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African Americans and Cocaine: A Historiography

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AFRICAN AMERICANS AND COCAINE: A HISTORIOGRAPHY
by

Daniel Ryan Davis

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
African American and African Studies

2008

Copyright by
[MuﬁelRyanIknds

2008

ABSTRACT
AFRICAN AMERICANS AND COCAINE: A HISTORIOGRAPHY
by
Daniel Ryan Davis
This historiographical document discusses the scholarship on the intersection of
cocaine and African Americans. The scope of this thesis will range ﬁom the Progressive
Era beginning in approximately the 1890’s until the present, 2008. This thesis is divided
into two parts. Part 1 is a chronological review of the scholarship on African Americans
and cocaine use. Part 2 is organized thematically and sub-divided into two sub sections.
The ﬁrst section focuses on African American women and cocaine use, the second
section focuses on African American men and cocaine use. Historicizing African
Americans and cocaine use thematically is effective for several reasons. First, scholarship
on this topic at the turn of the century was somewhat scarce. Secondly there is a gap in
research or reference to African American cocaine use during the mid 20th century due to
several causes including the popularity of other drugs during that period. Thirdly, writing
on African American men and women’s cocaine use are very different from each other in

content.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 1
LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................................. 8
AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN and COCAINE USE .................................... 23
African American Women and Cocaine during the Progressive Era ............... 23
Aﬁ'ican American Women and Cocaine during the Mid-20th Century ............. 24
Aﬁ'ican American Women and Cocaine during the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s. . . . .....26
Reasons for Use ............................................................................ 27.
AFRICAN AMERICAN MEN AND COCAINE USE ....................................... 29
African American Men and Cocaine during the Progressive
Era ........................................................................................... 29
Cocaine Use by African American Males during the Mid-20th
Century ....................................................................................... 32
African American Men and Cocaine Use 1970-1990’s ................................ 32
CONCLUSION ..................................................................................... 37
NOTES ............................................................................................... 42
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................... 44

iv

Introduction

The drug cocaine is extracted from a plant, the coca leaf, which has been
cultivated in South America for thousands of years. “Europeans began to learn about the
coca leaf soon after the discovery of America.” Originally, the effects of the coca leaf
could be felt by chewing it. According to Pedro Cieza de Leon, a traveler from the 16th
century and one of the ﬁrst writers to describe coca chewing for a European audience,
Indians told him that coca leaf chewing prevented them from feeling hungry and gives
them “great vigor and strength.” Scholar Joseph Spillane cites Von Schuldi, a Swiss
naturalist, who visited South America in 1838 as stating that “modern use of Coca is not
merely innocuous, but that it may even be very conducive to health.” “He marveled at the
Indians who chewed coca three times a day over the course of years and who
nevertheless enjoyed perfect health.” Other positive comments appeared by European
writers in the 19th century. Travelers and observers, including Joharm Jakob von Tschudi,
Clements Markham, and several others were also impressed with the coca leaf 3 “power

of physical invigoration.”l

Perhaps the zenith of praise for the coca leaf was reached in Europe in 1859 when
neurologist Paolo Mantegazza wrote a popular essay about the powers of the coca leaf
that inspired the famous Sigmund Freud, among many others, to experiment with the
drug. “Through the late 1870’s and early 1880’s the literature on coca and cocaine
continued to grow.” The praise and excitement about coca and cocaine was
understandable being that invigoration, increased strength, and prevention of hunger can
all be considered positive things. Cocaine was also recommended for treatment of many

illnesses and effects of illness such as “fatigue, nervousness, and small physical

l

complaints.” The drug impressed him so much that he even endorsed cocaine as a cure
for addiction to morphine and alcohol. Freud’s writings during the mid 19th century
described his personal cocaine use. He noted feelings of “exhilaration and lasting
euphoria”; he also stated that cocaine “increased his self control and vigor.” The praise of
cocaine was so popular that many optimists mistakenly presumed that if all these claims
were true “cocaine will indeed be the most important therapeutic discovery of the age, the

beneﬁt of which to humanity will be incalculable.”2

Cocaine’s presence in the United States came in the late 19th century. The
overwhelming praise of this new drug in Europe undoubtedly led to its arrival in the
United States. Cocaine was used in United States largely for its medicinal capabilities but
also served other purposes. The drug was “sold cocaine in cigarettes, in an alcoholic
drink called Coca Cordial, and in sprays, ointments, tablets, and injections. One of the
most popular drinks containing coca extract was Coca-Cola, ﬁrst concocted by John

