Crack Vials​—Like Bullets in a Gun

Law enforcement agencies are trying to come to grips with it. Parents are being murdered by their children for want of it. Children are slain by their parents under the influence of it. The future lives of babies still in the womb are ruined by it. Urban neighborhoods are becoming war zones for the control of it. Those indiscriminately slaughtered are carried away in body bags in the aftermath of it. Hospital emergency-room staffs are strained to the breaking point because of it. Dealers of all ages reap huge profits selling it. It is referred to as “the dealer’s dream and the user’s nightmare.”

Crack Addiction​—Its Plague of Violence

CRACK, so named because of the sound it makes when heated during processing or smoking, is a highly addictive, extremely potent form of cocaine. One hospital psychopharmacologist called it “the most addictive drug known to man right now. It is almost instantaneous addiction.” One police official called it “the worst drug ever. There is no such thing as a recreational crack cocaine user.”

Since crack cocaine is smoked rather than injected intravenously or snorted, users who once feared the threat of AIDS from contaminated needles have found the “advantages” of crack to be threefold​—it is “safer,” the effects more intense, the smoke faster acting. “It goes straight to the head. It’s immediate speed,” said a former addict. “It feels like the top of your head is going to blow off.” The high lasts only from 5 to 12 minutes but is almost always followed by a devastating crash that may leave the users irritable, depressed, nervous, or extremely paranoid and with a compulsive craving for more crack. “The major danger of crack,” explains Dr. Arnold Washton, director of the Addiction Treatment Center at Regent Hospital in New York, “is that within a few days to a few weeks it can take control of your brain​—and your life.”

Crack addiction is spreading like a plague in many parts of the world. Particularly in the United States, far more than in Canada, England, and comparable European countries, crack has penetrated virtually every strata of society​—the rich, the poor, the successful, the gainfully employed. Because of its availability and easy access and the euphoric effects, the demand for it is great and becoming greater with each passing day. New recruits, potential addicts, are sought out on street corners, in schools, and in the workplace. Women are likely candidates and in some levels of society far outnumber men as users. Young children​—preteens—​looking for quick thrills, who cannot say no to drugs, become easy prey to crack pushers​—often their own brothers or other family members or best friends.

Addiction Brings Violence

“Crack can unleash a vicious streak of violence in the abuser unlike almost any other substance,” reported The Wall Street Journal of August 1, 1989. “In suburban Boston [U.S.A.] recently, a young mother who was strung out on crack flung her young baby against a wall so hard the child died of a broken neck,” the paper said. The mother was described as coming from “a respectable middle class family.”

Because of the violent behavioral effects that crack can have on users, sociologists and pediatrician researchers are convinced that the drug is contributing to a sharp rise in child abuse. An explosive confrontation can develop when a mother under crack’s control is left to deal with an ill-humored, crying child. “It’s not too good to have a child in front of you,” said one researcher, “when you’re irritable or depressed and you have a drive for cocaine. What are you going to do with that baby? Certainly not what you’re supposed to do.”

Unfortunately, the results have often been fatal. It is not uncommon to read or hear of young crack addicts killing their parents or guardian grandparents because they refused to give them money to purchase crack or because these addicts were caught smoking it. New York City police have attributed a rash of brutal crimes to young addicts virtually deranged by crack.

The greatest and most brutal scene of violence, however, unfolds on the city streets. Since the money to be made selling crack is staggering because of the ever-growing demand, dealers feel that killing for it is worthwhile. Armed to the teeth with the latest state-of-the-art weapons​—machine guns, military assault rifles, silencers, and bulletproof vests—​they patrol their territories in quest of other young entrepreneurs to make an example of those who would steal their clientele or who do not turn in all the money from a day’s take. Dealers are prepared and ready to settle business differences with violent bloodshed. “If someone is shot in the leg or stabbed in the hand,” said an emergency-room nursing director, “it was a warning to a kid who kept some money or drugs from a dealer he worked for. If a kid is shot in the head or chest, they meant to get this one.”

