Not that I'm an expert on these things, but I've always known freebasing and crack to be two different things. Freebasing is very pure cocaine smoked; crack is a different form of cocaine that comes in chunks.

Richard Pryor set himself on fire when freebasing cocaine and that was...looks up date...1980. So yes, freebasing was absolutely a thing they'd be doing in 1982. I think crack was like mid-80s.