Word: cracking
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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...
...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...
...problem of crack abuse among the affluent is especially disturbing because 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 another 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...
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...
...more extraordinary subplots that develops is that of a teenage girl who gets a job cleaning trash off the streets after the day's filming. One day, after getting paid, she disappears and an older woman who kept an eye on her says she has left to do crack with the money she earned. The teenager returns several days later to resume her work, but the subject is never brought up again...