TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/110689/p95

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 6.0 KB | 117 lines

                                                                                BEHAVIOR, Page 95

A Plague Without Boundaries


Crack, once a problem of the poor, invades the U.S. middle class

By Philip Elmer-DeWitt/Reported by Jonathan Beaty/Los Angeles
and Georgia Harbison/New York


    The scene is South Central Los Angeles, but it could as
easily be Detroit, Grand Rapids or Kansas City. A young white
male driving a 1989 Thunderbird slowly circles one of the worst
blocks in the city. He nods toward a group of blacks hanging out
at a corner. As his smartly dressed date whirs up her electric
window, a clamoring pack of drug dealers surrounds the car.
Money is hastily exchanged for a tiny cellophane bag of
off-white crystals. The car peels away, fleeing the inner city,
headed toward suburban safety. But the driver of the
Thunderbird, his supply exhausted, will be back in only three
hours, slowly circling the block.

    This is not the picture of the crack epidemic portrayed by
the nightly news. On TV, crack addicts are almost invariably
blacks and Hispanics from the ghetto. In real life, the problem
is much broader: the number of white middle- and upper-class
crack users may equal -- or even exceed -- the total from poor
minority communities. No government studies break down crack use
by economic status, but William Hopkins, a leading narcotics
expert working for the state of New York, estimates that 70% of
New York City's drug users are affluent. Across the U.S., drug
counselors report rising numbers of professionals -- doctors,
nurses, accountants, professors -- trying to kick crack habits
gone out of control. "We've got  Wall Street executives who buy
crack in the middle of the day and smoke it in the office," says
Alan Horowitz, program director at A.C.I., a treatment center
in New York City. "We had one air-traffic controller at J.F.K.
airport who was smoking crack on his breaks."

    Crack, a smokable form of cocaine, is a drug that might
have been designed for use on the job. It is easy to conceal,
since it burns with virtually no odor, and the gratification is
swift: an intense, almost sexual euphoria that lasts only about
five minutes and is not accompanied by such telltale side
effects as alcohol's slurred speech and heroin's drowsiness.

    The problem of crack abuse among the affluent is especially
disturbing be cause it comes at a time when the middle class
seemed to be weaning itself from recreational drugs. Between
1985 and 1988, the number of casual drug users in the U.S.
dropped from 23 million to 14.5 million, according to the
National Institute on Drug Abuse. But according to an other
federal study, the number of Americans using crack cocaine at
least once a week increased by one-third during that period,
from under 650,000 to more than 860,000. "The poor people in the
ghetto aren't buying all that cocaine," says William Smith,
clinical director of California's Phoenix House. "This is a
plague that knows no class or racial boundaries."

    Psychologists say upwardly mobile Americans who turn to
crack share personality traits that may make them vulnerable to
the drug's siren call. Dr. Jeffrey Rosecan, director of the
Cocaine Abuse Treatment Program at Manhattan's
Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, sketches a profile of the
typical crack user: a man in his 30s or 40s, single or divorced,
with a high-pressure job, little inner peace and a history of
moderate drug use and heavy drinking. "They're extremists, hard
drivers, workaholics," says Rosecan. "With an all-or-nothing
personality and a history of drug experimentation, you've got
a formula for disaster when this person tries crack."

    Crack is not for men only. One of the most striking
developments of the past five years is the increase of crack
abuse among middle-class women. The American Association for
Clinical Chemistry, the organization whose members perform 80%
of the drug tests in the U.S., reports that among people who
test positive for drugs, the percentage of women jumped from 25%
in 1972 to 40% in 1988. Many of them first used cocaine to help
lose weight.

    The rich have special problems procuring crack. They often
have to make their buys in unfamiliar (and unsavory)
neighborhoods, where they are prey to all kinds of rip-offs.
Street crack is contaminated with an astonishing variety of
chemicals, from amphetamines and meat tenderizers to pesticides.
To make sure they are not being poisoned, some users are going
back to a process popular years ago. They buy cocaine and
convert it into a purer form of crack at home. This dangerous
process, called free-basing, involves combining cocaine with
baking soda and cooking the mixture. The latest trend among
well-to-do users is to prepare their free base in microwave
ovens.

    Initially, a crack addict can continue to function at work.
But that first euphoric kick can be followed by depression and
paranoia, which the user suppresses by getting high again. So
begins a cycle of compulsive binging known as "chasing the
high." Five-dollar "nickels" give way to $40 "doves." Soon crack
addicts are spending $200 and more every night.

    The poor have a built-in defense against runaway crack
abuse: they run out of money. The rich have the same limit; it
just takes longer to get there. Stories abound of well-heeled
users smoking their way through trust funds, savings accounts
and charge-card credit lines. Some take out second mortgages and
go on to sell jewelry and household items like TVs, VCRs and
answering machines.

    Having bought their way into addiction, affluent users
often try to buy their way out. They can pick and choose from
a long menu of treatments, from acupuncture to cocaine-blocking
medications like imipramine and desipramine, but there are no
quick fixes. In the end, all crack addicts, rich or poor, must
put themselves back on their own feet -- a slow process that
calls for professional counseling, steady support from family
and friends, fearless self-examination and not a little pain.