# Crack heroin - national emergency **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 27, 2005, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858 "2005-08-27T12:16:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/1 "2005-08-27T12:16:21Z")
Crack heroin has replaced tradional heroin on the East Coast. It creates a quicker habit, stronger habit, more needle sharing, more AIDS, and more overdoses. In 1978, crack heroin first appeared in New York City. Quickly it spread to New Jersey and Connecticut. In 1978, IV drug-user AIDS was virtually zero in New York City. By 1982 approximately 40% of New York City IV drug users were HIV positive. Crack heroin was largely responsible for that increase. I graduated from the Yale School of Public Health, and as part of my thesis, I asked 191 New Haven IV drug users “What is your main injection?” Not a single answer was “heroin.” Instead most responded, “P-Dope.” Google “Jon Stuen-Parker” for a Boston Phenoix article where a reporter visited New Haven. In 1983, I founded the Yale AIDS Brigade and rhe Boston AIDS Brigade. They undertook the nation’s first IV drug user AIDS prevention education outreach. Two years later they became the National AIDS Brigade. In 1986, the National AIDS Brigade established the nation’s first needle exchange programs. Dominicans process heroin with lidocaine and procaine to produce crack heroin. In 2003, two drug agents won a $1.5 million dollar federal lawsuit that stated, “The CIA and State Department are allowing a Dominican drug ring to illegally distribute drugs in East Coast cities.” The lawsuit came after these agents were “black-balled” for seeking to arrest members of the drug ring. These drug agents broke the police code of silence. The National AIDS Brigade is trying to ceate a public outrage. 7 times I was intentionally arrested with crack heroin; once in New Haven (11 bags in school zone) and 6 times in New York City. All cases were dismissed. The government did not want this national emergency exposed. Crack heroin cuts through methadone’s opiate blockade. Methadone is the mainstay of drug treatment offered in United States. Acknowledging crack heroin :mad: would force the government to change the War On Drugs. It would force the government to offer more drug education and effective drug treatment. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/2 "2005-08-27T12:34:00Z")
I was unable to find any reference on the web to “crack heroin”, but [here’s that Boston Phoenix article](http://weeklywire.com/ww/04-13-98/boston_feature_2.html) (from 7 years ago) about heroin mixed with procaine and lidocaine. The article calls it “P-dope”, but that term seems to be much more commonly used to mean 20-30% pure heroin. I also found an old [Usenet post](http://balder.prohosting.com/~adhpage/arc_hi/heroin_p_dope.txt) about the article. And [here’s](http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:gT4Nts01DUwJ:www.atforum.com/SiteRoot/pages/addiction_resources/WEBVOL_2.doc+heroin+%22christopher+s.+wren%22+lidocaine&hl=en&client=firefox-a) a bit from an addiction newsletter that cites Jon Stuen-Parker and refers to this mixture as an “alleged drug”. Not much else, though, and one would think that if this were an epidemic 7 years ago, someone else would have written about it by now. So, um, what’s the debate here? ---
**Author:** ![nameless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/779978/32.png) [@nameless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nameless)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/3 "2005-08-27T13:17:05Z")
So… it’s just heroin cut with two anesthetics? I have a really hard time believing this should even be considered a separate drug. > [@jon stuen-parker](#): > > By 1982 approximately 40% of New York City IV drug users were HIV positive. Crack heroin was largely responsible for that increase. How can you _possibly_ know that? An injection of this “P-dope” would be no more likely to spread transmission of HIV than any other shared injection, and I seriously doubt its use is common enough to account for the ingress of HIV into New York City. Do you have a link to any sort of study establishing its popularity? I’ve never seen it mentioned in any assessment of drug use, and if it were as nefarious as you say, how could it not be? > [@jon stuen-parker](#): > > Acknowledging crack heroin would force the government to change the War On Drugs. It would force the government to offer more drug education and effective drug treatment. What? Why? That would be totally out of character for the United States government. Instead, they’d run a bunch of crazy ads about your brain on P-dope and how if you use it you’re giving money to terrorists, and they’d inflate fatality statistics and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/4 "2005-08-27T13:43:16Z")
Drugs are bad, mm-kay? ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/5 "2005-08-27T13:45:31Z")