“The murders now are much more vicious,” said a New York City sociologist. “It’s not enough to kill. You degrade the body. He’s dead already with two bullets, so you shoot him with six. You decapitate him, or something else.” “There are a million kids out there who have no skills other than fighting,” said one veteran law officer. “They are not afraid of the police or jail or of dying,” nor are they concerned with the safety and lives of innocent bystanders caught in the cross fire of shoot-outs. Time magazine reports that of the 387 gang-related homicides in Los Angeles County in one year, half were innocent bystanders.

Gold Chains, Expensive Cars

Because of the violence associated with crack addiction, the young crack dealers cannot see their lives continuing. Indeed, they are dying young. “I’m going to live the good life before I go” has become their philosophy. Many are doing just that. “Every day you can go to a high school and see new Mercedes and Jeeps and Cadillacs and Volvos,” said one Detroit narcotics officer. “These cars belong to the kids, not the parents.” Children too young to drive hire others to drive for them. Others take their chances and drive without a driver’s license. They are able to pay cash for their cars. If they have an accident, they simply abandon the cars and run away.

“Students wear outfits on any given day that may be worth $2,000,” said one teacher. “You see a lot of young people in fur coats and the thick gold chains,” she said. “Gold, in fact, is a widespread obsession with inner-city youngsters,” reported Time magazine of May 9, 1988. “Heavy gold cables that cost up to $20,000 are all the rage.” Distributors pay their fledgling entrepreneurs well. Nine- and ten-year-olds, for example, can make $100 a day warning dealers of police presence. The next step up the ladder is the runner, one who delivers the drug from the lab to the dealer, a job that can pay him more than $300 a day. Both lookouts and runners aspire to reach the pinnacle well within their grasp​—dealer. Can you imagine a teenager, with possibly very little education, commanding earnings up to a whopping $3,000 a day? Indeed, the stakes are high but the future is short-lived.

All too often the evils of selling crack by the young are double-edged. On the one cutting side, they are peddling death-dealing drugs that can ruin the lives of the users as well as contribute to violence, often becoming the victims themselves. On the other side of the blade, in many cases, parents encourage their children to deal in crack. Frequently, the young dealer is the sole breadwinner of the family, using a large portion of the profits to support a struggling family. When parents refuse to correct the situation and instead look the other way, they become sharers in abetting a criminal course.

What is devastatingly worse is when the love for crack transcends a mother’s love for her children, even the unborn child she is carrying. Consider the plight of the unborn in the next article.

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“Crack Is a Whole New Ball Game”

Since crack was developed to appeal to the young and the poor, it’s initial cost may seem relatively cheap. Pushers sell pellet-size chunks in tiny plastic vials for as little as five to ten dollars. The brief but intense highs, however, demand almost constant repetition. “Crack is a whole new ball game,” said an executive director of a Florida drug-information center. “It’s an extremely compulsive drug, much more so than regular cocaine. The rush is so intense and the crash so powerful that it keeps users​—even first-time users—​focused on nothing but their next hit.”

Crack Addiction​—The Plight of the Unborn

WHEN crack cocaine made its debut on the world scene in the early 1980’s, few users dared to believe the devastating effects it would have. After all, was it not smoked in cute little glass pipes or mixed with the tobacco in cigarettes or marijuana? Word on the street had it that crack was a safe drug. Certainly it was much cheaper than heroin or another form of cocaine. People in the lower income bracket could afford it. The euphoria crack brought on seemed to be worth it, no matter what the cost.

Dramatic evidence of the dangers of crack, however, leapt onto the pages of medical journals when pregnant users began giving birth to drug-affected infants. Doctors began to warn of the horrendous effects crack cocaine can have on the unborn. The number of damaged infants, some permanently so, began escalating with each passing year. “When crack cocaine hit,” said one doctor, “the number of small, sick babies just went through the roof.”