Styth Pemberton, a Georgia pharmacist, in 1886.”3

Eventually, cocaine became a “drug menace” because of what had been regarded
as the very sign of its curative power, the pleasure it gave, became a source of what we
now call drug dependence and drug abuse. Toward the end of the 19th century, doctors
began to conclude that occaine abuse was “a habit that develops more easily and destroys
the body and soul faster than morphine.” In spite of these negative reports on cocaine, its
“potentialities as a recreational drug soon became obvious; along with those older
euphoriants and panaceas, opium and alcohol, it now became a drug with a dubious social
reputation. Its users were described as “bohemians, gamblers, high-and low-class

prostitutes, night porters, bellboys, burglars, racketeers, pimps, and casual laborers.”

2

Beginning during the 20““ century, African Americans would be added to that list of
cocaine users. This MA thesis focuses on the issues created by African American’s
involvement with the drug. In the historiography on cocaine, African American’s
cocaine use has been severely under acknowledged.4 This study critically analyzes the

available scholarship on African Americans and cocaine.

“By 1903, despite thepdecline of medical interest in cocaine for therapeutic
purposes, the level of cocaine consumption in the United States had grown to about ﬁve
times that of 1890. Nonmedical use accounted for nearly the entire increase. In the
process, the image of cocaine as an exclusive drug for “brain workers” gave way to the
image of cocaine as the common man’s drug, associated with laborers, youths, blacks,
and the urban world.” James B. Bakalar and Lester Grinspoon offer one of the earliest
texts discussing African Americans and cocaine use in the early 20th century. In Cocaine
(1971), Bakalar and Grinspoon discuss some of the earliest references to African
Americans or “Negroes” and cocaine use in various press releases. The authors also
discuss how African Americans’ use of cocaine was viewed by pharmaceutical
companies during this same period. One of the ﬁrst press releases to touch upon this
subject was an article titled “The Growing Menace of Cocaine” published in The New
York Times in 1908. In this article the authors stated that cocaine “was easily available in
patent medicines and popular among Negroes in the South, where ‘Jew peddlers’ sold it
to them.” This statement implies that while cocaine was available as medicine, African
American’s went to “peddlers” to obtain the drug. This could be due to rejection from

medical practitioners to serve Aﬁ'ican Americans based on racism, or their fear of

“negroes” getting high off the drug. African American reliance on peddlers to supply

cocaine may have also been based on their usually low ﬁnancial status as well.

The fear of Aﬁican American cocaine use began to impact the medical world’s
view of the drug. “Pharmacists concerned for their reputations began to worry about
cocaine early. In September 1901, at a meeting of the American Pharmacological
Association, Vice-President S. F. Payne presented the issue of ‘Negro Cocainists’.”
Bakalar and Grinspoon reference statements made by members of this association. One
member of the association stated that “Indiana reports that a many good negroes and a
few white women are addicted to cocaine”; the negroes, the lower and criminal classes,
are naturally most readily inﬂuenced.” Bakalar and Grinspoon also cite a 1914 report
which stated that of 2,100 African American admissions into Georgia’s insane asylum,
only 2 were cocaine users. While this report states that there were only two cocaine using
Black admissions to the asylum, it still reveals that there was indeed some usage in the
Black community. In 1910, a State department ofﬁcial responsible for drug policy by the
name of Hamilton Wright is reported as saying that “cocaine is often the direct incentive
to the crime of rape by the Negroes of the South, and other sections of the country.”
These statements regarding African Americans and cocaine use are among the earliest
acknowledgements of the drug’s presence in the Black community. This study will

include an in depth analysis of several other references similar to this one, which speak to

African American’s relationship with cocaine throughout the 20th century.5

In the early 20th century, attention to African Americans and cocaine use was not
nearly as common as it became later in the 1900’s. Due in large part to the “crack

epidemic” beginning in the mid to late 1980’s writing on African Americans and cocaine

