CRACK COCAINE LOSING ITS POPULARITY

The first time I saw the words "crack cocaine" was in the mid-1980s in a
Time magazine story.

I was editor of a newspaper in Ohio, and I tore the article from the
magazine and gave it to our police reporter. "Ask the cops about this," I said.

The local police scratched their heads. It was news to them, too.

That changed suddenly and violently. Within months our community was awash
in this cheap and highly addictive new drug. Police searches - whether of
cars, apartments or people - suddenly began turning up rocks of crack cocaine.

Over the next few years, the impact of crack rippled through the community.
Violent crime shot up. An out-of-town gang of thugs would show up, break
down a door, shoot somebody in the head and calmly drive away.

Abuse and neglect cases increased. The local school superintendent reported
that sometimes children did not come to school because their parents had
sold their shoes or coats the night before to obtain crack money.

Brain-damaged babies were born to crack-addicted mothers. "Crack houses" in
the middle of decent neighborhoods were seized by a special police task
force and boarded up.

While Maine has its share of substance abuse problems, I sense that crack
cocaine was never quite the problem here that it has been elsewhere in the
United States.

And here, like elsewhere, the crack epidemic seems to be abating. An annual
report released Monday shows that Androscoggin County had 15 crack cocaine
cases last year compared to 22 the year before.

Geography can be both a curse and a blessing. Economically, Maine always
has struggled by being off the beaten path. But when it came to crack
cocaine, remoteness is an advantage.

Two interstate highways went through my former community in Ohio, carrying
drugs and drug runners from Cleveland to Detroit. Drug-sniffing dogs and
multi-million-dollar busts went hand in hand on those roadways. Police said
they could spot drug runners almost at will.

I recently read an article in the New York Times about the rebirth of New
York City neighborhoods that had seemingly been lost to crack cocaine.

The article made several interesting points: First, enforcement had little
effect on turning the crack-cocaine tide. Former addicts, pushers and drug
counselors all agreed that arrest and conviction were minor inconveniences
in the crack cocaine trade.

Instead, they said, crack cocaine sowed the seeds of its own decline.

Experts pointed out that the drug was so addictive and lethal that the
average user only had a six-year lifespan. Second, a new generation of
young people began to realize that crack not only killed, it left its
survivors hollow and useless.

One former crack user told of being 30 years old and having to beg a
15-year-old pusher for his next fix. A crack addict lost every shred of
self-respect.

Crack turned out to be a really nasty drug from every angle and,
eventually, even its potential users began to realize that.

What worked in this ease was not putting more people behind bars. It wasn't
in pitting police departments against drug addicts.

Instead, the defeat of crack cocaine came when regular people began facing
reality. They saw that this drug enslaved and killed. They saw how it
robbed people of their human worth and dignity. They saw how it left their
neighborhoods awash in crime and fear. They saw how people abandoned their
families to feed their addictions.

In short, they did not like what they saw.

Of course, the lesson came at a horrible price. Who knows how many kids are
struggling in school because of crack-induced brain damage or how many
people lost their lives to the drug or in the bloody street wars?

And, of course, that war goes on. Heroin and LSD, old drugs, are making
comebacks and new drugs, like Ecstasy, regularly hit the market.

Let's hope crack cocaine never stages a comeback. Let's also hope that the
lessons of crack cocaine are not lost on another generation.

Rex Rhoades is executive editor. His e-mail address is:

rrhoades@sunjournal.com