Beware of Crack
By: JACQUELINE W ASHEEKE
ALTHOUGH Namibian society has many social challenges to manage, I must raise the alarm about yet another. Drugs – in particular crack cocaine – if left to spread unchecked, will destroy our society.
Crack, as a highly addictive drug, is particularly insidious. Crack is as different from other drugs as Ebola is different from a cold.
Crack is cheaper in price (relative to powdered cocaine or other hard drugs), small in size and readily transported, stored away or sold. Crack is, in effect, baked cocaine (this is called freebasing). It is named for the sound it makes when it is heated; it crackles. It is also called ‘rock’ or ‘chunk’ because it looks like a small white stone.
When cocaine is smoked, it’s highly addictive. People who take one toke (puff) from a crack pipe are hooked. Their bodies can crave the drug endlessly just from smoking one rock. Smoking allows the cocaine to reach the brain very quickly and brings an intense and immediately pleasurable ‘high’. That ‘high’ becomes more important to the addict than life itself. Crack (and any other drug) becomes the addict’s mother, father, child, food, clothing and shelter. There is no lie that won’t be told, no crime that won’t be committed just to have money to buy more drugs.
Smoking crack cocaine can produce extremely aggressive and paranoid behaviour in users. When crack enters a society, drug abuse and drug-related violence dramatically increases. While high, crack users have been known to commit unbelievably violent and senseless crimes. When the addicts ‘come down,’ they often don’t remember what they have done, nor do they care. They only care about getting high again. Addicts get depressed when they aren’t high. Crackheads (addicts) lose the ability to cope with the everyday demands of life such as working, interacting normally with other people, eating and sleeping regularly, or maintaining personal hygiene.
Crack destroys the health of the users. Death is often the result of heart attacks or seizures when the addict just stops breathing. Risky sexual behaviour often occurs when normal inhibitions are dispelled when addicts are high. Where there is a rise in the number of drug addicts (and alcoholics), there can also be a rise in new HIV-AIDS cases. Babies born to mothers addicted to crack can suffer lifelong medical repercussions.
Families in Namibia with addicted loved ones don’t have the tools to cope. They hide it, make excuses for the addict’s behaviour or deny the problem. Namibian families in crisis because of drug addiction are invisible.
Illegal drugs have an economic impact that affects all of us.
To cover the law enforcement and addict rehabilitation costs of the battle against drugs, tax rates and medical costs usually increase. Drug-infested areas lose property value and rate-paying homeowners move away. Businesses flee drug zones. Those that remain charge higher prices for their goods because they need Plexiglas barriers, armed guards, and expensive alarm systems. Drug gangs can take control the schools and hinder the education of every child there. Everyone living in drug areas have less access to public services. Ambulances or fire brigades refuse to come to drug-infested areas because it’s unsafe. Everybody will eventually pay for a crack plague one way or another.
Crack hit my ‘hood in USA in the mid-1980s. Crack wars had turned the urban and suburban areas in big and small towns across the USA into war zones filled with competing gangs selling ‘rock’ and making billions for the Columbian and Mexican drug cartels.
I see many Namibian young men trying to emulate crack dealin’, ‘hood gang-bangers. The violent gangsta-style rap music (not all rap is bad….), exotic guns, baggy clothes, pants that drop around the butt, various caps hanging off the head, and head wraps (do-rags), have taken root here. Imitation can be a compliment, but not when it comes to drugs.
Far too many young folks think they want to be cool drug barons so they can have a mean ride (a nice car), lots of bling-bling (gold, diamond jewellery), the latest Air Jordan XX8s (basketball shoes), flashy cell phones, a Sean John wardrobe, a bumpin’ crib (a nice place to live) and any shortie (a sexy woman) of their choice. Be careful what you wish for: cemeteries and jails in the USA are full of young ‘brothas’ who thought they were tough and cool gangstas.
Beware of the crack plague and start to engage with the susceptible people in our lives; find out what is on their minds. Someone ‘casually’ using other drugs or abusing alcohol is a prime candidate to believe they can experiment with crack for fun and adventure. They don’t realise that one smoke will take their souls.