Cocaine was once embraced as an additive to popular formulations in The United States for a number of products. Manufacturers often touted cocaine as perfectly healthy for you and added it to everything from soft drinks to health tonics. All of that came to a screeching halt with The Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, which banned the sale and use of cocaine.
Today, cocaine is still illegal and, therefore, unregulated. When substances are unregulated, it is always a crapshoot as to what you are actually obtaining. When identifying cocaine, asking the question of what does cocaine taste like is one way of determining if the drug is legitimate.
Cocaine Flavor
So, what does cocaine taste like? The flavor of cocaine should be very bitter. Even cocaine that is cut with other substances, such as everyday household products, will still taste bitter. You will detect different flavors depending on what was added to the final product and how it was produced, but the underlying flavor is unpleasantly bitter. Common additives include talc, baking soda, and even powered laundry detergent. For more information, search online for “what does cocaine taste like?”
Cocaine Odors
In its purest form, cocaine is said to have an almost floral scent to it, but you will unlikely find that to be true in today’s market. Most cocaine that is sold here in The United States has been cut many times with other substances before it ever hits the streets and can smell like whatever is mixed into the final product. Crack cocaine is most often smoked in a glass pipe, and the smell emitted is noxious and quite acrid. There will be a heavy chemical smell when someone is smoking cocaine.
Forms of Cocaine
Cocaine comes in a few different forms, which can be identified when you know what you are looking for. The most common types of cocaine come in a snowy white to off-white powder or in rock form, referred to as crack cocaine. Crack cocaine comes in a form very similar to small pieces of gravel, hence the street name rock. Powered cocaine, often referred to as blow, bump, or sometimes flake, can be snorted through a hollow tube or straw. Occasionally, this fine powder is mixed with water and injected into the vein.
Surveys Say
The National Institute on Drug Abuse posted survey findings for cocaine abuse in America for the year 2021. For users aged 12 and older, there are about 1.4 million people who have suffered from a cocaine use disorder in the past year. That is a whopping 0.5% of the American public using cocaine in one form or another. Further delving into the statistics provided, of the population using cocaine in any form, almost 25,000 died from overdose on this dangerous drug.
As of 2020, the state of Oregon decriminalized the use of cocaine. The sale, production, and use of cocaine is still illegal; however, residents of Oregon with small amounts of cocaine will no longer be arrested in hopes of providing more significant measures of rehabilitation and recovery for drug addicts.