Crack Cocaine Epidemic
Re “The Real Cost of Crack” series, Dec. 18-21: At last we are offered a comprehensive view of the destruction visited on all of us caused by the abuse of crack. My wife and I are foster parents and are adopting two babies born addicted, and we have had ample opportunity to view firsthand the horrifying effects of this ugly epidemic.
I, personally, have come to the conclusion that nothing will save our society except to stop this scourge at its source. That is, we need a comprehensive effort to prevent crack-addicted parents from bringing children into this world who are virtually all dumped on society for us to deal with. We need to divert money to birth control clinics (lots of them) where addicted mothers can get free abortions, tubal ligations or Norplant, along with some kind of monetary reward for coming in. We need to offer mothers who deliver addicted babies the choice of tubal ligation and help with their addiction, or we need to give them jail time.
Harsh? Not at all. Harsh is a baby going through months of agonizing withdrawal. Harsh is having to grow up with no one to truly love or care for you. Harsh is trying to cope with life with a severely damaged nervous system.
PHILIP G. deCARION
Laguna Beach
* “The Hidden Devastation of Crack” (Dec. 18) is wrong-headed and exacerbates the very problem it is presumably trying to help. The major problem with the article is its thesis, which seems to be that crack is so powerful, people are victims of its seduction. Crack users are no more victims of this mind-altering substance than are drinkers of alcohol. It is a matter of personal choice, for which the individual is responsible.
According to the National Institute on Drug Addiction’s annual household survey, the percentage of people between ages 18 and 25 (the most drug-prone years) that had used an illicit drug during the last month declined steadily from 37% in 1979 to 15% in 1991. Even allowing for changes in the age range of the population during that period, this suggests that, while overall drug use was declining, many who became crack users were simply changing from one drug to another, rather than being snared anew by the irresistible pull of a new demon drug.
The sooner we start placing the responsibility for drug abuse on the individual, rather than on the drug, or society, or economics, or a flawed childhood, the sooner we will begin directing our anti-drug efforts toward prevention through education and help through treatment.
DIRK C. ELDREDGE
Long Beach
* As reported, crack has made Skid Row a younger, meaner place. And as we have long stated, lack of housing is not the problem. Willingness to spend income on housing is the problem.
Newly employed “graduates” of our award-winning shelter, Transition House, have never had a problem locating appropriate housing. Our challenge lies in making homeless people employable and educating them to spend their money on housing and not on drugs.
MARTHA BROWN HICKS, President
Skid Row Development Corp.
Los Angeles
* The series on the crack epidemic was excellent. However, I’m sorry that it focused so much on African American people. The ravages of crack go beyond that community.
I have some expertise on this subject, since I’m a so-called drug war refugee. I lived for years in a crack-infested neighborhood three blocks from MacArthur Park, until we finally had to flee due to death threats. I observed that the majority of the buyers were white. I saw obviously affluent men as well as suburban homemaker types with children in safety seats purchasing crack on my street.
It would be really informative to investigate how all races, ages and income brackets have been involved in spreading the disease of crack cocaine.
ELLEN SNORTLAND
Lake View Terrace
