Title: Crack : rock cocaine, street capitalism, and the decade of greed /
Authors: Farber, David R.
Year: 2019
Subjects: Crack (Drug) United States.; Drug addicts United States.; Crack (Drug) Economic aspects United States.; Drug abuse Government policy United States
Abstract: "A black man who had served almost a decade in the penitentiary came home to the Southside of Chicago in the mid-1980s. He watched young men-at first just a few- set up shop on the corners in his neighborhood. They were selling crack cocaine. He was tempted-to buy, to sell-but he steered clear. Still, he understood the draw. From his own younger days and from his years in prison, he knew the men who organized the operations that moved the product from wholesale purchase to hand-to-hand sale. In his estimation, these were righteous men, men whose names he did not discuss, knowing full well what it would mean if he used their names with the wrong people. These were men that, he understood, "had to make their choices. And they made 'em." Improbably, given where they began, these men had made money, lots of money, and not just for themselves. They also made money for "the nation." That's how this ex-offender, who had found a new religion behind prison walls, thought of it"--
Contents: First comes cocaine, then comes crack: origin stories -- Crack the market: commodification and commercialization -- Crack up: the cost of hard-core consumption -- Crack money: manhood in the age of greed -- Crackdown: the politics and laws of drug enforcement -- Crack's retreat: a nation's slow, painful, and partial.