In the 1960's cocaine again began to be seen as a harmless stimulant. When coca leaves are harvested in Peru and Colombia, they are thrown into pits, chopped, pounded and mixed with gasoline, kerosene, and other chemicals to remove cocaine from the coca leaves.
Cocaine comes out of the leaf in the freebase form.
If it were left in this form for long it would lose its potency, so the cocaine freebase is mixed with other chemicals to convert it into a salt form. The salt form may be shipped long distances or stored for a long time without losing its strength. Drug abusers know that they can inject the salt form but cannot smoke it. The comedian Richard Pryor was severely burned on the face when the chemicals he was using to make freebase cocaine exploded and burned. Other less famous people have suffered serious injury or death in this process.