his notebooks to Venkatesh-and J. T. was sent to prison.       Now for another unlikely question: what did crack cocaine have in common with nylon stockings? In 1939, when DuPont introduced nylons, countless American women felt as if a miracle had been performed in their honor. Until then, stockings were made of silk, and silk was delicate, expensive, and in ever shorter supply. By 1941, some sixty-four million pairs of nylon stockings had been sold-more stockings than there were adult women in the United States. They were easily affordable, immensely appealing, practically addictive. DuPont had pulled off the feat that every marketer dreams of: it brought class to the masses. In this regard, the invention of nylon stockings was markedly similar to the invention of crack cocaine. In the 1970s, if you were the sort of person who did drugs, there was no classier drug than cocaine. Beloved by rock stars and movie stars, ballplayers and even the occasional politician, cocaine was a drug of power and panache. It was clean, it was white, it was pretty. Heroin was droopy and pot was foggy but cocaine provided a beauti- ful high. Alas, it was also very expensive. Nor did the high last long. This led cocaine users to try jacking up the drugs potency. They did this pri- marily by freebasing-adding ammonia and ethyl ether to cocaine hy- drochloride, or powdered cocaine, and burning it to free up the "base" cocaine. But this could be dangerous. As Richard Pryor famously proved-he nearly killed himself while freebasing-chemistry is best left to chemists. Meanwhile, cocaine dealers and aficionados across the country,