>Sender: >To: >X-Original-Message-ID: <0cc301bf02eb$d3206930$9acf69cf@pacbell.net> >From: "Peter McWilliams" >Subject: Another crack in the Drug-War case >Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 15:10:46 -0700 >X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 >X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 > > >September 19, 1999 >One of the Drug War's justifications for existence is the reduced use of >crack. "See? The Drug War is working! Give us ten more years, a trillion >more dollars, and let us destroy the lives of 10 million more Americans!" > >As Timothy Egan illustrated in his previous front-page New York Times >articles, the "crack epidemic" was pretty much invented by the Drug >Warriors--there never was an epidemic. > >Now, in a new front-page NYT story (Sunday, September 19, 1999), Egan shows >that any reduction in crack use was due to users making a choice, not due to >police action. Indeed, police intervention only made things worse. > >These two facts--there never was a crack epidemic and most people who >stopped did so of their own choosing, not police power--is important because >the press in the late 1980s climbed onboard the Drug War propaganda train >because powder cocaine use had infiltrated white-upper-middle-class enclaves >(read: reporters) and the specter that a Caucasian crack epidemic was just >around the corner was what William Bennett used to scare the press owners to >treat the Drug War like World War II--anyone opposing the War on Drugs was, >in print, a traitor and their comments were not printed. > >This wartime reporting has held sway in the press for the past 12 years. We >can only depend on the courts and the pres to bring peace on drugs and >restore the constitutional rights to those who choose to use drugs. The >legislative and administrative branches are currently hopeless. > >As the press begins to realize "We was duped," balanced reporting on the >Drug War should return. > >Enjoy, > >Peter > >========= > >CRACK'S LEGACY: A SPECIAL REPORT >A Drug Ran Its Course, Then Hid With Its Users > >By TIMOTHY EGAN >On a day when Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani went to Brooklyn to tout the renewal >of the Bushwick neighborhood, once considered one of the most notorious drug >bazaars in the country, Pipo Rios opened a 40-ounce malt liquor and >contemplated his business not far from where the Mayor spoke. > > >Rios used to sell crack in the neighborhood, but street-level drug dealers >are hard-pressed to make a living these days, he said. > >So now he deals in Tommy Hilfiger knockoffs. "I can make more money selling >these," he said, pointing to a stack of the jackets inside his cramped >kitchen, "especially on Friday nights." > >Rios, 36, said he no longer used crack, either. But it was not the many >times he was arrested, nor the year he spent in prison, that changed his >attitude. He simply grew tired of the drug, he said. Still, the plum-colored >marks on his arms are the trademark of another drug that he does use -- >heroin. That, plus tobacco and alcohol. > >"I've got to quit these cigarettes," he said, shaking his head in a cloud of >smoke. > >It is unlikely that Rios will ever get invited to City Hall. But the change >in his life is the story of the decline of crack in New York -- done in by >age, boredom and new opportunities. > >Today, in communities that used to have more open-air crack markets than >grocery stores, where children grew up dodging crack vials and gunfire, the >change from a decade ago is startling. On the surface, crack has all but >disappeared from much of New York, taking with it the ragged and violent >vignettes that were a routine part of street life. > >For example, a little triangle of land near Bushwick, where crack dealers >used to stage midnight fights with their pit bulls, is now a community >garden. It was a great year for tomatoes. > >Over the last 10 years, the New York police made nearly 900,000 drug >arrests -- more than any other city in the world. Almost a third were for >using and selling crack. > >But a broader look at the arc of the crack years suggests that it was not >the incarceration of a generation, or the sixfold increase in the number of >police officers assigned to narcotics, that turned the tide in New York, >which the police called the crack capital of the world. > >Nearly every major American city plagued by the drug has matched New York's >rise and decline in crack use, regardless of how law enforcement responded. >Drug-use surveys, arrest statistics and the personal narratives of scores of >users, dealers and street-level narcotics officers point to the same >pattern: The crack epidemic behaved much like a fever. It came on strong, >appearing to rise without hesitation, and then broke, just