user was observed heating his foil with an expensive Dupont lighter, most smokers prefer a transparent disposable lighter with an adjustable flame. The flame that is needed to heat a spoon has to be rather big, but when chasing, the flame necessary to melt and vaporize the drug may not be too high, as the aluminum foil could be damaged or the drug could catch fire. It has to be disposable for more than one reason. Most lighters are not designed to stand heat for periods much longer than the time it takes to light a cigarette. When chasing for prolonged time the mechanism can be deranged or damaged by the heat. For that reason, chasers prefer disposable lighters that can be taken apart and then be readjusted beyond the standard range of the flame adjustment mechanism. Likewise, chasing takes a lot of gas and a chaser with an empty lighter has a serious problem. This also accounts for the preference for a transparent type; the gas level can be monitored and a new lighter can be purchased in time.

The tube-shaped pipe is another important tool. In 1975, when chasing was just emerging as a heroin administration route, the author often observed (in particular novice) chasers use a rolled up FL 10.- bill to inhale the fumes. Since then, the genuine chasing pipe has developed into an ingenious piece of crafts-work, although any tube-shaped object, such as pens, straws or any rolled up piece of paper will do in emergencies. Normally paperboard or thick paper that keeps it’s shape when rolled up is used. The preparation of a pipe (and a smoking foil) varies, depending on several factors. The time, concentration, and care put into the construction of a pipe seems to depend on variables such as craving, the availability of time and materials, the setting of use, as well as the skills and experience of the user. For example, a clear relationship between craving and the functionality and esthetics of the design can be observed. High craving mostly results in a fast made pipe. As one user said, while he tore off a piece of a magazine cover, "Don’t care how it looks now, I’m sick, I need a smoke fast".

But, in a less urgent situation users usually prepare a pipe conform a number of distinctive, prescribed specifications. Such pipes are made of aluminum foil, paperboard from a cigarette paper pack and a cigarette paper. In the Netherlands it is common to smoke hand rolled cigarettes and the slip of the cover of the cigarette paper ( + 7 x 3 cm) has just the right format for a pipe. The cover slip is wrapped in a piece of overlapping aluminum foil. The overlaps are folded around the paper and then the whole thing is rolled up (e.g. around a pencil) so that the folds are on the outside. Finally the aluminum foil-covered pipe is rolled in a cigarette paper to keep it together. Users often make little pieces of art of their pipes. However the design is not just ‘art for art’s sake’, but, as can be witnessed in the next excerpt, highly functional:

Boris is chasing cocaine and heroin. When he has finished the dose on his foil, he opens up his pipe. It is made of aluminum foil, a piece of paperboard from a cigarette paper pack and a cigarette paper. It has the size of a filter cigarette. After taking off the cigarette paper, Boris folds back the foil. On the foil that was on the inside of the pipe is a light brown film of a heroin and cocaine mix residuum. First Boris constructs a new pipe like the old one. Then he chases what is left from the old tube.

The foil covered pipe has primarily an important instrumental function. While inhaling the vapors through a pipe, some of the drug will deposit on the inside of the pipe, covered or not. However, when an aluminum foil-covered pipe is used, this deposit is 100 % re-usable without performing complicated procedures. It depends on the quality of the drug and on the smoking technique how big the deposit is. Observations indicate that this quantity may go as high as up to 40 % of the drug vapors that have passed through the pipe. Users have a specific name for this deposit:

The man looks into his pipe, he has put tin-foil inside. He says: ‘Let me see, how much interest there is inside’.

Some users report they save the pipe to smoke the interest in the morning when they have neither drugs nor money.

