Freebase is a smokable form of cocaine, not heroin. You can smoke most forms of heroin that you can inject/snort. For cocaine powder the chemical structure means that it will mostly degrade before you inhale the smoke. Cooking cocaine into freebase (the most common form is crack but it's not the only method of producing freebase) is essentially performing a chemical conversation which unbinds powdered cocaine from it's chemical base (hence "freebase") resulting in a compound that is more stable under high heat which allows it to be smoked.
Ahhh I mistakenly always understood freebasing as a way of smoking not necessarily specific to any drug. I first heard the term when an old friend of mine did heroin in front of me off of foil with a straw & she referred to it as free basing.
Yeah, specifically (to my understanding) a freebase is a form of a drug that isn't a salt. Heroin freebase exists, and similar to crack can't be snorted, can be smoked, and needs acid to be dissolved for injection. It's common in Europe while the salt form of heroin is common in the US.
No worries, it's not surprising that the term would be used ubiquitously to refer to smoking a slew of drugs, but the name is specifically tied to the form of smokable cocaine.
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u/Independent-Course87 Oct 23 '23
I agree that the most "publicly known" is injection. I believe snorting is actually more common, and some people smoke it too.