4

increased dramatically. Crack is a puriﬁed form of cocaine that after a few minutes
produces “an intense but brief euphoria.” The introduction of crack cocaine to the African
American community has been discussed by various authors, starting with its
introduction to the United States in the 1980’s, and leading into the end of the 20th
century. “Crack ﬁrst received media attention in 1984.” Some authors, such as Patricia
Turner, have suggested that crack’s introduction into the Black community was a

government plan to destroy African Americans. 6

James and Johnson (1996) connect the inﬂux of cocaine in the United States with
Colombian drug cartels and their domestic drug market. “By 1983, in Medellin,
Colombia, 80 percent of the drug users had switched to a smokeable form of cocaine base
called bazukos. This type of cocaine is highly addictive. Soon those who marketed
cocaine found a way to chemically transformthe cocaine base into a more puriﬁed form
called ‘crack.’ It became the mass-market drug on which the Colombian cartel placed
their hopes.” By the mid 1980’s, Aﬁican American communities across the United States
were in the midst of a crack epidemic. In 1985, the number of people who admitted using
cocaine on a routine basis increased from 4.2 million to 5.8 million. Also, “in 1985,
cocaine-related hospital emergencies rose by 12 percent, from 23,500 to 26,300. In 1986,
they increased 110 percent, from 26,300 to 55,200; between 1984 and 1987, cocaine
incidents increased 400 percent. By 1987, crack was reported to be available in all but
four states in the United States”. A report published by the Arizona Center for Health
Statistics states that African Americans had the highest rate of drug related deaths
between 1985-1995, with cocaine being the most popular drug of choice. According to

this report, “Cocaine-type drugs were responsible for the majority of drug-related deaths

among Blacks. The eleven-year rate of cocaine-related deaths among Blacks
(2.8/ 100,000) was 4.7 times greater than that of non-Hispanic whites or American

Indians.”7

The rate that African Americans began using and distributing crack cocaine
during the 1980’s was alarming and could not be ignored. According to Earl Ofari
Hutchinson, in his study The Mugging of Black America (1990), “ in the minds of white
America the typical drug user is a Black, male, high school drop-out, unemployed, and
living in a large urban ghetto.” As a result of this image and the reality of large amounts
of cocaine in the black community, “African Americans bear the brunt of crime, disease,
death, and prison that result from the lucrative trade.” Hutchinson adds that of all
emergency room admissions for cocaine addiction African Americans make up 55
percent. The history of African Americans’ relationship with cocaine is over a century
long. There have been many changes over the years in the ways African Americans have

been involved with cocaine.8

Cocaine’s presence within the African American community has been causing
serious problems, especially within the last twenty- twenty ﬁve years. African
American’s relationship with this drug has been harmful in many ways. On an individual
level, those who abuse cocaine suffer from its dangerous and dramatic effects on the
human body and mind. Crack users may experience comas, convulsions, liver damage
and respiratory problems as well as many other serious ailments. In some cases, crack
users may even experience death from overdosing. Further, the Black family has been
disproportionately impacted by cocaine. African American women addicted to crack-

cocaine are commonly associated with prostitution and other dangerous behaviors. Many

6

of these women are mothers whose children suffer from this behavior often in the form of
neglect. Occasionally, these crack abusing women may become impregnated while
prostituting themselves for the drug. Ultimately, this may lead to children being born to a
crack addicted mother and an absent unknown father. Also, “crack house prostitution” or
sex in exchange for crack-cocaine increases ones chance of becoming infected with
HIV/AIDS. As suggested by Sonja Singleton from the University of Miami’s Health
Crisis Network, “It turns out that the women get infected by having sex in exchange for
the high-grade crack cocaine every crack house has an extra room for sex." There are
only two things that go on in crack houses - drugs and sex." African American men,
many of them fathers, brothers and sons, are being incarcerated at alarming rates for
distributing cocaine. For example, “in 1995, 88 percent of individuals sentenced for
dealing crack-cocaine were African American!” Black Americans arrested for dealing
crack cocaine are also more likely to be sentenced and sentenced longer than White

Americans.9

Cocaine has had a strong negative inﬂuence on several other segments of the
African American community as well. An enormous street gang culture has been heavily
inﬂuenced by cocaine’s presence as well as hip hop culture and rap music which is
arguably the dominant genre of music for youth today. Gang related crime and homicides
are directly related to crack cocaine distribution. Street gangs often use their members as
foot soldiers for drug dealers and many become small time dealers themselves. “Because
of the enormous proﬁts to be made, drug trafﬁckers battle for territory and clientele,
resulting in increased crime and violence.” Hip hop culture, rap music speciﬁcally, has

been inﬂuenced by cocaine use and distribution. Hip hop was created and practiced in the

