[quote= what lead to crack exploding and catching on when it did if it had been around for at least 9 years before. [/quote]

Gets,

Coke was cheap to produce,not cheap for the folks using it and crack was even more profitable for the dealer and much cheaper for the user, maybe $5 for a good size piece at that time. My best guess would be it took a while for crack to catch on, this was the 70"s and 80"s, back then news traveled much slower than it does today. Of course the public and government did little to educate folks on the ugly side of crack use so the people who started using it only heard one side of the story: crack addict A tells new user B, his buddy, that this shit is like the best blow job he ever had times ten. That same guy failed to mention that he was now smoking $300.00 a day of this poison, he's pawning his grandmother's jewelry, he hasn't had a woody in 2 years and he has been hiding under the bed everyday because the cops are peeking in the blinds.