Where there is widespread use of crack, statistics bear him out. According to a 36-hospital survey in the United States in 1988 by the National Association for Perinatal Addiction Research and Education, 11 percent of U.S. newborn babies, or about 375,000 babies a year, are now exposed to drugs during pregnancy. The New York Times reports that between 1986 and 1988, “the number of newborn children in New York City testing positive for drugs​—mostly cocaine—​almost quadrupled, going from 1,325 to 5,088.”

The Horrid Effects

“The crack cocaine mothers are the sickest you’re going to see,” said Dr. Richard Fulroth, a Stanford University specialist. “They come in right when they’re ready to deliver, and you just hold your breath waiting to see what you’re gonna get.” All too often what has been developing in the womb of the crack user is not pretty. Crack can cause spasms in the baby’s blood vessels, restricting the vital flow of oxygen and nutrients for long periods. Fetal growth, including head and brain size, may be impaired. Strokes and seizures often occur, and malformations of the kidneys, genitals, intestines, and spinal cord may develop. There is also the danger of the placenta’s tearing loose from the uterus, which kills the fetus and may prove fatal to the mother.

When a crack baby is born, doctors and nurses can see visible evidence of the devastation brought on by the drug. One report described such a child as “a mere patch of flesh with a tangerine-sized head and limbs like splinters.” In several instances, reported Discover magazine, cocaine babies have been born without the two middle fingers of a hand.

Dr. Dan R. Griffith, developmental psychologist at Northwestern University, said that cocaine-exposed babies are often born with “a very fragile, easily overloaded nervous system.” They tend to be hypersensitive and irritable, screaming inconsolably at the slightest provocation. ‘A sudden noise or change in position, even talking to and looking at the baby, can trigger prolonged crying,’ the doctor said. ‘Other obvious effects of drug damage to the newborn child,’ Dr. Griffith describes, ‘can be that the babies escape into a deep sleep for 90 percent of the time to shut themselves off from outside stimulation. They will not wake up even if undressed, talked to, rocked, or physically manipulated.’

These neurological problems can continue for months, the doctor said, thus causing both mental and physical frustration to the mother at a time when a bond of love and attachment needs to be formed. “The baby tends to shut the mother out and become very irritable when she tries to attend to his needs. The mother becomes withdrawn from the infant and resents him for not returning her attentions,” the doctor added. This behavior on the part of the infant and the resentment of the mother often leads to child abuse.

Abandoned Newborns

Because the condition of such newborn infants is so precarious, their stay in the hospital can run into weeks and sometimes months. Very often, however, a lengthy stay is not due so much to the child’s condition as it is to the mother’s attitude toward her baby. Many times the mother simply abandons the infant in the hospital, making him a ward of the city. “I cannot understand the mother not asking any questions about the baby, never coming again,” complained one concerned doctor. Some never even stay long enough to name the baby. Nurses must do that for them. “The most remarkable and hideous aspect of crack cocaine use,” said a hospital-staff nurse, “seems to be the undermining of the maternal instinct.” One hospital has even had to send telegrams to uninterested parents to get them to sign for the postmortems when the babies die. Do you find this shocking?

Because of the work load of hospital nurses, these babies cannot be given the love and attention they so vitally need. In some cases when foster homes cannot readily be found, caring people with a love for children have volunteered their time, a few hours each week, to baby-sit these abandoned infants. “They feed, sing, play, rock and change them,” said one worker. “They treat them as they would their own baby. It is so good for the children. Some of them are here a long time.”

What does the future hold for these cocaine-damaged infants? Their lower than normal IQ levels will present a future problem for teachers to cope with. “Because of physical and developmental impairments,” said one child expert, “these kids are going to be a problem for themselves and society for 40 or 50 years.” Indeed, crack has made an indelible mark on society.

Crack Addiction​—Is There a Cure?

