BEHAVIOR, Page 95A Plague Without BoundariesCrack, once a problem of the poor, invades the U.S. middle classBy Philip Elmer-DeWitt/Reported by Jonathan Beaty/Los Angelesand 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
