Pubdate: Tue, 25 Jun 2002
Source: Yorkshire Post (UK)
Copyright: 2002 Yorkshire Post Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://yorkshirepost.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2239

CRACK AND CRIME

Tony Blair is running out of time. In less than 100 days, the Prime 
Minister has promised that street crime will be brought under control.

Everyone knows, of course, that this pledge was little more than a 
soundbite, a short-lived gimmick to get Mr Blair off a particularly awkward 
hook. But others, notably the growing number of bloodied and beaten people 
who have been the victim of violent street crimes, will doubtless want to 
hold the Prime Minister to his word, and when the time comes remind him of 
his pledges.

Doubtless, Mr Blair will be able to cite any number of successes, while 
blaming the wider failure of his policies on such unforeseen events as the 
rise of crack cocaine abuse to near epidemic levels.

The only problem with this last explanation, however, is that the 
Government has known for a good number of years that crack cocaine, and the 
violent, often gun-related crime which accompanies it, was spiralling out 
of control. Indeed, it is almost a decade ago that Robert Stutman of the 
American Drug Enforcement Administration came to Britain and made dire 
warnings that the country would soon be on the verge of a crack epidemic.

Why, many might ask, have the warnings been ignored?

Why, if the bulk of this evil trade comes from Jamaica, has it proved so 
difficult to stop the mule-train from Kingston to Heathrow? And why has it 
proved so difficult to stop members of violent, Yardie gangs, from 
returning to Britain within days of being deported by the courts?

Clearly, there needs to be closer co-operation between the police and 
customs to prevent this kind of thing recurring.

In addition, it would be helpful if the police had the same powers to 
detain suspected crack dealers as customs officials, since the drug is 
often transported in a rock-like form in the mouth and swallowed when 
arrested by the police.

Longer detention periods would allow the drug to be detected when it has 
filtered through the body.

Crack is doubly dangerous in that it is both instantly addictive and 
induces in the addict withdrawal symptoms tinged with violence and paranoia.

Whereas heroin addicts might seek to fund their habits through burglary and 
shoplifting, the crack fiend is so out of control that he is reduced to 
random attacks in the street in the hope of stealing a mobile phone or 
car-jacking a vehicle.

Couple this with those aspects of black culture which promote a macho, 
aggressive, misogynstic lifestyle, and it is easy to see how dealing in 
crack fits in with a criminal sub-culture of guns, fast cars and violence, 
and how it makes Tony Blair's pledge to tackle street crime all the more 
difficult to enforce.

The speed with which crack took over the streets of New York in the 1980s, 
and helped to give the city such a violent reputation, took drug 
enforcement agencies by complete surprise.

The drug, which at first was used primarily in poor black areas, quickly 
became a cheap alternative to cocaine and the drug of choice of the yuppie 
middle classes, as block by block even affluent New York fell under the 
spell of crack.

A similar trend is happening here in Britain with young clubbers using the 
drug. It is imperative, therefore, that the lessons of New York are learned 
before the terrible effects of a crack epidemic are visited on Britain
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