Although not all long-term cocaine users experience cocaine psychosis, those who do are unable to function in society. Thus, cocaine psychosis is likely to affect those personally and professionally connected to the user as well as the user himself. Those suffering from cocaine psychosis display a variety of antisocial behaviors, such as deception, violence, and isolation. This deception often begins with lying to friends and family about the cost and frequency of cocaine use; experts in addictive behavior note that self-deception in the form of blaming others for the user’s addiction is also common. If this pattern continues unchecked, many regular cocaine users escalate their deception to nonviolent forms of criminal behavior such as shoplifting, burglary, and forgery to pay for their cocaine habits. Coke Bugs One of the most common manifestations of cocaine psychosis is a sensory hallucination experienced by many long-term users who feel bugs crawling all over their bodies and in their mouths. This hallucination is so common that it has become known as “coke bugs.” Eugene Richards, in his book Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue, interviews a cocaine addict who tells this story about coke bugs: I knew this guy, Read more [...]

As extreme as some cocaine-induced behaviors can be, they are relatively mild when compared with the behavior induced by crack, a derivative of cocaine. In 1985, when the price of cocaine had soared to $150 a gram, plastic vials containing what looked like tiny soap chips began selling on the streets of low-income neighborhoods for $5 to $10 a “rock.” Crack cocaine had arrived on America’s streets and, unlike pricey cocaine, just about anyone who wanted crack could afford it. The active ingredient of crack is cocaine. Working in illicit “kitchens,” individuals manufacture crack by adding ammonia or sodium bicarbonate and water to pure cocaine, drying the mixture, and then crumbling the residue into small rocks. Adulterated this way, a gram of cocaine makes enough crack to satisfy many users. Though it is made from a relatively small amount of powdered cocaine, crack is extremely potent. Because crack is smoked, the active chemicals reach the brain in seconds compared to the ten to fifteen minutes powdered cocaine requires. Crack’s almost instantaneous delivery to the brain provides a more highly concentrated impact than does snorted cocaine, which loses potency as it travels through the bloodstream. Suddenly, Read more [...]

The destructive potential of crack was soon apparent. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, hospital emergency rooms began reporting hundreds of crack-related deaths and secondary illness associated with crack addiction. Social services were swamped by children abandoned by their crack-addicted parents. Local police and federal drug enforcement officers packed local jails with inner-city crack users and dealers in an attempt to stem the spread of the drug and the crimes that went with it. Most visible to Americans was televised coverage of the violence that accompanied the crack epidemic. Local street gangs recognized that they could make money by selling crack. To eliminate competition, gangs fought for control of crack trafficking and as a result neighborhoods began to resemble shooting ranges. Handguns became the standard weapons for enforcing control of trafficking in neighborhoods. High school and even junior high school students began dealing crack and carrying guns to school campuses. Gun battles among crack dealers, along with the frequent confrontations between the crack community and the police, created an unprecedented atmosphere of violence in many inner-city neighborhoods. Crack houses soon appeared Read more [...]

As the use of crack spread, crime followed closely behind. According to statistics compiled by large metropolitan police departments, the sale and use of crack spawns far more crime than the sale and use of most other drugs. Statistics also indicate that crack is responsible for an increase in the violence of crimes committed. The U.S. Sentencing Commission held a hearing on cocaine and crack in which criminologist Dr. Steven Belenko addressed the commission as an expert witness. According to the commission’s published report, “Dr. Steven Belenko stated that he had analyzed arrest data for crack cocaine sellers and determined that, relative to powder cocaine sellers, crack cocaine sellers had higher arrest rates for both nondrug and violent crimes.” Crime associated with America’s underground crack industry is a large, violent, and complex problem. In addition to possession and sale of crack, which are violations of the law, crack dealers and users perpetrate many other crimes as well. Not only do innocent people become victims, people within the crack culture are themselves victimized. Because they need many doses of the drug to feed their habit, addicts can easily spend over $100 a day to satisfy their craving Read more [...]

Local police forces, realizing that they were losing the war on crack, turned to the federal government for help. In an attempt to help police regain control of inner-city streets and protect innocent citizens from the destructive tendencies of the crack culture, Congress passed new laws aimed at removing crack dealers from society. In 1986 Congress established mandatory minimum sentences for convicted dealers, responding to public outcry that judges sentencing cocaine and crack offenders were too lenient. Lawmakers made a distinction between powdered cocaine and crack: The mandatory minimum sentence for possession of five hundred grams of powdered cocaine was five years in prison. The same sentence was mandated for possession of just five grams of crack. Although the stated objective of these mandatory minimum sentences was to reduce the amount of cocaine and crack available on the street, the laws generated a great deal of controversy. First, many community leaders question whether harsher sentences for crack offenses have actually reduced the volume of crack. According to the NHSDA, there are about six hundred thousand regular crack users in the United States and this number has remained stable for the past Read more [...]