The OP, and the authorities, do not understand the dynamics of the drugs market at all. Once the media get hold of this, it will be protrayed as **'Satan’s substance of Evil’** It will be portrayed as having almost instant addiction, and a total threat to society. What actually happens is that this creates a market for the drug, see what happens is that it sells newspapers, fills dead air time, and creates sensation. The justification by the media is always to say that they are scaring off potential users, but in fact it does the opposite. Those who work with drug users, such as myself, know that habitual drug users do not use the logic that the media and much of society uses, their terms of referance are so differant. Believe it or not, many drug users actually enjoy the experience, and any drug worker will tell you, the user is always trying to chase that ultimate high, the one like they experienced the first time. To this end they will look up various medications and substances on the net, in libraries and from word of mouth, and experiment. What sensationalist headlines do, is to flag up one more potential experience for the drug user. Many drug users I have spoken to tell me that they were actually disappointed with their first hit (except for amphetamine related substances which are usually better than they imagined) The reason that they had such high expectations of a particualr substance, is the hype in the media. Once they realise that much of media reporting on drugs, and many other matters, is just sensationalist, they tend to throw out all advice, not to believe anyone. You should also note, that far from being a wonderful treatment, methodone itself is widely abused, and many drug users will actually state that getting off methodone is harder than getting off heroin. Why would the existance of another variant of a widely abused substance change your government’s policy on drugs aka ‘The War On Drugs?’ If the situation is as you describe, I’m pretty sure that a leadership that spun and lied to provide an excuse to invade another country and resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands simply will not have any moral difficulty at all on setting the agenda to justify even more extreme measures in anti-drug policy. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/6 "2005-08-27T18:32:43Z")
Hey, crack heroin’s gonna have to wait it’s turn. Right now we’re panicking over the “epidemic” of crystal meth, and we’re barely over steroids. If crack heroin has been around for 20+ years, it should know to wait in line with all the other drugs we haven’t gotten around to yet. Next year we’re going to be scared shitless by smethadrine, then it’ll be cokeorol in 2007, then electrodyethelone, then people in the Southwest will freebase Raid, then New Englanders will inject smackagra, and finally Congress will be addicted to a potent mixture of pulverized Tylenol, baby chimp blood, and opium, culminating in the President’s death from an overdose in 2011. We’re thinking of calling it Sweet Baby 'Cain. After that, I think we can squeeze crack heroin in there. My apologies to anyone here who’s been addicted to drugs. But the way we move from one government/news obsession with one drug to another in this country is just absurd. These periodic panics don’t do anything useful and the War on Drugs continues to be a farce. ---
**Author:** ![St.Urho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e7dd6/32.png) [@St.Urho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/St.Urho)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/7 "2005-08-27T19:04:19Z")
> [@jon stuen-parker](#): > > Crack heroin cuts through methadone’s opiate blockade. Methadone is the mainstay of drug treatment offered in United States That’s not how [methadone](http://www.drugs.com/methadone.html) works. Methadone’s an opiate, just like heroin and morphine. I’m also not sure that methadone _is_ the mainstay of U.S. drug treatment. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/8 "2005-08-27T19:20:17Z")
This is a job for Drug Czar Freddie!\* - A story from Gilbert Shelton’s long-running underground comic book, _The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers_ – [http://www.ripoffpress.com/CatPage.cfm?Category=Fabulous%20Furry%20Freak%20Brothers&MerchType=B;](http://www.ripoffpress.com/CatPage.cfm?Category=Fabulous%20Furry%20Freak%20Brothers&MerchType=B;) [http://www.freaknet.org.uk/pages01/p01/wm01.html](http://www.freaknet.org.uk/pages01/p01/wm01.html). Fat Freddie starts a campaign to fight an imaginary drug called “squeak” and soon has fame, status and government funding. ---
