Cocaine Purity Test: How To Test for Pure Cocaine
One of our most requested purity test kits is finally here—the Cocaine QTest Purity Test Kit. This revolutionary at-home test kit makes it possible to measure the purity—the strength, or amount of cocaine—in your powdered or solid sample.
How Our QTest Helps Prevent Cocaine Overdose
Our Cocaine Purity Test Kit is the next step in preventing overdose from one of the most common recreational substances. This kit reveals the percent purity and amount of grams of cocaine in your sample, using only 20 mg (.02 g) as a sample size.
Understanding the purity of your cocaine is a key to understanding the strength—and how it may ultimately affect your body if you choose to consume it. While drug tolerance, existing health conditions, substance combinations, and more can contribute to the potential to overdose, understanding the amount of active substance present is extremely helpful in employing conscious harm reduction practices.
A common harm reduction mentality, “start low and go slow”—the principle that encourages starting with a small amount of a substance and seeing how your body reacts to it at the time, before choosing to take more—can now be applied to a measured gram amount. In turn, the likelihood of unintentionally taking too much decreases significantly.
Crack vs. Cocaine, & Liquid Cocaine: What’s the Difference, and Can Any Be Tested?
Cocaine, or benzoylmethylecgonine, is a stimulant drug that acts on the central nervous system. It is found naturally in indigenous plants in South America, and processed and sold in a variety of forms. With cocaine appearing differently and being referred to by a number of street names, it is important to know which form you have, and if it’s testable.
What’s the difference between Crack vs. Cocaine?
The difference between “cocaine” and “crack” is still a large point of confusion in and outside of the drug space. There are many misconceptions about both substances, but the main differences lie in the physical form and methods of consumption, not the pharmacological makeup.
Cocaine hydrochloride (HCl) is the white powdered form of cocaine. Cocaine begins as a hydrochloride salt when it is extracted from the leaves of the coca plant. Then, it is made into a paste and processed into the familiar white powdery form. This form of cocaine is typically snorted or rubbed on the gums to ingest it.
Crack cocaine or “freebase cocaine” is the solid, rock-like form of cocaine, which is made by mixing hydrochloride and ammonia, or baking soda with water, and then heating it to remove the hydrochloride, thus “freeing the base.” Crack cocaine is typically smoked, which produces rapid, intensified effects, in comparison to snorting or absorbing through the gums. However, the effects also decrease more rapidly, which results in a tendency to ingest more of the substance and at a higher frequency. With crack cocaine being a more concentrated form of cocaine HCl, with effects that fade much more quickly, the risks of overdose and addiction can be higher.
Can both crack cocaine and powder cocaine be tested with the Cocaine Purity Test Kit?
While the Cocaine QTest Kit is recommended for both powdered or solid cocaine, its ability to measure purity in street-level crack cocaine has not been extensively tested. While true freebase cocaine has been tested and is suited for our QTest, street-level crack is likely to contain a number of other adulterants or residual components, and has not yet been verified with this test.
Make sure to read The Complete Cocaine Testing Kit section at the bottom of this page for the kit you need to screen for adulterants in any form of cocaine. If your sample of crack cocaine does not flag for other adulterants, it should be accurate to use with our QTest.
Can liquid cocaine be used with the Cocaine QTest?
While consuming solid and powdered cocaine is more common, cocaine is occasionally mixed with a solvent to make liquid cocaine, which is consumed by intravenous injection. When cocaine is injected directly into the bloodstream, the effects are intensified significantly, along with the risk of overdose. Similarly to smoking crack, the effects diminish quickly, in comparison to snorting or absorbing through the gums.
While it would be helpful for those who consume cocaine intravenously, unfortunately, liquid cocaine cannot be used with our Cocaine QTest Kit. For measuring the purity of liquid cocaine, a lab analysis would be necessary. Our lab, Transparency Testing, offers a Complete Analysis, which would measure the purity of the liquid cocaine, and identify major and minor components present.
Can Pink Cocaine be tested for purity?
Pink Cocaine, or “Tusi” can not be tested with our Cocaine QTest Kit. Pink Cocaine often contains no cocaine at all—instead, it typically contains a mixture of ketamine, MDMA, caffeine, and sometimes 2C-B.
