Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
to free-base

to free-base

9.9
To burn pure cocaine and breathe in the smoke
  • verb
  • /ˈfriːˌbeɪs/
  • NSFW
translation icon : fumarse cocaína
  • To enhance the potency of cocaine, some users choose to free-base it before smoking.

Examples

  • Many people are unaware of the risks involved when they free-base cocaine instead of using it in its standard form.

  • He learned how to free-base cocaine in order to experience a stronger high.

  • For smoking, it has to be converted to its free base: crack.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • It's just a poor man's free base.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • Baking soda can be used to convert cocaine hydrochloride to its free base form.

    Blog text (22)

  • This is typical of an ascent on the technological ladder: beer to whiskey; opium to morphine to heroin; coca to cocaine and now to this most potent possible form of "free-base" cocaine.

    Academic text (1993)

Synonyms

to base
vsto free-base
  • NSFW
44 9.9

To heat and inhale cocaine to get high

uses burning at higher heat instead of gentler heating

How Potent

tornado
  • NSFW
4 9.9
to free-base
  • NSFW
9.9
powder
220 1.0

Surface Forms

free-base infinitive
free-based past
free-based past participle
free-basing present participle
free-bases third person singular

Morphology

free-base = free base (opaque) = free + base

The verb is a converted use of the noun phrase 'free base', but the drug-specific meaning is specialized and not directly predictable from the meanings of 'free' and 'base'.

Etymology

Free-base comes from chemistry: free means 'not combined' and base is like the English 'base', the simple or main form of a substance. So to free-base a drug is to change it into that form and 'burn and inhale' it.