as the most dire >warnings were being sounded. > >In New York, the use of crack stopped growing as its addicts became known as >the biggest losers on the street. At the same time, the violent drug markets >settled down, as dealers and users fell into retail routines. Perhaps most >telling, there was a generational revulsion against the drug. > >"If you were raised in a house where somebody was a crack addict, you wanted >to get as far away from that drug as you could," said Selena Jones, a Harlem >resident whose mother was a chronic crack user. "People look down on them so >much that even crackheads don't want to be crackheads anymore." > >The police consider the transformation of parts of Harlem, Washington >Heights and Brooklyn something of a miracle, emblematic of New York's >determination to beat back the drug tide that many people thought would >overwhelm it. > >"I'm not ready to say we won," Police Commissioner Howard Safir said >recently. "But we're no longer the crack capital of the world." He >attributed the change to a policy of zero tolerance for anyone using or >selling drugs in the open. > >"You can spray them once, but they come back," Safir said, comparing drug >dealers to cockroaches. "You have to keep going after them. We had to take >this city back block by block." > >In Washington, however, the drug arrest rates actually declined in some of >the peak crack years -- and the city still recorded a steeper drop than New >York in the percentage of its young residents using cocaine from 1990 to the >present. > >"This happened over a period of time when Washington had fewer officers on >the street, the police made fewer arrests for drugs, and the mayor himself >was indicted for smoking crack," said Bruce Johnson, a New York social >scientist who has conducted extensive surveys of crack use across the >country for the National Institute for Justice. > >"Something clearly happened to change the attitude among youths," Johnson >said. "They deserve a lot of the credit." > >The drug that was held up as the scourge of New York is still around, of >course, and so are its consequences -- broken families, battle-scarred >neighborhoods, crimes both petty and large. The cheap, smokable form of >cocaine gives its users a quick high and often leaves them wanting more. But >a clear trend has developed that few public officials predicted: Crack has >become a drug used primarily by older people. > >Embraced by one generation, crack was spurned by the next. The level of >crack use has remained steady for more than a decade. > >According to an annual survey of drug use among people who are arrested, >35.7 percent of all males over 36 years old who were arrested in New York >last year had used crack recently, but barely 4 percent of those 15 to 20 >years old had used it. > >National surveys of the general population show the same falling off in >crack use among the young. And among all age and race groups, the most >startling decline has been among young blacks, the very stereotype of the >urban drug user. > >A new drug cycle, this time following new ways to ingest familiar drugs like >alcohol, marijuana and even heroin, which is cheaper and more plentiful than >ever, has taken hold. Among many young people in New York, the rage is a "40 >and a blunt" -- a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor and a hollowed-out cigar >packed with marijuana. > >"You don't find much crack use among the young," said Jean L. Scott, who has >worked with drug abusers for 30 years at Phoenix House in New York, the >nation's leading treatment center. "These people saw a whole generation go >bad on crack. They stick with their 40 and a blunt." > >Crack, she said, the drug that so scared America that it prompted major >changes in the judicial system, in prisons and in police tactics, is barely >spoken of among the young in New York -- except with disdain. > >The Change: Ripple Effect of Aging Users > >A tentative peace has come to many of the old haunts of crack. Scouring the >New York neighborhoods that once had up to 12,000 open-air drug markets >finds only a spectral presence of the great drug epidemic. The streets are >no longer congested with armed boys selling cheap highs by the fistful. > >A walk down Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick, where three generations of >gangsters from Sicily, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic flourished >over three different drug cycles, is a tour through the changed cityscape. > >In the block where crack dealers shot Maria Hernandez to death in her >apartment 10 years ago for trying to unify the neighborhood against them, >three new businesses have come to life. In the park where gunfire could be >heard nearly every night, the loudest sound at dusk comes