To learn more about Pink Cocaine and how to accurately test it, check out our Pink Cocaine blog post. Our Cocaine Purity Test Kit is meant for traditional cocaine in solid or powdered form.
What does cocaine smell like? What does cocaine taste like?
If you or a friend asks the questions, “what does cocaine smell / taste like?”—make sure to proceed with extreme caution. While some describe cocaine as tasting bitter or gasoline-like, having a metallic, chemical smell, and producing strong mouth-numbing effects, there are numerous other drugs that taste similarly, smell similarly, and produce similar mouth-numbing sensations. For instance, lidocaine is a common cut in cocaine, often used to mimic the mouth numbing quality said to be present in “pure” cocaine.
Testing for the presence of a substance and measuring its purity are the only ways of truly knowing what a substance contains, and how pure it really is. Trying to identify a substance through smell and taste is not a sufficient way to gauge the safety of a substance, or to make informed consent about what you’re ingesting.
See the Complete Cocaine Testing Kit section at the end for information on detecting lidocaine and other adulterants in a sample.
Avoid “Cocaine Nose” with this Healthier Solution
“Cocaine Nose” or “Coke Nose” refers to the severe damage that can occur in the nasal cavities after prolonged cocaine use. These symptoms can range from mild to severe, and include deviated septums, perforated septums (a hole in the nose), saddle nose deformities, infections, and more.
To avoid the symptoms of Cocaine Nose, and provide a series of other harm reduction benefits, we have designed the SprayPack Kit. SprayPack is a DIY nasal spray kit for water-soluble substances, which creates a healthier administration, and allows for an exact dose per spray. Along with our Cocaine Testing Kits, SprayPack is one of our most popular (and essential) harm reduction tools for cocaine usage.
Not only does mixing cocaine into a SprayPack protect your nasal passageways with its saline-solution based sprays, it also allows for a measured and predictable dose, and a more hygienic administration. Similarly, it allows for a better absorption, because the entirety of the powder is getting ingested, rather than part of it being lost or left on the nose in the snorting process.
The SprayPack’s Dose Chart will tell you how many milligrams of cocaine per spray you are ingesting, but it becomes even more precise when first tested with the Cocaine QTest Kit. The results of the Cocaine Purity Test can better inform how much powder you should mix in your SprayPack, depending on how many milligrams you want per spray, and how much active ingredient is really present in that amount.
The Complete Cocaine Testing Kit
For the Complete Cocaine Testing Kit, we recommend testing with our Cocaine Spot Kit Package first, to confirm the identity of your cocaine, and rule out dangerous cutting agents. Then, you would test with our Cocaine QTest Kit to measure the purity (amount of active cocaine) in your sample.
Why do I need both?
Our Cocaine QTest Kit measures the “purity”—the amount of active substance in a sample. “Purity” does not mean a substance is “clean,” or free from dangerous cutting agents or impurities. In the context of the Cocaine QTest Kit, this is important to note. While this QTest was designed to avoid false positives with levamisole specifically (one of the most popular cocaine cuts), it is important to note that it may show a false positive with lidocaine.
This is why it is imperative to first start with the Cocaine Spot Kit Package, which includes the necessary tools to identify cocaine and rule out fentanyl, along with other cutting agents, like lidocaine. QTests are extremely useful in determining concentration, but they do not identify your substance, or rule out most cutting agents.
Ruling out Lidocaine in Cocaine
In the Cocaine Spot Kit Package, the Mecke reagent will be especially helpful in ruling out lidocaine. With Mecke, lidocaine would react yellow, whereas levamisole and cocaine would react clear. The other reagents in the package will help verify cocaine (Morris, specifically, is the only reagent that can positively identify cocaine). Marquis and Liebermann are great confirmations to rule out other potential cutting agents that could be present.
Testing your substance with the Cocaine Spot Kit Package, followed by the Cocaine QTest Kit offers an at-home accuracy that has never before been possible. These two kits will confirm that you have cocaine, rule out potential cutting agents that may be present, and measure how strong your cocaine is—bringing an unparalleled level of testing to the comfort of your home.
