“Using it even once can make a person crave cocaine for as long as they live.” —Peter Jennings, “ABC World News Tonight,” September 8

When it comes to crack, politicians and pundits literally do not know what they are talking about. Most of the journalists covering the so-called “war on drugs” have at least tried marijuana. So have many of the rugged young officials now in charge of said hostilities. Both pencil pushers and paper pushers have been known to snort the occasional mound of cocaine. Virtually all came of age before the dawn of zero tolerance. Even heroin is not utterly unknown to the opinion and policy classes.

But crack is something else. Probably no one making our government’s drug policy has ever smoked a rock of crack cocaine. Nor has anyone who regularly reports or comments in the media on the ravages of crack capitalism. Now, I wouldn’t argue that you have to smoke crack to understand the war on drugs—any more than you have to kill someone to understand the war in Vietnam. And I certainly wouldn’t argue that crack isn’t hazardous or that anyone should try it. Having been through the experience, though, may facilitate a certain realism about the conflict in question.

Crack is a pleasure both powerful and elusive. Smoke a rock and, for the next 20 minutes, you will likely appreciate sensuous phenomena ranging from MTV to neon lights to oral sex with renewed urgency. After your 20 minutes is up, you will have a chemical aftertaste in your mouth and, in all likelihood, the sneaking desire to smoke another rock—to see what that was really all about. Just one more. You’ll want to pick up a $25 rock, which can be split into four or five smaller rocks. (If you want to know where to buy crack, just tune in to shows like “Geraldo” or “City Under Siege”—Washington’s nightly local TV report on the drug crisis—for detailed instructions.)

As you smoke your second rock, it may strike you that the crack high combines the best aspects of marijuana and cocaine. The pleasure of pot is not just a high, but a buzz; smoke a joint and space out. Cocaine, in contrast, is a clear high, a stimulant to sociality; do a line and get into some serious play or some pleasurable work. Crack is both spacey and intense. It has the head rush of marijuana or amyl nitrate with the clarity induced by a noseful of powder cocaine.

On the third rock, you may notice that your world looks just fine, as do various of the women (or men) in it. Reality isn’t real and all that was formerly a possibility is now on the verge of actuality. You’ll want to turn up the music and maybe your sexual aggression quotient. You’ll gain new insight into why crack is so popular among women.