Seriously, people simply don't pay attention in movies. They were little vials with crack rocks in them like you said. People are stupid.

It was crack and at the end of movie he was smoking that with the two boys. Whats the mystery?

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Your naive.
Lots of hispanic dealers have the whole family involved.

Maybe I'm too naive, but I can't believe the old lady hands him some kind of narcotic. That would seem to imply she condones her grandson's "career."
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"

Crack or freebase, neither is known as being particularly good for your health. Why do you suppose a kindly mother figure is doling this out as a "favor"? What is Ferrara trying to say with this?
Especially since, IIRC, the apartment is adorned with pics of Jesus and angels, as is the cigar box.

Freebase NOT crack, you know the "good stuff".

I just paused the movie and checked it out. They were blue top vials of crack.

She meant "cuidate" more as in "take care of yourself". She pretty much said "Here, I have something for you; a little gift. Take care of yourself, because you are a good person", or something like that. I'm assuming she gave him the pills to make him feel better. Probably some prescription pills.

I thought she handed him a rosary and said "Cuidate," which means "be careful."

YES ITS CRACK

IT WAS CRACK. He smokes it with the rapists at the end. Sick movie.

They don't make downers any more
[falling down & rolling on the floor laughing emoticon]
What a sheltered life you truly must live, lol!
"Salvation is a last-minute business, boy."

It's pretty obvious they are pills since, in the next scene, he takes them out, dumps their contents into a crack pipe, and smokes them with the two rapists at the end. Did no one see that?
http://alteredeagle.com

Right when he steps outside he smokes some crack; she hands him little white things

Actually, since I posted that I watched it again and it does look like pills
Which I don't get. Of course it really depends on what drug I guess.

I was always pretty sure it was change. Coins. I think there is even a sound like pocket change on the soundtrack to indicate this
Where's the evidence it was drugs? And why would she give him drugs, when it's obvious from looking at him that he can get drugs.

They don't make downers any more, except maybe a special order of barbituates for Michael Jackson before he bought the farm. They're too lethal, that's what killed a lot of famous people back in the 60's like Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland. Xanax is the replacement as it is less toxic. Remember, the punk took the coke Keitel's character stole and cooked it into crack and packaged it up into small individual street size packets. She was probably just making sure he had "one for the road" to make him happy. After all he was the one who kept them in business.

i thought they were downers, or assumed, she was looking at him like she knew he was so high and she offered them saying (not literally) you need a rest boy.

SPOILER ALERT
It is drugs. She gives him a handful of capsules that contain some type of drug (I'm assuming coke). These are the same capsules that Keitel uses in one of the first scenes of the film as he "chases" the drug dealer (whose apartment he's now at) and bites the capsule in half and spills out the contents to snort/smoke/whatever. I don't know what she says but Grandma - who's seen them come and go - can easily tell he's a junkie so
I don't know what she says though.
PS If I remember correctly, Keitel gets the rosary beads from the nun (during their confrontation in the church).

I think she gave him a rosary the one he threw at Jesus. Or the lady that he thought was Jesus.

They are drugs, what are you on about? He clearly cracks them open and drops them into the crack pipe when he's watching the game with the two guys who he arrests at the end.
A lover not a fighter: someone who finds alternative ways to make their jaw ache

I thought they were rocks. Why WOULDN'T she hand him drugs?

She WOULDN'T hand him drugs. Maybe those are some kind of beads, as "worry beads."