from two boys >arguing over who is baseball's best power hitter, Sammy Sosa or Manny >Ramirez. > >"They're still here, these crack dealers," said Carlos Hernandez, Maria's >widower. "But you can't find them unless you know where to look." > >A few blocks away, on Wilson Avenue, a handful of gaunt-faced older men >follow a furtive routine to buy $3 vials of crack from an established dealer >not far from the police precinct house. Once, dealers sold crack from the >sidewalks. Now they must be summoned by beeper and code and are wary of >selling to strangers. > >"They no longer own the street," Hernandez said. > >The police used to call a stretch of Knickerbocker Avenue the Well -- an >endless fount of drugs and violence, sometimes with 25 crack dealers to a >block and three killings a week. > >"This place has changed dramatically," said Stanley Bauman, 41, a lifelong >resident of Bushwick. > >For years, he sat on a street corner with a dog named Wacko and sold crack >to hundreds of customers. > >"Did it right out in broad daylight," Bauman said. "All the cops knew me. >And I knew most of them." He was arrested many times, he said, and did a >stint in prison. > >When asked what happened to his regular customers, he said: "Some of them >died. Some of them went to jail. The others are still using crack, but >they're getting old." > >The aging of the habitual crack user has had a ripple effect on all the >negative social indicators connected to drug abuse. > >At the height of the crack years, foster care agencies were swamped with >children left in squalor by parents who pursued the crack high; last year >the number of children brought into the New York foster care system fell to >fewer than 40,000, down from nearly 50,000 a decade ago, and child welfare >officials attribute the drop in large part to the decline in crack use by >women. > > >Ten years ago, many experts feared that crack would be passed on from >mothers to children. But the children did not follow the pattern. > >"I remember being 10 years old, and having to take control of my own life," >said Ms. Jones, 25, the Harlem resident. "We were eating cornmeal pancakes >without syrup for dinner -- crack vials all over the floor. I was like, >'Hello! Don't you know you have a daughter?' " > >Ms. Jones lives near Jackie Robinson Park. Crowded with crack users 10 years >ago, it now looks like any other slice of green in New York on a warm day -- >mothers pushing strollers, children playing, clusters of people swapping >stories. > >Violent crime in New York hit a 30-year low last year, a drop that Giuliani >says is largely attributable to the city's record number of arrests of drug >users and dealers. > >"One of the main reasons crime is down so dramatically in New York is that >we no longer let the drug dealers control the city," Giuliani said. > >But nationwide, the murder rate also reached the lowest level since 1969, >according to the F.B.I., even in cities where drug arrests fell or remained >the same. > >A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta >cited diminished warfare between gangs that deal in crack as a major reason >for the sharp drop in violent crime nationwide. The crack marketplace had >become organized. > >In Bushwick, the police cordoned off the Well in the early 90's and special >teams of officers made thousands of arrests. So many people were sent to >jail that Rikers Island became known as a Bushwick block party, said Dr. >Rick Curtis, a cultural anthropologist at John Jay College of Criminal >Justice in Manhattan, who has interviewed more than a thousand crack users >and dealers in Brooklyn over the last decade. > >"Even the drug dealers were happy to see a certain level of sanity return," >Dr. Curtis said. "The question is, would this have happened anyway? Drug >markets were in contraction well before the stepped-up police action." > >Arrest statistics show that crack use among the young started to decline >nearly 10 years ago, in the administration of Mayor David N. Dinkins. In >Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Washington and other cities where the drug took >hold about the same time as in New York, in the mid-80's, crack fell out of >favor at the same time. > >"You used to see crowds of people waiting to buy their crack kept in line by >some jerk with a baseball bat," said Robert Baumert, a retired deputy chief >who was in charge of narcotics enforcement in north Brooklyn at the peak of >the crack years. "They were not afraid of the police." > >Longtime crack users agree with the police on at least that point: They did >not fear the law. But the large police actions, the sweeps that had names >like Operation Striker, did not ultimately deter use, they say. In a 1997 >survey that asked crack users why they had given up