THERE is no question that crack addiction has reached staggering proportions, and the problem is escalating. Radio and television air the problem. Newspapers and magazines headline it. Hospital emergency rooms and trauma centers come face-to-face with its violence. Maternity wards are filled to capacity with infants damaged by the addiction. Hospital storage rooms are being used to “store” abandoned babies rather than store materials.

Detoxification and rehabilitation establishments are treating children not yet in their teens. Social service agencies are begging for resources to fight the epidemic. There are those who say they cannot overcome their addiction and others who do not wish to. For the latter, there await misery, frustration, violence, and possibly death. For the former, there is hope.

“Only a year ago,” reported The New York Times of August 24, 1989, “crack was widely regarded as a relatively new drug, still poorly understood but with special characteristics that produced an addiction almost impossible to cure.” Now, however, researchers are finding that crack addiction, under the right conditions, can be successfully treated, the paper said. “Crack addiction can be treated,” said Dr. Herbert Kleber, the deputy to William J. Bennett, director of U.S. drug policy. The key, he said, is that the addicts be given a place in family and social structures where they may never have been before. “Habilitation more than rehabilitation,” he stressed.

Researchers have found that the most effective program for curing the crack cocaine addict is three-staged​—detoxification, extended personal counseling and training, and, most important, support in the right environment. Detoxification, or getting the addict off the drug, is not the major hurdle. Often, because of circumstances, a person can do this on his own. Being without funds to purchase the drug can be, and often is, a contributing factor. Incarceration in a penal institution where drugs are not available can be another, or a stay in a hospital would also necessitate abstention. The real problem, however, is to keep the addict from going back to the drug when it becomes available to him.

Although some addicts have successfully broken free from crack’s viselike grip while in specially arranged treatment programs, treatment specialists stressed that most addicts never make it through the first few weeks. For example, Dr. Charles P. O’Brien, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania, said that two thirds of the addicts enrolled in his treatment program drop out in the first month. Other programs had even less success.

The Wrong Environment

“We may have to remove them from their communities,” said one noted treatment-center director. “You have got to get the addicts out of that drug environment. That environment is a morgue.” This, researchers have found, is the primary reason why the greater number of addicts who have detoxified return to the drug that enslaved them. The reason seems obvious. Are these not the surroundings that sent them to treatment centers in the first place? Was not crack available on every street corner, where peer pressure, often from their own family and best friends, motivated their first puff from the crack pipe? Who is there now to encourage their staying on a treatment program and becoming free from the drug’s tug-of-war for their very lives?

The more successful programs stressed wrong environment as a major factor in the addict’s continuing drug abuse. “The patient was taught strategies for staying away from the drug, including how to avoid cues that trigger the craving for it,” The New York Times reported. “The sight of a street where a person once bought crack, a discarded vial on the sidewalk, the dentist’s office or a pharmaceutical odor that has a resemblance to the chemical smell of crack,” are all things that can trigger desire for the drug, the paper said. Effective programs also stressed the importance of addicts’ “severing all ties to friends and relatives who still used drugs.” Instead, they were counseled to make new friends with people who do not use drugs. Wise counsel, indeed.

You Can Say No!

The book Self-Destructive Behavior in Children and Adolescents makes this observation: “The youthful are most often introduced or ‘turned on’ to the various drugs by a close friend . . . [His] intentions may be to share an exciting or pleasurable experience.” Peer pressure is not limited, however, to the young, as older addicts can testify; neither was this wise Scriptural counsel limited to the young, but it applies to persons of all ages, as the Bible writer says: “He that is walking with wise persons will become wise, but he that is having dealings with the stupid ones will fare badly.”​—Proverbs 13:20.

If you are overwhelmed with problems that seem insurmountable, do not seek escape by drugs. This will only add to your problems. Talk things over with a parent or other responsible adult who would have your best interests at heart. Remember, too, the Bible’s counsel: “Do not be anxious over anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication along with thanksgiving let your petitions be made known to God; and the peace of God that excels all thought will guard your hearts and your mental powers.”​—Philippians 4:6, 7.