Pubdate: Mon, 24 Jun 2013
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2013 The Ottawa Citizen
Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
Author: Craig Reinarman
Note: Craig Reinarman is a professor of sociology and legal studies 
at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the co-author of 
Crack In America: Demon Drugs and Social Justice.

WHY PEOPLE ARE AFRAID OF CRACK

Lots of politicians have drug problems, writes Craig Reinarman. But 
Rob Ford's story is about crack cocaine, which has an exceptional 
hold on North American culture.

The story of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford allegedly smoking crack cocaine 
is journalistically juicy. An impoverished neighbourhood worried 
about gangs and drugs. Police investigate. Judges issue warrants. An 
army of cops storms an apartment building, (at first smashing down 
the wrong door, sadly not uncommon in the drug war). Bad guys handcuffed.

On top of such standard sensationalized fare, Gawker.com had told of 
a 90-second video showing the mayor of Canada's largest city smoking 
crack. Two Toronto Star journalists report that they actually viewed the video.

The mayor denies using crack and being a crack addict. He claims the 
video doesn't exist. He fires his chief of staff for suggesting he 
needs help for an addiction problem. Staffers quit. Then poof, the 
video vanishes as mysteriously as it appeared. Hollywood couldn't 
make up melodrama this rich.

But a big reason for the size of the scandal is crack's reputation as 
the iconic "dangerous drug." Politicians have their drug problems - 
alcoholism, smoking, pills - but licit drugs are not often headline 
material. Nor would a video showing the mayor smoking marijuana have 
the same impact. Over 100 million Americans have smoked marijuana - 
including the mayor of New York City and at least three U.S. 
presidents. Canadians use marijuana at somewhat lower rates, but 
still, a "Mayor smokes pot" story would not be front-page news for long.

So how did crack come by its exceptional power to stain reputations? 
Much of its stigma as a dangerous drug stems from its association 
with a "dangerous class," poor black people.

The crack scare began in the U.S. in 1986 when a college basketball 
superstar, Len Bias, died suddenly. He had risen from inner city 
poverty to the celebrity and wealth of a pro career only to overdose 
on crack, the story went - new demon drug in the hood. Turns out Bias 
never actually smoked crack (he drank cocaine powder), but his 
"crack-related death" was a spark that hit very dry tinder.

1986 was an election year, and conservatives in particular bragged 
about being "tough on drugs." They passed anti-crack laws with stiff 
sentences for possessing small amounts. These laws led to the most 
massive and racially disproportionate imprisonment wave in U.S. history.

Crack was a godsend to Republicans. Under their policies, 
unemployment had skyrocketed. Poverty was increasing. They had 
attacked all public services that helped the poor. Crack became a 
multi-function scapegoat.

President Ronald Reagan warned of losing "an entire generation" to 
crack. Nancy Reagan launched a "Just Say No" campaign as a way of 
softening her steely image. In his first major speech, the first 
President Bush held up a bag of crack he claimed was purchased "right 
across the street from the White House." We later learned that no one 
actually sold crack across from the White House; there were no buyers 
there. So federal agents arranged to lure a crack seller into the 
role that would fit the script Bush wanted for his speech. A black 
teenager took the bait and was jailed.

The political grandstanding and harsh new laws were justified by wild 
claims about crack that were uncritically repeated by most of the 
media. That crack was a frightening new drug, instantly and 
inevitably addicting. That it was spreading to all segments of 
society. That crazed crackheads were causing a wave of violent crime.

Each of these claims was misleading or false. Crack was not really a 
new drug. It is cocaine that is reduced to base form and vaporized, a 
new mode of ingestion of an old drug. Affluent users had been smoking 
freebase cocaine (essentially the same as crack) for several years. 
When some of them got into trouble, they went to rehab. But when 
smaller, cheaper chunks of the same stuff found their way to ghetto 
street corners and poor people of colour got involved, they went to prison.

Part of what made crack scary to many people was who they thought was 
using it - poor black people with little left to lose. That's who 
they saw getting arrested night after night on the news. The majority 
of crack users, however, have always been white.

It is fair to say that crack's intense, fleeting high made it easy to 
abuse and that many chronic users messed themselves up. But crack 
addiction was neither instant nor inevitable. Every year government 
studies show that about 80 per cent of those who have ever used crack 
have not used it in the past year. Most people who tried crack 
apparently either didn't like it or recognized the risks and steered 
clear. Crack's roller-coaster rush and crash are hard to sustain if 
you have a life to maintain, so crack use never spread far beyond the 
most marginalized and impoverished.

The scourge of "crack-related homicides" turned out to stem less from 
crazed crackhead robbers than from violent illicit markets. High 
unemployment, deepening poverty, aid cuts, high profit potential, 
easy availability of firearms, no regulation or legal means of 
dispute resolution. If asked to design a set of conditions to 
maximize violence, you could hardly do better. Those were scary 
times, perhaps, but they weren't just about a scary new drug.

The images we have about crack cocaine were etched into public 
consciousness at a moment of moral panic in the U.S., inventor of 
prohibition and drug wars. Like other drug scares since the 
19th-century crusade against drink, the crack scare was the product 
of reciprocal demonization: a drug is seen as dangerous in part 
because those thought to use it are seen as dangerous; that group is 
seen as dangerous in part because they are thought to use a dangerous drug.

Many people may be relishing the irony of Rob Ford's alleged 
hypocrisy. A conservative mayor, born to privilege, prone to bombast, 
reportedly caught using a ghetto drug and thus tarred by a brush 
conservatives usually wield against others. But is Canadian political 
culture well served by the race-tinged taint of "dangerous drugs"?
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom