The abuse of crack continues to be of major concern. Crack, the freebase form of cocaine, has been linked to a variety of social ills, economic and health problems. Because of limits to biological testing, self-report has been the only mechanism to distinguish crack use from powder use. Researchers have reported that smoking crack generates unique pyrolysis products that are detectable in urine, but no study has addressed how these products could be used as the marker for crack use, neither has any study addressed how reliable is the detection technology. The National Institute of Justice has developed a project to address these issues. The project consisted of interviews conducted with, and urine specimens collected from 2327 adult arrestees; development and validation of procedures for routine gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) confirmation of crack use; and the establishment of standard profiles for two crack pyrolysis products, AEME and ECD. The study found that AEME and ECD could be detected in urine specimens for periods of up to 40 hours. It was demonstrated that to accurately measure crack use both AEME and ECD are necessary. The results indicate that nearly 31 percent of the specimens were positive for undifferentiated cocaine, of which more than 88 percent were positive for crack. This resulted in crack prevalence rates of nearly 31 percent for females and 27 percent for males. The results will be used to further monitor the crack epidemic and provide information that can inform the development of public policy as it relates to this drug. References