2.1.3 The Technique of Chasing Heroin
It is clear that chasing is a complex practice that requires a distinguished level of knowledge and skills. This can also be observed in the smoking technique of users. Contrast the following fieldnote with that of the woman at the beginning of this chapter:

On the first floor Jack is busy scraping out the last remains of heroin from a plastic sandwich bag. He puts the drug an a piece of aluminum foil and gives the foil to the blonde guy who starts chasing through a rolled up piece of paperboard. He does not heat the foil carefully and misses many of the fumes

Experienced chasers dose the flame carefully and keep the end of the tube right behind the drop, as close as possible. Their lighter and tube move almost simultaneously. When the drop runs over the foil it leaves, depending on the cuts and impurities, a light to dark brown track behind. By adjusting the distance of the flame to the foil and the angle of the foil, the speed, path and number of tracks of the drop are influenced.

He keeps the lighter very close to the foil, causing the heroin to burn quickly. Because of this the heroin drop only makes a short track.

The amount of vapors, the speed with which the drug runs across the foil and consequently how many ‘chineesjes’ come out of each dose depends mainly on how much heat is added.2

Finally, the place where heroin is chased is of importance. Although people were observed chasing on the streets, the best results are obtained in a sheltered place, where wind cannot influence the vapors.

2.2 Chasing Cocaine
2.2.1 The Emergence of Cocaine Use in the Heroin Scene
In the early 1980s cocaine use grew rapidly in the heroin scene. Already in 1981 in many places on the ‘Kop van de Zeedijk’ in Amsterdam (at that time a main heroin copping area in Amsterdam) heroin and cocaine were sold together. However, a considerable number of users had prior experience with cocaine. 41 % of client intakes of the Amsterdam methadone bus in 1979 used cocaine. In 1987/1988 this had increased to 77%, while in 1989 this was 73.2%.3 A number of snowball sampling studies conducted in Dutch cities support the hypothesis of an increasing prevalence and preference of cocaine among heroin users in the Netherlands. Studies conducted in Amsterdam4 5 and in Rotterdam and Utrecht on selected subpopulations of heroin users (foreign origin, prostitutes) showed about a 60 % prevalence of cocaine use. A further study of cocaine use in Rotterdam confirmed a coprevalence of cocaine and heroin in various milieus, suggesting a high prevalence of cocaine use among heroin users in general.7 In this study 96% of the research participants were using both heroin and cocaine. Cocaine seems to have become a drug of choice for many heroin users in the Netherlands. This is in contrast with the situation before 1982, when it was more or less seen as a frill, or a matter of secondary importance.

To understand cocaine use among heroin users, one has take to the patterns of heroin use as a point of departure. In the Netherlands, these patterns were subject to a subcultural development of 20 years, starting around 1972. Cocaine use may be conceived as being nested in these heroin taking rituals. Thus, IDUs will generally inject cocaine, while heroin smokers smoke cocaine base.

2.2.2 Preparing Cocaine Base: Paraphernalia and Reagents
Cocaine is generally sold in the hydrochloride form and crack (commercially fabricated cocaine base) is, with a very small excepion, not available on the illegal drug markets in the Netherlands.8 As the hydrochloride form is not very suitable for smoking (it largely decomposes before volatilization). Dutch cocaine smoking heroin users first process the cocaine-hydrochloride to its precursor base form themselves. This seems preferable to the users as then they have more control over the product they will smoke. In order to prepare this home-made crack, one needs some additional tools and ‘home’ chemicals, such as a spoon, some tissue or toilet paper and a base like aqueous ammonia or baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and a little water. At many dealing places spoons, ammonia, tissue br toilet paper and water are supplied by the dealer as is aluminum foil to chase. The spoon is usually a teaspoon, often bent, so that when put down on a flat surface it stays steady and level. The ammonia or bicarbonate is used to separate the hydrochloride group from the cocaine base. The tissue or toilet paper is used to dry the cocaine base when processed. The knife is used to extract the base from the solution in the spoon.

Most users prefer to use ammonia as this is the easiest and fastest mode. The ammonia comes in commercial household bottles containing 0.5 liter. A small hole is made in the cap to secure a careful dosing when dripping it in the spoon, preventing overfloating and wasting the substance. Other users prefer to use bicarbonate, mainly because they regard it as a safer means than ammonia, as the preference for bicarbonate is generally explained in terms of the health consequences of inhaling ammonia vapors:

"Ammonia bites, salt cleanses."