One of the tragedies of crack use is the harm it inflicts on innocent family members. Individuals trapped within crack dependency are typically incapable of normal functioning and their families tend to suffer from confusion, unpredictability, and violence. Care and concern for children is often overlooked by crack-addicted parents in the never-ending pursuit of the next fix. Some parents even expect their children to deal crack to help shore up their sagging finances. Jonathan Beaty, a journalist researching the dysfunctional effects of crack on families, reports: The extra cash that appears on the kitchen table can persuade parents to look the other way while their children are heading into trouble. Denise Robinson, founder of the Detroit community-action group Saving Our Kids, even recalls a mother who dissuaded her son from returning to school. “He had been a good student. He had good grades,” says Robinson. “But he was making $600 a week dealing crack. So his mother wanted him to keep dealing.” Poverty is one of the most common causes of family dysfunction, and crack use only deepens family poverty. When most of a family’s financial resources are spent on crack, little is left over for basic family needs. Not Read more [...]

As destructive as crack is to the addict’s family, the drug is even more destructive to the health of the addict. Medical complications resulting from long-term crack use show up daily in emergency rooms across America. Cardiac arrest, strokes, and liver failure are all well-documented results of crack use. In addition to illness and deaths directly linked to crack use, numerous indirect or secondary illnesses are linked to it as well. Some of these illnesses are commonly found among those who take drugs intravenously. Although crack is usually smoked, intravenous crack use is common in crack houses. Addicts tend to share needles, meaning that they risk contracting diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis, a severe liver inflammation. Nobody knows for sure how many crack addicts contract AIDS in this fashion, but according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), use and abuse of illicit drugs, including crack, have become the leading risk factors for new cases of HIV infection. NIDA also reports that hepatitis is spreading rapidly among intravenous drug users. Crack Addict Three women addicted to crack — Teresa Wiltz, Diana Donnell, and Mia Mann — contributed an article to the April 1996 issue of Essence Read more [...]

The cocaine route that begins in the coca fields along the slopes of the Andes and ends five thousand miles away in thousands of American cities is a route built and maintained by an illicit and often violent cocaine partnership. Millions of workers are involved in producing and shipping the cocaine that eventually finds its way to still more millions of users in the United States. Most of those involved in this cocaine partnership will never meet although they all support this multibillion-dollar-a-year industry in many different ways and at many different levels. All nations involved in the cocaine trade repudiate the drug. Yet that trade continues to flourish despite attempts to stop it. The success of this multinational illicit partnership in spite of Herculean efforts over three decades to destroy it is a complex and fascinating story. Effects on the South American Economy Ironically, the cocaine that causes or worsens poverty in the United States at the end of its journey north has provided an escape from poverty for more than a million South American peasants who participate in the cocaine trade in various ways. Before cocaine’s popularity in the 1970s, most South American peasants earned a meager living Read more [...]

Cocaine’s route to America begins in thousands of small villages high in the Andes. Farmers who grow and harvest coca are called cocakros. They own and harvest, on average, five acres of coca bushes. One acre can support about five hundred bushes, each of which produces hundreds of leaves. Because coca grows so well in this environment, cocakros harvest four to five crops a year. To keep up with the demand for cocaine in America and Europe, South American growers slashed and burned jungles to make way for more coca bushes and terraced the hillsides to maximize the amount of land available for cultivation. Despite this lucrative business, life for a coca grower is difficult. Claire Hargreaves, in her book Snowfields, interviews one coca farmer in Bolivia who describes the many obstacles to getting started: Finding a plot wasn’t easy because the Chapare [Valley] was already full…. I found one plot… but it was poor quality and often got flooded so the crops were destroyed. Next I found a place down the road from here, but you could only get to it by crossing several rivers by canoe. Often our provisions and clothes fell in the water on the way. I had to go to La Paz to sort out the papers giving the land titles. That Read more [...]

The picked leaves are bundled into one-hundred-pound bags and carried to the local village on the backs of the zepes. The zepes are paid $2 to $3 a day plus food along with as many coca leaves as they want for their own consumption. The zepes arrive at local villages at night to avoid being robbed by bandits working for rival cartels and to avoid corrupt police officers, who force them to pay a bribe to pass. The pichicateros who have purchased the coca leaves turn them over to the cartel’s manufacturers to begin the process of converting the leaves into cocaine. The first step is to dig pits where coca is extracted from the leaves. Coca extraction requires a pit to be near a river because water is an important ingredient in the process. Peasant workers line the pit with sheets of plastic and fill it with a mixture of coca leaves, sulfuric acid, kerosene, water, and lime. A cartel chemist mixes these ingredients in carefully prescribed amounts. Next, young men called stompers get in the pits barefooted and for twelve to fourteen hours they stomp and smash the concoction into a paste. Six to ten stompers work a pit and each is paid between $10 and $15 a night. Hargreaves interviewed several stompers who describe Read more [...]