very same neighborhoods crack-cocaine became so popular. Rap music, hip hop’s most
popular art form, is often performed by individuals who are familiar with crack cocaine
on an intimate level either through a past history of distribution themselves or close
association to users and distributors. This relationship between many rappers and cocaine
is illustrated continuously through lyrics and video imagery, and as a result, listeners all
over the world are inﬂuenced by the messages delivered by these artists related to the
drug. Many argue that rappers glorify cocaine distribution and as a result they are
contributing to the youths continued involvement with crack cocaine. Clearly, cocaine
and African Americans have a serious and intimate relationship. The results of this
relationship are overwhelmingly negative and crippling to the Black community, making

it an important and necessary topic of research and discussion. ‘0

This MA thesis carefully dissects the scholarship on the intersection of cocaine
and African Americans. This study lays the foundation for my future dissertation project,
which will be an in-depth analysis of African American’s relationship with cocaine
throughout the 20th century. The scope of the present ranges from the Progressive Era
beginning in approximately the 1890’s until the present, 2008. During the Progressive
Era, African American’s drug use was supposedly relegated to criminals, prostitutes, and
’ employees of white business owners. The mid 20th century saw a decline in Aﬁican
American cocaine use as heroin became a more popular drug of choice. The later part of
the 20th century witnessed the arrival of crack cocaine, which is perhaps the most

detrimental and noteworthy period in history involving African Americans and cocaine.

This study is divided into two parts. Part 1 is a chronological review of the

scholarship on African Americans and cocaine use. Part 2 is organized thematically and

8

sub-divided into two sections. The ﬁrst section focuses on African American women and
cocaine use. The second section focuses on African American men and cocaine use.
Historicizing African Americans and cocaine use thematically is effective for several
reasons. First, writing on this topic at the turn of the century was somewhat scarce.
Another reason is because there is a gap in research or reference to African American
cocaine use during the mid 20th century due to several causes, including the popularity of
other drugs during that period. Furthermore, writing on Aﬁ'ican American men and

women’s cocaine use are very different from each other in content. '1

Literature Review

The history of writing on African American’s involvement with cocaine is not
very vast. Few publications during the Progressive Era discuss African Americans and
cocaine use. The references to African American drug use during that period are all very
similar to each other. African Americans who used cocaine were either part of society’s
underworld or given the drug by their employers. While cocaine was believed to be a
popular drug for White Americans of all social classes and societal ranks only
marginalized African Americans were believed to have been involved with cocaine. This
belief could be due to a lack of research focusing on upper class Black cocaine use, or
simply a result of cocaine’s low cost and availability to lower or under class blacks. As
noted by William Julius Wilson, “the Black underclass were plagued by massive
joblessness. .. and ...low-achieving schools” making a cheaper recreational drug more
attractive to this impoverished segment of the Black community. Another cause for lower
class Black’s cocaine use could be White employer’s habit of giving their Black workers

the drug. '2

Various articles at the turn of the 20‘11 century reference cocaine use among
African Americans. Early references on the subject unanimously state that “by 1900,
cocaine had become by far the most common hard drug taken by poorer blacks and the
prostitutes”. In addition to poorer Blacks and prostitutes, rapists and convicts would also
be added to the list of Black cocaine users. For instance, an essay, entitled “The Increase
of the Use of Cocaine among Laity in Pittsburgh,” (1903) indicated Black convicts
favored cocaine over any other drug at that time. This article goes on to discuss the
availability of cocaine for Black people at the turn of the 20th century in Pittsburg.
Simonton (1903) asserts that “Negroes in Pittsburgh called one thoroughfare “Cocaine
Street”. In Pittsburgh at the turn of the century, cocaine was sold with “glass tubes for

snifﬁng.”l3

One of the ﬁrst recorded publications directly discussing African American
cocaine use was published in 1902,”The Cocaine Habit Among Negroes” in the British
Medical Journal. Bakalar and Grinspoon (1971) mention White people’s fear that
cocaine increased the strength of “Negroes” by referencing this article. Whites believed
that cocaine “increased [Negroes] cunning and strength and enhanced their tendency
toward violence.” This attitude toward Blacks and cocaine use was mirrored and
expanded upon in perhaps the most inﬂuential published report on African American
cocaine use during the Progressive Era. It was titled “Negro Cocaine Fiends, New
Southern Menace” by Edward Williams in 1914. Williams serves as the prime example

