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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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091889
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09188900.053
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1990-09-17
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NATION, Page 28The Menace of Ice
Even as the U.S. struggles with crack cocaine, a more chilling
drug has appeared: "ice." Like crack, ice is not a new drug but a
smokable version of an old one -- crystallized methamphetamine,
better known as "crystal meth" and speed during the 1960s and '70s,
when it was usually taken as pills or injected. In Hawaii, where
the smokable version first appeared this year, it is sold in $50
cellophane packets that contain about a tenth of a gram, good for
one or two hits. But smoking ice provides a high for eight hours
or more, compared with less than 30 minutes for crack. It shares
crack's addictive properties and produces similar bouts of severe
depression and paranoia, as well as convulsions.
Ice has already become the No. 1 drug problem in Hawaii, where
it is smuggled in from illegal labs in South Korea and the
Philippines. Methamphetamine produced in California, Oregon and
Texas is already making serious inroads across the U.S. The
frustrating prospect is that if the effort to stop the cocaine flow
from Latin America makes crack harder to get, users will simply
shift to easily available speed. Jubilant would-be speed kings from
Portland to Dallas are already making plans for vast expansions in
production.