cover story
CRACKS
IN THE MIRROR
Could a recent growth in
crack cocaine use indicate its
move to social acceptability
– and how should we
respond? Kevin Flemen
examines the situation
tigma-driven barriers between powder cocaine and crack may be
breaking down. Increased availability of crack thanks to ‘county lines’,
combined with increased demand and reduced stigma, could see a big
upsurge in crack use. But are drug services ready for a growing
population of dependent stimulant users?
S
‘They weren’t finding their coke use so rewarding anymore…
so they’ve moved in to smoking crack.’
This observation by a participant in a recent stimulant training day echoed
comments that have been coming up more frequently of late, and it made me very
anxious. The users in question had been trades or construction workers in the
Telford area. Historically this would have been a cohort who found powder cocaine
highly acceptable but would have viewed crack cocaine less favourably. That they
were migrating from cocaine powder to crack suggested not just changes in
availability of crack, but also changes in attitude.
Crack cocaine has, generally, not enjoyed the same kudos and acceptance as
cocaine powder. The stereotypes and assumptions – a highly addictive, ‘ghetto’ drug
associated with crime, impoverishment and squalor – were on the one hand highly
stigmatising. But on the other they acted as a buffer, as many people viewed
cocaine powder as ‘acceptable’ but crack cocaine as a ‘dirty’, unacceptable drug.
Granted, there had always been those who didn’t subscribe to this simplistic
view and there were a fair few North London types who used to drift in to Dalston
to sample the dubious pleasures of a crack house before heading back to less edgy
areas. There were numerous ‘Professionals Binge on Crack’ type stories in the media
20 years ago (The Guardian, 13 November 2000), but this didn’t translate to more
widespread usage.
The drugs field too had more than a few of its own workers who believed that
the demonisation of crack was unwarranted and that they were more than capable
of handling crack or making their own freebase. Some fared OK, others less so.
These exceptions aside, the prevailing view of crack as a ‘bad’ drug would, once
upon a time, have meant that the Telford trades workers mentioned earlier would
generally not have gone near crack.
‘My brother works on a construction site and he’s in his forties.
He’s just walked off a job because at the end of the day the rest of
the crew are all sitting in the cabin smoking crack.’
6 | drinkanddrugsnews | June 2018
On all recent courses
I’ve been exploring
the issue, and
repeatedly, similar
examples have
emerged –
established white
working-class trades
and construction
workers who, finding
powder cocaine less
rewarding, are putting
down the tube and
picking up the pipe.
But subsequent cases
suggest that the issue
is more widespread.
‘Some of my “friends” have been smoking rocks too. They were
finding that their noses were hurting too much from cocaine, so
switched to rocks.’
‘All the cool and edgy kids are doing it. They all go off to a room at
the end of the evening or at parties and are smoking rocks. They’d
been dipping cigarettes in cocaine and it moved from there.’
The first of these examples was a recently graduated social work student in
Staffordshire, and the second related to the artist community in increasingly-gentrified
Hackney Wick. They highlighted to me that the increased access and acceptability of
crack was resulting in take-up across a range of different social settings.
Availability of crack has increased at least in part because of the ‘county lines’
phenomenon, and we are seeing crack markets emerging in areas where it had
previously not been a significant issue. These markets had, however, often piggy-
backed onto existing opiate markets – expanding market share by offering two-for-
one deals or mixed ‘any five for £30’ offers, where the buyer could have four rocks
and a bag of heroin for the comedown, or three bags of heroin for an opiate habit
and two rocks as a ‘treat’.
This expansion into existing heroin markets is, of course, in itself problematic.
Experience says that the stability and health of heroin users often markedly
deteriorates when they add crack to their repertoire. Treatment requirements
change dramatically and engagement can be more difficult. But my tacit
assumption was that the size of the market for crack was limited by the size of the
heroin market it was latching on to. The stigma relating to crack in the past had
offered a degree of protection.
What, then, if that stigma has been significantly eroded? What if even just 10-15
per cent of our existing cocaine users start to migrate to crack use? How big would
that population be, and how well set up are services to identify and respond to it?
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