"No never, it’s too dangerous. You never know how much ammonia stays behind and how much you get in while smoking. That’s why I always use ‘maagzout’ (= bicarbonate) ."

While bicarbonate is safer it requires a more skilled hand as it must be carefully dosed and it takes slightly more time. Furthermore, not at all deal places (e.g. in some squatted houses) water is readily available. When ammonia is used, it is carefully dripped into the spoon. If bicarbonate is used, first a small amount (+ 1/3 of the cocaine powder) of the powder is put in and next the spoon is filled with some water, often by dripping it off a finger. Next the spoon is heated so the chemical reaction between the hydrochloride group and the base can take place.

The solution is heated until the base clusters into an oily drop, floating in the liquid. Then the user takes his/her knife and tips the drop or the surface of the solution carefully, often turning the blade of the knife each time. The cocaine base then deposits on the tip of the blade, forming a lump. A small pocket knife is preferred, as this is easy to handle, but any metal tool will suffice. When the lump has solidified most users dry it with a piece of tissue or toilet paper. Finally the lump is broken off the knife and ready to smoke.

2.2.3 The Technique of Chasing Cocaine
Cocaine can be smoked in various ways; in cigarettes or ‘coke joints’, from aluminum foil and ‘based’ in specially designed or customized base pipes. As with heroin, the drug is not burned, but melted and vaporized. The vapors are inhaled. As chasing was the dominant route of ingestion for heroin in the research group, this was also the case for cocaine. Chasing heroin was practiced before cocaine entered the heroin scene and acted as a model for non injecting heroin users, who started using cocaine. Heroin users chase cocaine in a number of ways; pure, often alternated with heroin and mixed with heroin.

There exists a functional relationship between cocaine and heroin for both smokers and IDUs—cocaine is used for pleasure and heroin to control the unwanted side effects of intensive cocaine use.9 However, cocaine and heroin are also smoked together for very practical reasons. It requires more skills to chase pure cocaine than heroin. For example, when chasing pure cocaine one must dose the flame very carefully:

... She hears the foil carefully so that the flame does not touch the foil. This way the cocaine drop slowly runs over the foil

When heated less cautiously, the liquid cocaine base has a very low cohesion and behaves very capriciously on the foil:

With his fingers he breaks the lump off the knife and puts some pieces on the foil. From his pocket he takes a tube and starts to chase the cocaine base. He follows the dope carefully on the foil. The cocaine follows a very whimsical trajectory on the foil. The drop splits up several times and when he stops heating the foil it spreads into a large spot After exhaling he starts again but he first chases the offshoots of the spot to make it into one drop again.

Cocaine is harder to chase for another reason. It is colorless when liquid and therefore harder to follow. For that reason users often add a little heroin to the cocaine. This little amount of heroin is called ‘een kleurtje’ which means ‘a little color’. It is meant to color the colorless cocaine base liquid which then becomes transparent light brown and easier to chase:

After he has smoked 2 ‘chineesjes’ pure base ... he now adds heroin to it He says he does it for ‘het kleurtje’ but also to stay relaxed.

Heroin is much more cohesive. Therefore it does not only tone the base, but it also produces a more cohesive mixture; it ‘tames the white dragon’ and makes it easier to chase. The following example depicts that quality of heroin:

He puts some heroin on a foil and starts chasing. The heroin powder melts into a drop and then runs along the foil. In contrast with coke, the heroin drop stays very cohesive and runs smoothly and steady on the foil leaving a light brown track behind.