of writing on African American cocaine usage during this period in history. '4

10

Williams (1914) stated that while Whites used other drugs including opium and
morphine “the negro drug ﬁend uses cocaine almost exclusively.” Williams argued that
cocaine created “crazed negro ﬁends” who, among other unique qualities were criminals
immune to bullets. Williams writes, “The drug produces several other conditions which
make the ﬁend a peculiarly dangerous criminal. One of these conditions is a temporary
immunity to shock--a resistance to the knockdown effects of fatal wounds. Bullets ﬁred
into vital parts, that would drop a sane man in his tracks, fail to check the ﬁend--fail to
stop his rush or weaken his attack.” Williams provides a speciﬁc account by a police
chief who reportedly encountered a “crazed negro ﬁen ” ﬁrsthand. In describing his
experience with the “crazed negro,” the chief was quoted as saying, “the crazed negro
drew a long knife, grappled with the ofﬁcer, and slashed him viciously across the
shoulder. Knowing that he must kill this man or be killed himself, the Chief drew his
revolver, placed the muzzle over the negro's heart, and ﬁred-‘Intending to kill him right
quick.’ And a second shot that pierced the arm and entered the chest had as little effect in
stopping his charge or checking his attack”. Depictions such as this are clearly the result
of historically rooted stereotypes about African American men. White Americans fears of
Blacks are continuously exposed in newspaper articles and reports discussing African

American cocaine use at the turn of the century.”

In “Negro Cocaine Fiends, New Southern Menace”, Williams offered his
explanation for why African Americans “dabbled” with cocaine during that time period.
Williams believed that their lack of access to whiskey was the main cause in African
Americans’ cocaine use. During an interview with an African American male cocaine

user, Williams claimed that when asked, the man claimed that he used cocaine “cause I

11

couldn’t git nothin’ else boss”. Williams claimed that Blacks could not get anything else
to get high with, since laws were put in place to keep poor Blacks from drinking whiskey.
Based on fear of the “crazed Negro,” Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Mississippi, Tennessee, and West Virginia passed laws intended to abolish the saloon and
keep whisky and the negro separated.” In defending his point of view, Williams asked:
“Should anyone doubt that prohibition is directly responsible for the introduction, and
increase, of cocaine-taking in the South? Hospital and police records show that during the
prohibition period drug habits have increased with alarming rapidity. Physicians, ofﬁcers,
and ‘ﬁends,’ with very few dissenting opinions, attribute the rise of cocainism to the low-
class negro's inability to get his accustomed beverages.” Is it possible that this African
American cocaine user could have meant something different with this statement? Could
he have been referring to his lowly status in American society and his inability to “git”
ahead or his lack of access to “anything else” that brings him pleasure? In the early years
of the Progressive era, African Americans endured stiﬂing amounts of oppression,
discrimination and social isolation. According to Pero Dagbovie in The Early Black
History Movement: Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnston Greene (2007), “for the
vast majority of African Americans, the Progressive Era was synonymous with a period
of widespread Jim Crow segregation, unprecedented racial intolerance and violence,
political disenfranchisement, labor restrictions, and economic exploitation.” In fact, the
realities of African Americans during this time period could have been perceived as
anything but progressive leading many scholars to refer to this period, for African
Americans, as the “nadir.” As a result of these harsh realities, cocaine could have been

desirable to African Americans more than other ethnicities of people due to these

12

strenuous circumstances and oppressed status. The “brief euphoria” presented by cocaine

could have been an escape from an otherwise deprived, depressing existence.16

Other references about Aﬁ'ican Americans and cocaine use from the Progressive
Era, have been cited by more recent authors from sources that were not dedicated
exclusively to Black cocaine use. Bakalar and Grinspoon (1971) cite an article from 1908
titled “The Growing Menace of Cocaine” suggesting that cocaine was “popular among
negroes in the south where Jew peddlers sold it to them”. Notes from a meeting of the
American Pharmacological Association state that their Vice President brought up “Negro
Cocainists” as a point of discussion. This same Association set up a committee called the
Committee on the Acquirement of the Drug Habit. This committee reported statements
made by its members from across the country. A member from Georgia said, “almost
every colored prostitute is addicted to cocaine”; an Indiana man stated that “a many good
negroes and a few white women are addicted to cocaine. . .the negroes, the lower and

criminal classes, are naturally most readily inﬂuenced?“

Of all the references to Black cocaine use during the Progressive Era, the claims
presented by Williams in “Negro Cocaine Fiends” offer us one of the ﬁrst and most
important published reports dedicated exclusively to African Americans and cocaine use.
Since it is believed that cocaine’s signiﬁcant presence in the United States did not occur
until the late 19th century, this article can also be considered one of the ﬁrst articles of its
kind all together. The commentary offered by Williams is the foundation for most

historical writing about Aﬁican Americans and cocaine use for generations to come.

