Picking up speed and later cocaine, possibly (12)
I believe the answer is:
acceleration
'picking up speed and' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this defines the answer.
'later cocaine possibly' is the wordplay.
'possibly' indicates anagramming the letters.
'later'+'cocaine'='latercocaine'
'latercocaine' is an anagram of 'ACCELERATION'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for acceleration that I've seen before include "Rate of increase of speed" , "The increasing of speed" , "Speeding up" , "Speeding-up" .)