**Author:** ![nameless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/779978/32.png) [@nameless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nameless)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/9 "2005-08-27T19:25:17Z")
> [@St. Urho](#): > > That’s not how [methadone](http://www.drugs.com/methadone.html) works. Methadone’s an opiate, just like heroin and morphine. I’m also not sure that methadone _is_ the mainstay of U.S. drug treatment. I thought the same thing–that methadone was strictly an opiate agonist–but according to one of my pharmacology textbooks, it does have antagonistic properties. Perhaps it is a mixed agonist/antagonist in that it has high affinity but low efficacy at opiate receptors? ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/10 "2005-08-27T20:21:24Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > … > The justification by the media is always to say that they are scaring off potential users, but in fact it does the opposite. > … I’ve gotta admit, when reading the title of the thread, my first thought was “Crack Herion? That sounds awesome!” Sierra Nevada needs to make some reefer beer. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/11 "2005-08-27T20:25:35Z")
The OP sounds like… well, a crackpot at the very least. I must say that I am very up ont he latest drugs, and I have never heard of “crack heroin.” Crack has never held a candle to heroin. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/12 "2005-08-27T21:42:46Z")
Hey! You got crack in my heroin! ---
**Author:** ![nameless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/779978/32.png) [@nameless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nameless)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/13 "2005-08-27T21:58:34Z")
[comedian] But seriously folks, why do they call it crack heroin? There’s no crack in it! And why do we drive on the parkway and park on the driveway? Am I right? [/comedian] ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/14 "2005-08-27T22:00:43Z")
If the U.S. Military is going to be used to attack drug-growing sites, they could send _T-Rexes in F-14s!_ ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/15 "2005-08-27T22:47:28Z")
> [@](#): > > Hey, crack heroin’s gonna have to wait it’s turn. Right now we’re panicking over the “epidemic” of crystal meth, and we’re barely over steroids. At least you can respect these drugs. It was embarassing trying to work up a good panic over second hand tobacco smoke. ---
**Author:** ![nameless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/779978/32.png) [@nameless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nameless)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/16 "2005-08-27T23:03:27Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > If the U.S. Military is going to be used to attack drug-growing sites, they could send _T-Rexes in F-14s!_ …on [DRUGS!](http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=205) ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2005, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/17 "2005-08-28T02:33:14Z")
> [@jon stuen-parker](#): > > 7 times I was intentionally arrested with crack heroin; once in New Haven (11 bags in school zone) and 6 times in New York City. All cases were dismissed. The government did not want this national emergency exposed. What on Earth was this supposed to accomplish? I bet it’s done wonders for your career and foundation. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2005, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/18 "2005-08-28T03:31:01Z")
> [@](#): > > Hey, crack heroin’s gonna have to wait it’s turn. Right now we’re panicking over the “epidemic” of crystal meth, and we’re barely over steroids. If crack heroin has been around for 20+ years, it should know to wait in line with all the other drugs we haven’t gotten around to yet. Next year we’re going to be scared shitless by smethadrine, then it’ll be cokeorol in 2007, then electrodyethelone, then people in the Southwest will freebase Raid, then New Englanders will inject smackagra, and finally Congress will be addicted to a potent mixture of pulverized Tylenol, baby chimp blood, and opium, culminating in the President’s death from an overdose in 2011. We’re thinking of calling it Sweet Baby 'Cain. After that, I think we can squeeze crack heroin in there. LMAO! ```php pulverized Tylenol baby chimp blood opium ``` Aleister Crowley’s shopping list? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2005, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/19 "2005-08-28T06:48:35Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Hey! You got crack in my heroin! No! You got heroin in my crack! (But at least it was useful in anesthetizing the otherwise inevitable rectal itch . . .) ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2005, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858/20 "2005-08-28T15:57:49Z")
I work in a network of AIDS clinics. Our clients are largely IV drug users from the prison system. Not entirely, but largely. I have yet to hear of this ‘crack heroin’. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-heroin-national-emergency/318858.md?page=2)