Comment by zahlman

Powder cocaine cannot be smoked at all (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_base) and smoking anything naturally carries additional risks.

If it didn't make a meaningful difference in the experience but only increased the legal penalties, there would be no good reason for dealers to prepare crack, yet they did.

Nothing about a the race of a cocaine addict compels that addict to prefer one form or the other.

The comparison is made as a metaphor for strong addiction exactly because of the old political connotation. Those don't just go away. There are almost certainly more addictive substances out there; that is completely irrelevant to how humans use language. I would argue, even the phrase "crack cocaine" has more sticking power because of the phonetics.