The rationale of these behaviors is confirmed by laboratory simulations of chasing. Most illicit heroin is much less volatile than cocaine base. Mixing the two substances decreases the volatility of cocaine, while increasing that of heroin.2

2.2.4 The Technique of Basing
Besides chasing cocaine, many users were observed basing cocaine. Basing is the most direct and efficient smoking mode, producing a ‘rush’ (impact effect), comparable with, and according to some authors even more rapid and intense than injecting. 10 11 12 Chasing is also efficient, but a much more moderate way of ingestion. When a certain amount of cocaine base is chased, it may take five to ten runs of the drug along the foil, depending on the (heating) technique. Each run accompanied by inhalation of the vaporized product through the tube. When the same amount of cocaine is based, the vaporized substance is drawn into the chamber of the pipe and taken into the body in one or two inhalations. Compared to chasing, basing does not only produce a more intense impact effect, it is also a very expensive mode of administration and for that reason, it used to be reserved to dealers who have a much higher availability to the drug than the average user.

However, during the fieldwork in 1988 the prevalence of basing among chasers seemed to be rising—a sudden increase in basing was witnessed at house addresses. In that period the prices of both heroin and cocaine were going down. Besides the price level and the stronger impact effect, group dynamics also seemed to play a role in this rapid rise. One user gave the following explanation for the observed wave of basing.

"I’m smoking coke from the glass for about three weeks or so. It gives a much better ‘bang’ than chasing the coke. Now many guys are smoking from the glass. It’s a kind of fashion whim. About three weeks ago someone started to smoke from the glass and told others it gave a great kick. Others tried it too, that is how the ball started rolling."

Basing requires the same preparations as chasing. The difference is in the apparatus that is used in smoking; the cocaine base is put in a pipe:

Fred took the cocaine lumps and started smoking the base in a glass ‘water bong’. This bong is designed to smoke cannabis. It had a picture of a cannabis shrub on it ... Fred put a lump in the head of the pipe, put the mouth piece to his mouth and then heated the base, dosing the flame carefully. He first drew the pipe full of smoke and then he released the air hole and inhaled all the smoke. He repeated it until it was finished. He then sat back, closed his eyes and laid his head against the back of the sofa.

All kinds of self-constructed or commercial pipes like hashish pipes, water pipes designed to smoke hashish and freebase pipes (with or without water/liquor) are used to smoke pure cocaine base. Designer pipes, such as in the last example, are not common as they are expensive, bulky and fragile and therefore not easy to carry around. Specially prepared water glasses were most often observed:

Around a little table near the door are sitting two creole Surinamese males, one is smoking cocaine in a base pipe. One of the Dutch men, Fokkie, is smoking cocaine from a ‘glas’. The glass is covered with aluminum foil. In the foil are little holes and on the opposite side is a larger hole. First he puts some cigarette ash on the little holes, on the ash he puts some small cocaine base lumps. Jack says that the ash is put on the holes to prevent that the melting cocaine base falls through the holes in the foil. ‘Now the coke is absorbed by the ash.’ With his lips Fokkie covers the larger hole, lights the cocaine base and inhales the smoke. On the table stands another smoking glass and also one on the dealing table.

The glass does not necessarily have to be a water glass. Any jar of about the size of a water glass will do. The main requirement is that it must be possible to cover the opening with a piece of aluminum foil. Subsequent observations in 1989, 1990 and 1991 have shown that cocaine basing has become increasingly important. Many users have turned to basing cocaine (mostly in little, self-constructed pipes), while maintaining heroin chasing.

As explained above, the smoking of cocaine among heroin users in the Netherlands is generally limited to smoking home-made crack. Although no extra cuts or fillers will be added during self processing, this product still contains the impurities and cuts that were in the cocaine before processing it into the base.’3 In addition it may hold some of the processing chemicals (bicarbonate or ammonia). This product is different from ‘free-base’, cocaine base of almost a 100 % purity. This purity is reached by refining the cocaine base of-all cuts and processing residues in ether. Due to the superior purity the effect is even more potent. Because of the rather complicated and dangerous process (ether is a highly inflammable liquid) actual free-base is rarely smoked by heroin users in the Netherlands.

Note. Sodium Bicarbonate in the form of baking soda is not generally used in Dutch kitchen practice.

It is however sold as a stomach de-acidifier in drug stores and pharmacies and called "stomach salt".



2.3 References

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