M.F. Goldsmith, “Sex Tied to Drugs = STD spread,” Journal of the Almerican Medical Association 260 (1988):2009.
Reinarman, C., & Levine, H. (1997). Crack In America: Demon Drugs and Social
Justice.Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Schultz, S., Zweig, M., Sing, T., and Htoo, M. (1990). Congenital syphilis: New York
City, 1986-1988. Am. J. Dis. Child. 144: 279.
Wachtler, S. The State of the Judiciary 1990. Report from State of New York Unified
Court System, pp. 3-5.
Watkins, B., Fullilove, R., & Fullilove, M. Arms against Illness: Crack Cocaine and Drug Policy in the United States. Health and Human Rights, Vol. 2, No. 4, Retrieved May 5, 2008, fromhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/4065186.pdf.
A study found in The Review of Economics and Statistics, the authors found that by using information provided by 27 different metropolitan areas, that the arrival of crack cocaine led to substantial crime increases in late 1980s and early 1990s.
The number of reported offenses for recorded criminal categories which are murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny theft and auto theft. For each of the seven categories of criminal offenses significant increases were shown to have occurred after the arrival of crack cocaine to those areas.
As you can see from looking at the percentage of change, the rise in crime proved to be overwhelming in these urban areas, “from 1987 through12989, the firearm homicide rate amongst black males age 15 to 19 years of age increased 71 percent to 85.3 deaths per 100,000 populations,” (Fingerhut, 1992) at the same time when teenage fire-arm death were mostly concentrated in metropolitan areas. Many scholars argue that the alarming number of homicides was triggered through crack related violence. “Teenaged dealers started carrying guns to school but no such alliance[s] w[ere] initiated to control the crack epidemic that precipitated the violence”. (Watkins et al, 1998)
Crack proved to be “an unparallel destructive force, undermining safety, stability and health in inner cities.”(Watkins et al. 43)In 1988, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited Crack use, coupled with the practice of bartering sexual services in exchange for the drug, as a factor in the increase of STD’s (Goldsmith, 1988)
The discovery of crack cocaine is directly responsible for the deterioration of inner cities during the 1980s and 1990s. A studies show, at the same in time in which crack cocaine became noticed in different American cities, devastating proportions of crime, HIV/AIDS, and minority incarcerations followed. In the years following the fall of communism, the ending if the Vietnam war, and domestically, the civil rights movements, and increasing upward mobility amongst minorities, crack cocaine stood as an unmovable road block in the betterment of American people. As cocaine was actively used drug in the United States for over a century before crack was introduced, the less expensive and overly available smoke able form took the inner city by storm.
Most associations with the Crack cocaine insustry are inner city African Americans youth. This association has proven to be detrimenmtal to the development of African Americans in this country. With limited education, low paying wages, as seen in the diagram many African Americans in inner cities ar confronted with crack use and distribution much more frequent than other races.
Crack cocaine use has created an epidemic in many urban and inpoverished inner cities. Crack has historically been associated with an “increase in homicide, family disruption, and a breakdown in response capacity of the law enforcement system”. (Wachtler, 1990) Furthermore the effects of use have been to be fatal. Crack can and has been responsible for complications during pregnancy and delivery(Chasnoff, Landress, & Barrett, 1990), as well there is the association of crack use with inceased vulnerability to sexually transmitted diseases such a syphillis, and HIV/AIDS, especially amongst black women. The danger of drug use, and especially for those addicted to crack, is the users binge consumption in which all other neccesities of life are trumped by the need to get high. “ Personal safety, hygeiene, nutrition, and family or occupational responsibilty are frequently ignored”. (Fullilove et al.)
While Crack creates a europhoric experience it leaves many potentially dangerous side effects in the body. Crack users have extremely high risk of heart attacks, respitory problems, stroke, and detrimental mental disorders.
As crack fulfills its purpose and moves through the blood stream the user initially feels the effect of the high and is energized, senses are hightened, and they are more aware of feeling sight and sound. The user’s blood pressure begins to rise and the heart rate increases. The user becomes restless and worrisome and anxious leading to dangerous paranoia.