the drug, only 5 percent >cited arrests or jail. Nearly 19 percent said they "grew tired of the drug >life." > >"I don't think anything the police did changed my behavior," said Thomas >Covington, who was arrested 31 times, mostly for crack possession, and >served two prison terms before voluntarily entering drug treatment. >"Sometimes it was a little more challenging to buy. But once that compulsion >is there, it doesn't matter what the penalty or the threat is." > >Covington is a big, sharp-witted Brooklyn native who has used crack on and >off for 15 years. He made it through the explosive violence that came with >crack's introduction. He was homeless, and sick, and twice felt the steel >tip of a handgun pressed to his temple by hot-tempered dealers. > >He dodged the police offensives of three mayors. > >But starting in the early 90's, Covington said, he noticed a shift in the >attitudes of young drug dealers. "They didn't use crack," he said. "And they >didn't respect people who did. To me, being a 34- or 35-year-old guy, >standing on line and handing my money to a 15-year-old, that was >humiliating." > >The Bad Times: Getting Better Amid Despair > >At the lowest point of New York's long night of despair over crack, the city >was nearly broken by the drug. Or so it appeared. > >During one rush hour 10 years ago, 149 subway trains came to a sudden halt, >held up by an electrical short. It was one of the more unusual casualties of >crack, transit officials later concluded. Pawn shops paid $1 a pound for >copper, and drug users found that few things brought in money like the >two-inch-thick copper wires that help guide subways around New York. > > >"We used to rip the cable out and then burn off the insulation," Covington >said. It was just this sort of scavaging, transit officials said, that led >to the subway short. > >In the crack years, the city had an aura of menace. In 1989 a police >officer, Edward Byrne, was killed while guarding the home of a witness in a >drug case in Queens. In 1990, a record 2,262 people were slain, and the >police linked two-thirds of the deaths to the drug trade. > >Other drug addicts were afraid of the hard-core crack users. Doris Randolph, >a former drug user in Harlem who now helps young people stay off drugs, >said, "The people who used heroin, we'd be sitting there in the shooting >galleries, nodding, talking politics, talking about music, the paper under >our arms, and then all of sudden these twitchy crackheads showed up, and >they looked dangerous." > >But as early as 1989, four years after crack's appearance, at a time when >New York looked to be at its lowest ebb, the fever had broken and the >epidemic was beginning its slow decline. It continued to fall before and >after the major police crackdowns, until it hit a plateau in the mid-90's >where it has been ever since. > >Mandatory prison terms and hundreds of thousands of arrests "appeared to >have no major deterrent effect," according to a study of crack's decline by >the National Institute of Justice. > >Dr. Lynn Zimmer, a professor of sociology at Queens College, who studied the >effects of police sweeps on drug use in New York in the late 80's, said: >"Crack would never be as popular as it was made out to be, and people who >really understood drug cycles predicted that. There is a natural cycle to >these kinds of drug trends. Crack followed that." > >Growing up with a crack-addicted mother, Ms. Jones said, she could tell the >drug would never be popular with the children her age. "You'd see things >that were just crazy," she said. "My mother used to like going to jail. >She'd get her rest there. She said all her friends were there." > >The Campaign: Driving Dealers Underground > >A stroll down West 139th Street in Manhattan, in the heart of a square mile >that the New York police once called the cocaine capital of the world, found >71-year-old Casimiro Lopez relaxing on the stoop at dusk. > >"I'm telling you: the drugs never finish," said Lopez, who has lived here >for 31 years. "But it's much better now, because you don't see them >anymore." > >Much of West 139th Street was taken over by the New York police in the >mid-90's in what the officers call a model-block campaign to reclaim >neighborhoods from drug dealers. They put barricades at both ends of the >street and stopped people who could not prove that they lived in the >neighborhood. From 139th north, through Washington Heights, the police >carried on similar campaigns: taking over entire blocks, arresting people >for minor offenses, then hanging N.Y.P.D. banners, planting a row of trees >and moving on. Signs posted on the outside of apartment buildings read: "No >Hanging Out. No Eating. No Pets. No Loud Radio." > >Many residents welcome the police attention. Others compare