13

More writings about African Americans and cocaine use appeared only sparingly in the

future. ‘8

Situating the next signiﬁcant period of writings which are speciﬁcally about
African Americans and their cocaine use is a difﬁcult task, since writing dedicated to this
subject is so disappointingly scarce. Books and articles dedicated exclusively to African
Americans involvement with cocaine immediately following the Progressive Era are
limited. The lack of writing on African Americans’ cocaine use during this period
appeared to be caused by the increase in heroin use. When discussing American drug use
during the 1940’s, 1950’s, and 1960’s, James and Johnson say that “heroin addiction,
concentrated in urban areas, constituted the largest drug problem in Aﬁican American

communities during this period.”19

According to Timothy W. Kinlock, Thomas E. Hanlon, and David N. Nurco
(1998) “the 1950’s were characterized by increases in heroin use among inner-city
residents, particularly blacks and Hispanics.” Heroin use after World War 11 increased
throughout the United States; however, along with Hispanics, the number of Black heroin
addicts dramatically increased with these two groups consisting of 51% of the heroin
addict population by 1960. Kinlock, Hanlon and Nurco credit this trend to changes in the
ethnic composition of inner cities. Following the Great Migration of an estimated 1.5
million Black people from the South during the early part of the century, many African
Americans found themselves settled in areas where heroin was easily accessible.

Interestingly, Kinlock, Hanlon, and Nurco state that “most immigrants to inner cities

14

worked in blue-collar jobs and avoided heroin addiction, many of their children did

n0t ”20

Deindustrialization, which greatly impacted blue collar job opportunities during
the mid 1950’s, could have been the cause of this change in heroin addiction. With big
industry and factory employment leaving the inner city, the Black cormnunity in some
areas, such as Chicago and Detroit, began to wear down due to the depletion of economic
resources. As noted by Detroit scholar Richard Thomas, “when the 1920-21 recession hit
Detroit, 17,000 black workers found themselves on the streets with no jobs. Many had
never experienced urban unemployment.” Overall, community depression in some spaces
caused by this decrease in economic stability may have contributed to second generation

Black immigrants from the south’s increased heroin addiction. 2'

Conversely, another possible explanation for second generation heroin addiction
could be increased ﬁnancial status in comparison to ﬁrst generation immigrants from the
south. First generation Black immigrants from the South came North in search of
employment and ﬁnancial opportunities. For example, in the 1920’s Black workers at
Ford Motor Company in Detroit received an average wage of about 54.2 cents per hour
compared to 26.5 cents per hour in the South. The ability of some of these immigrants to
form working to middle class communities beneﬁted their children. Initially, their
ﬁnancial status may not have afforded them the ability to purchase recreational drugs in
comparison to their children whose work ethic and ﬁnancial outlook may have been
different from the ﬁrst generation. This idea is supported by the fact that most African

American heroin users were between the ages of 15 and 21 for second generation Black

15

immigrants. In most cases, this is too young to support a family and hold the same work
ethic as one’s parents, yet old enough to experience the beneﬁts of one’s elder’s

increased ﬁnancial status.22

Whatever the cause, heroin was the drug of choice for Americans and African
Americans, rather than cocaine, speciﬁcally in the mid 1900’s. Referring to heroin use,
Ball and Chambers (1970) reported that the number of Lexington Hospital patients
admitted during each year of the period from 1950 to 1953 doubled that for 1946. This
increase was particularly evident among Blacks, for whom the total for 1950 was twice
the 1949 total and ﬁve times the 1948 total. During the 1950’s, approximately one third
of both male and female heroin admissions were Black, as opposed to 10-15% in earlier
years. Black admissions were largely from New York City, Chicago and Washington

