Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. gin and water.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1798		‘St Giles’s Greek’ in Sporting Mag. Dec. XIII 164/1: The cull [...] remained at the bowsing ken, cocking his organ, and tempering his fogus with a few flagges of crank and white-tape.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.

2. (drugs) any form of amphetamine drug, e.g. amphetamine sulphate, methedrine, methamphetamine.

1969		R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970).
1972		L. Bangs in Psychotic Reactions (1988) 99: If the music didn’t sound so much like the raunchier side of Springfield-Grape folkrock shot full of crank [...].
1986		R. Campbell In La-La Land We Trust (1999) 163: A little dope. A litle skag. A little crank.
1991		R.G. Barrett Between the Devlin 125: ‘It’s a recipe for crank’.
1994		J. Wambaugh Finnegan’s Week 50: My brain got fried from snortin all that crank.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 47/1: crank n. 2 powdered speed.
c.2003		Detective K. Reeves ‘Dangerous Drugs and Their Effects’ on the D.A.R.E. page of Harnett County Sheriff’s Office 🌐 ‘Methamphetamine: Crank’ [...] Crank makes the user feel that he or she is in total control, very alert and energetic. These effects last for several hours even days depending on the amount. The human body can live without food and water for long periods of time, but the human body must have rest. The human brain without rest begins to short circuit, usually the user ‘CRANKER’ begins to go into paranoid episodes.
2005		L. Theroux Call of the Weird (2006) 130: Haley had been strung out on ‘crank’ – the street name for crystal meth, a particularly toxic form of speed.
2012		M. McBride Frank Sinatra in a Blender [ebook] He tapped with his finger and knocked a little crank out onto a brown plastic clipboard.
2012		D. Whish-Wilson ‘In Savage Freedom’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] Starting with Sulphate back in the eighties, bog-standard Crank.
2020		D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 40: [H]is father [...] had gone to seed because of the beer and crank.

3. a thrill of excitement, esp. when drug-generated.

1974

H.S. Thompson Great Shark Hunt (1979) 363: There is no real crank or elation in being a front-row spectator at the final scenes.

4. (drugs) crack cocaine.

1983		Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 2: crank – cocaine.
1999		T. Dorsey Florida Roadkill 78: She and Coleman each dropped a Roofie, to cut into the crank.
2002		‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 155: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] Product. Crack. Smack. Crank. Chronic. Cess. Stress.

5. (inferior quality) heroin.

1997		L. Pettiway Workin’ It 72: When I left home I was just using acid and IV-crank.
1999		D. Looser ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 28: crank n. Heroin of poor quality; ‘poor man’s smack’.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 7: Crank — [...] heroin.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 47/1: crank n. 1 heroin of poor quality, ‘poor man’s smack’.