it with martial >law. > >"The idea is to blanket the city and give drug dealers no place to hide," >Giuliani said in explaining the city's policy. "It's working." > >But scores of interviews in these hard-hit neighborhoods found many people >who felt that the change had been largely cosmetic. > >"I compare it to Niagara Falls," said Jordi Reyes-Montblanc, director of the >West Side Heights Citizen League. "You take 10 buckets out one year, 100 >buckets out the next. That's a 500 percent improvement, but the falls are >still in place." > >Drug dealers are indeed hard to find on West 139th Street. But a few blocks >further north, men in their late 30's and early 40's make deals in the >shadows around Our Lady of Lourdes Roman Catholic Church and the two-story, >wood-frame house built in 1802 by Alexander Hamilton, a framer of the >Constitution. > >"What the police did was move the drug traffic north," said the Rev. Thomas >Fenlon, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes, a church with bars over the >stained-glass windows. "Now, instead of being on 139th Street, they are in >front of the church and school." > >But over all, he said, there are fewer dealers, and his comments were echoed >throughout old crack alleys. Crack users told of going inside to buy, using >beepers and code, and pretty much going on as usual within a block or two of >the street where the N.Y.P.D. banners flew. > >"Everything went underground," said Rolando Lopez, an antique furniture >restorer from Brooklyn who has had a crack habit for much of the 90's, but >has never been arrested. "It became more of a thrill. You'd walk by the >cops, carrying the crack vial in your mouth." > >Covington in Brooklyn also changed his buying routine, but not his habits. >"Instead of buying in the street, we started buying from some of the >bodegas," he said. "You'd go in and order a hero sandwich in the back, and >they'd put the crack in a bag with some chips." > >The police say they have tried to do something considerably more difficult >than showing an iron fist 24 hours a day. > >"We're not just coming in and locking up dealers like an invading army," >said Capt. Garry F. McCarthy, who until recently was in charge of the 33d >Precinct, which includes most of Washington Heights. "We're coming in and >trying to create a livable community." > >But others says more credit should be given to the people of the >neighborhoods. No matter how many trees they plant, banners they fly or >arrests they make, the police cannot create a livable community, they say. >It takes human resiliency. > >The Rebirth: Neighborhoods Heal Themselves > >It has been a prosperous decade. > >Disney and the Gap are now coming to Harlem. Bushwick and Washington Heights >are alive with new bodegas, farmicias, fruit markets, discount clothing >stores, chains like McDonald's and Rite Aid. > >Bauman, the former crack dealer in Bushwick, now works on construction >crews, putting up plasterboard. "I got all the work I can use," he said. One >of his fellow dealers has become a security guard. Another is a school bus >driver, said Dr. > >Curtis, the anthropologist. > >In Bushwick, Dr. Curtis concluded, the neighborhood healed itself. Many >people had expected the arrests to continue without end, until Bushwick was >a place nearly devoid of young men. But social pressure and neighborhood >initiatives brought a change. > >"Rather than fulfilling the prophecy of becoming addicted and remorseless >superpredators," Dr. Curtis wrote in his study, the young men of Bushwick >"opted for the relative safety of family, home, church and other sheltering >institutions, which persevered during the most difficult years." > >Hernandez of Bushwick gives the police plenty of credit for the change in >his neighborhood. But he says it was more than arrests that made crack's >imprint diminish in his small piece of New York. The crack epidemic looked >like it would never end only to those who could not see to the other side, >he said. > >"The community came together, and it created a snowball effect," said >Hernandez, walking down Knickerbocker Avenue in bright sunshine. "The >churches, the merchants, the parents -- we showed young people there was >something to live for here in Bushwick." > >His family is the best proof of his point. Hernandez's eldest daughter, >Evelis, having completed college, has decided to return to Bushwick. She >will soon be teaching school in the neighborhood where her mother was shot >to death. > >"Why should we ever leave?" Hernandez said. > > > > > > > >================================================================ > >This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to > the mailing list . >To unsubscribe, E-mail to: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------