DC.23

A second factor impacting the amount of work written on African American
cocaine usage was the lack of availability. There was not much availability of cocaine for
African Americans and the cocaine industry overall “had been a cottage industry largely
limited to Chile” until the mid 1970’s. James and Johnson state that even during the
1970’s, “the high cost of ‘powder’ cocaine, used intravenously or intranasally, limited its
use among African Americans”. Thus, there may not have been much reason to write
about Blacks & cocaine use. It was not accessible geographically or ﬁnancially for
African Americans. In 1971, James Bakalar and Lester Grinspoon wrote Cocaine. This
book was about cocaine in general, discussing the drugs’ creation and expansion across

different parts of the world. Its only references to African Americans and cocaine use

16

concerned cocaine use during the Progressive Era. Other books and articles such as, The
Mugging of Black America (1990, I Heard It Through the Grapevine: Rumor in A ﬁican
American Culture (1 993), Women and Crack Cocaine (1993), Doin’ Drugs: Patterns of
A ﬁ'ican American Addiction (1 996), Cocaine: From Medical Marvel to Modern Menace
in the United States 1884-1920 (2000), and “Jim Crow’s Drug War: Race, Coca Cola,
and the Southern Origin of Drug Prohibition” (2006) all mention African Americans and

drug use; however, none of these narratives is dedicated solely to this issue.”

In The Mugging of Black America, Earl Ofari Hutchinson brieﬂy discusses
cocaine’s presence in the Black commrmity. He highlights that cocaine abuse is not an
African American problem but an American problem, “despite the carefully contrived
impression given by the media”. Hutchinson suggests that America’s cocaine problem is
lead and maintained by international politics, namely the American government
beginning with the Reagan Administration. “The Reagan-Bush administration, for
instance, provided Afghan insurgents with weapons, supplies, and cash to the tune of
$625 million, but looked the other way while the guerillas earned more cash through drug
trafﬁcking.” While Hutchinson’s examination is inclusive of America as a whole, he does
speciﬁcally discuss the problems cocaine and other illegal drugs pose to the Black

community.25

In discussing the rampant crack cocaine use among African Americans,
Hutchinson stated that “by the mid 1990’s more than 4 million crack babies will reach
school age. They will have speech defects, hyperactivity, and a propensity to violence.

They will require billions of dollars in special medical and educational services. Since

17

most of them are black and poor, they will be stigmatized by a fearful society.” The
Mugging of Black America affectively introduces the reader to the problem of African
American drug abuse within the context of American drug abuse overall. Its discussion. is
interesting and informative, yet brief and only scratches the surface of this complex issue

concerning the African American community. 26

Cocaine: From Medical Marvel to Modern Menace in the United States 1884-
1920 discusses some of the various reports which mentioned African American cocaine
use during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Spillane discusses how African
Americans received cocaine from their employers to increase productivity during the late
19th and early 20th century. Initially, cocaine was seen as a positive drug and a potent tool
which could be used for ﬁnancial beneﬁt. “Medical opinion, shared by most employers,
held that Black workers were not only better able to endure physical labor but to endure
environmental conditions that white workers could not. Cocaine supposedly increased
these advantages, adding strength, endurance, and making the black user ‘impervious to
the extremes of heat and cold.’ Again, the racist and ignorant beliefs and attitudes of
Whites during this time period reveal themselves in connection with Blacks and cocaine
use. According to Spillane, cocaine’s reputation would quickly change and reports began

to caution against providing cocaine to African Americans. 27

Spillane cites a letter in the American Druggist from 1894 as the earliest popular
reporting of cocaine use in Dallas, Texas. This letter stated that “the use of cocaine
embodied a social threat far beyond simple health effects and that the drug held a special

appeal among blacks and in “the lower quarters of the city.” Many assumed that “the

18

cocaine habit has assumed the proportions of an epidemic among the colored people.”
These feelings motivated White’s action to keep cocaine away from Aﬁican Americans.
“Whites perceived cocaine taking as the manifestation of a newer, bolder attitude on the
part of a “new generation” of young, urban Blacks. The Atlanta Constitution complained
that “negroes can be seen at any time on the streets or in the Police Court snifﬁng the
white powder.” As was the trend throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
extremely racist and fearful views towards Blacks by Whites fueled their commentary on
African American cocaine use. Both movements to provide cocaine to African Americans
and take it away were fueled by racist stereotypes, fear, and overall ignorance. The belief
that African. Americans were “strong as mules” and born to work carried over from the
days of American slavery. Therefore, the belief that cocaine use would make the
“working buck” that much more effective and productive would make perfect sense to
White employers during that time. African American men have been viewed by Whites
as strong physical creatures for centuries. Whites have also been known to view Black
males as “crazed”, violent and “sexually aggressive” as discussed previously. The deep
fear of unruly Blacks held by Whites during the early 20'h century greatly contributed to
their overreaction to black cocaine use which ultimately led to their push to prevent

