crack epidemic
1980s drug scourge
The crack epidemic refers to the surge in crack cocaine use that devastated American inner cities during the 1980s and early 1990s.
Crack—a cheap, smokable form of cocaine—spread rapidly through poor urban neighborhoods, bringing addiction, violence, and harsh federal sentencing laws that disproportionately affected Black communities.
The term now often appears in discussions of racial disparities in drug policy: The crack epidemic was treated as a crime problem; the opioid crisis is treated as a health crisis.
- cocaineAddictive stimulant narcotic
- inner cityDense central metropolitan zone
- 1980sFourth-to-last twentieth-century decade
- ReaganAmerican presidential surname
- addictionCompulsive substance reliance
crackhouse · pipe · rock · freebase · ghetto · housing projects · poverty · dealer · crime · urban · street corner · mandatory minimums · three strikes · mass incarceration · incarceration · CIA · gangs · welfare
- 80sbig hair, mullets, shoulder pads, new wave, synth-pop
- Drug Scandalsthalidomide, fen-phen, OxyContin, opioid crisis, drug recalls
- New York CityManhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Staten Island
- addictionaddiction, drug addiction, substance abuse, drug dependence, substance dependency
- PhiladelphiaPhilly, North Philadelphia, Chinatown, Liberty Bell, cheesesteak
- Modern D.C.Capitol Hill, White House, National Mall, Metro, Georgetown
crack epidemicsobriety
Unimpaired mental state
public health · recovery · abstinence · wellness · clean living
crack, epidemic, cracked, cracking, cracks, cracker, crackers, epidemics, epidemiology