DRUGSFigure 2The slope of the line indicates how quickly the level of the drug—in
this case, alcohol—is rising in the brain. And the faster the rise, the
more dopamine release, the more euphoria, and the more craving
down the road.
That’s why smoking crack is more appealing than snorting pow-
der cocaine: smoking produces a faster, larger dopamine rush. Regu-
lar cocaine can’t be smoked; the heat destroys it. Transforming it into
crack makes it smokable, so the drug gets in the body through the lungs
instead of the nose. That makes a big difference.
When powdered cocaine flies up into the nose, it lands on the nasal
mucosa, the red lining inside your nose. It’s red because the blood ves-
sels are at the surface. Cocaine enters the bloodstream through these
vessels, but it’s not very efficient; there isn’t much room available in
there. Sometimes when a user snorts a line of cocaine, some of the
powder never makes it into their system because there’s not enough
space for it on the surface of the mucosa.
That’s not to say that snorting cocaine isn’t dangerous and addictive,
but there’s a way to make it even more dangerous and more addictive:
smoking it. Smoking cocaine as crack makes the process more efficient.
Unlike the nasal mucosa, the surface area of the lungs is huge. Filled
with hundreds of millions of tiny air sacs, the surface area is equal to