My textbook for Organic Chemistry has an uncharacteristically specific passage about the science of cocaine. It discusses methods of ingestion and their respective effects on the rate of absorption of the drug. It then discusses how to make the compound odorless and less volatile. It even compares methods of efficiency for converting cocaine to crack cocaine, eventually concluding that sodium bicarbonate, the household chemical known as baking soda, is the best method of synthesizing crack cocaine. No other single chemical received such attention in the textbook. . .