Alongside the effects of the brain experienced through Crack use, HIV/ Aids and other STDs’ have been extremely prevalent amongst Crack users. The emergence of the “crack house” — “ a small apartment adapted for crack use. The kitchen is used for cooking crack, at least one bedroom is used for sex, and the living space is used for selling and smoking.”(Incardi, Ph.D, 1995) Around the sametime as the crack epidimic from 1986 to 1987, syphilis increased by 25%.(Shultz et.al., 1990) Acummulatin gevidence link these STD’s increases to the crack epidemic, in that rates were significantly higher among those that used crcak compare to those that did not. (Fullilove et al., 1990)
/I’m more valued than diamonds, more treasured than gold. /Use me just once and you too will be sold./I’ll make a schoolboy forget his books./I’ll make a beauty queen forget her looks./I’ll take renowned speaker and make a bore./I’ll take a mother and make her a whore./I’ll make a schoolteacher forget how to teach. /I’ll make a preacher not want to preach. I’ll take all your rent money and you’ll get evicted. /I’ll murder your babies or they’ll be born addicted./I’ll make you rob and steal and kill./When you’re under my power you have no will./Remember my friend my name is ” Big C “./If you try me just one time you may never be free. /I’ve destroyed actors, politicians and many a hero. /I’ve decreased bank accounts from millions to zero./I make shooting and stabbing a common affair. /Once I take charge you won’t have a prayer./Now that you know me what will you do ?/You’ll have to decide, It’s all up to you./The day you agree to sit in my saddle./The decision is one that no one can straddle./Listen to me, and please listen well./When you ride with cocaine you are headed for hell !!!
As evident in the “ My name is Cocaine”poem created by Larry Jackson, Crack cocaine has many effects on the brain chemistry of the addict or abuser. When consuming Crack cocaine works in a part of the brain called the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and a large amount of dopamine is released, Dopamine functions as a neurotransmitter, and activates the five dopamine receptors, and their variants. Dopamine increases the heart rate and blood pressure.
After a high of about Fifteen minutes the dopamine levels in the brain are lowered and the user is consumed by a feeling of depression, which inlist its addictive characteristics because the user is left looking for another high. As a result of the time it takes for Dopamine to replenish itself each successive hit or use of crack has a recessive high, making the satisfying search for the original high a cyclical never ending process. The short term effects of Crack use are typically
politicians and journalists suggested that the CIA contributed to the rise of the crack epidemic. Allegations of drug ties to the Contra rebels, to possible direct involvement in drug trafficking by the Contras and even members of the CIA.
On April 17, 1986, the Reagan Administration released a three page report acknowledging that there were some Contra-cocaine connections in 1984 and 1985
Socio-Economic Trends
Northeastern and Mid – Atlantic States most affected
African- Americans, Latinos, and Poorer Whites most affected
Jail Sentencing much greater for Crack cocaine possession than powder cocaine
The War Against Drugs
Crack Cocaine is a Substance II felony drug
Government reports estimate $ 12 Billion in drug control in 2005
used plants containing cocaine’s active ingredient for medicinal and recreational purposes for more than 15 Centuries. Incas chewed leaves from the erythroxylon plant to stimulate their productivity and mood.
Albert Niemann
First to process cocaine hydrochloride in 1859
William Halstead First Physician to use cocaine as an anesthetic
Coca-Cola contained cocaine until 1903 when it was replaced with caffeine.
In 1910 President William Taft declared that cocaine was a national threat.
Crack cocaine was first developed during the cocaine boom of the 1970’s and became extremely popular during the 1980’s.
Mid 1980’s began the start of the “Crack Epidemic”.
Crack cocaine is a derivative of powered cocaine, made by dissolving cocaine powder in water, adding baking soda, and boiling the mixture until a solid base separates from the solution. This process does not change the chemical composition of the active cocaine alkaloid, but it does change the manner by which it may be ingested.
A crack molecule is comprised of 17 carbon atoms, 21 hydrogen atoms, 1 atom of nitrogen, and 4 oxygen atoms. There are six double bonds within each molecule, and the rest of the bonds are single.
First to process cocaine hydrochloride in 1859
First Physician to use cocaine as an anesthetic