African American’s use of the drug.28

Although the range and depth of writing about African American women and
cocaine use has increased and expanded to different issues, prostitution still appears to be
dominant in discussions about this topic. An inﬂuential book about women and cocaine
use by James Inciardi, Dorothy Lockwood, and Anne Pottieger, Women and Crack-

Cocaine (1993), makes reference to African American women and cocaine use

19

speciﬁcally. Inciardi, Lockwood, and Pottieger discuss women’s use of cocaine across
racial lines in the United States, however, speciﬁc attention is paid to African American
women. The authors discuss how HIV transmission is related to crack cocaine use and
they also examine prevention and intervention strategies. Yet most importantly they
highlight how African American women participate in prostitution as a means to attain
crack cocaine and support their addiction. Interestingly, Inciardi, Lockwood and Pottieger
separate prostitution for crack on the street from prostitution for crack in “crack houses.”
“In crack houses, prostitution takes on a very different character than soliciting on the
streets. In the crack house a barter system exists in which sex and crack are the
currencies. Moreover, in the descriptions that follow, it becomes readily clear that there
are a number of very real differences between prostitutes who use crack and crack users
who exchange sex for drugs.” Inciardi, Lockwood, and Pottieger argue that the addiction
to and need for crack cocaine was the motivation for women to become prostitutes.29
“For almost all of the women encountered, particularly those trading sex for crack in
crack houses, the drug controlled their lives in that everything they did revolved around
seeking and smoking crack.” Earlier references about African American female
prostitutes and cocaine never state that cocaine addiction caused prostitution. At that
time, cocaine was seen simply as something that prostitutes and other members of the

“underworld” used.30

As discussed, few scholars have dedicated their time and effort to exclusively
discussing African American women and cocaine use throughout the 20th century. This
trend continues when discussing African American women and crack cocaine use

speciﬁcally in the post 1980’s era. However, works such as JM Edward’s; CT Halpern’s

20

and WM Wechsberg’s “Correlates of exchanging sex for drugs or money among women
who use crack cocaine” (2006) and KS Riehman’s, WM Wechsberg’s, W. Zule’s, WK
Lam’s and B. Levines’s “Gender differences in the impact of social support on crack use
among African Americans,” (2008) are two articles, among few others, in opposition to
this unfortunate history. Both of these works focus on Aﬁican American female crack

cocaine use speciﬁcally and offer insight to what kind of issues this situation creates.3 l

Predictably, Edward’s, Halpem’s, and Wechsber’s work on African American
female crack cocaine use centers around prostitution and sexual activity. In their study of
African American female crack cocaine users, Edwards, Halpems and Wechsberg found
that, “heavier crack use, homelessness, and unemployment are all associated with trading
sex.” This study is part of the long, yet sporadic, history of research on African American

women and cocaine.32

Tanya Telfair Sharpe’s book titled Behind the Eight Ball: Sex For Crack Cocaine
Exchange and Poor Black Women (2005) is a detailed study about African American
women prostituting themselves for crack-cocaine. Similar to Inciardi, Lockwood and
Pottieger’s work, as well as Edward’s, Halpem’s and Wechsber’s research, Sharpe’s
study provides information about sex for crack within the crack house, and separates this
activity from general street prostitution. Describing the commonalities of prostitution in
crack houses, Sharpe says that “it is not unusual for crack-using females to engage in
unprotected sex with anonymous partners in the genre of crack houses that have emerged.
These are houses, or more commonly, apartments in public housing where people can

either purchase the drug, use the drug, engage in sex, or a combination of all three for

21

various monetary charges.” Again, this work adds to the over century long trend of
writing related to African American women, cocaine and prostitution. Like Inciardi,
Lockwood and Pottieger this study illustrates a change in the behavior of prostitutes

related to cocaine. 33

This work is important because, although it is published in 2005, it is one of the
ﬁrst studies dedicated exclusively to a segment of the African American community and
cocaine use. Sharpe states that “the cycle of crack addiction ﬁlls the void in the lives of
many disenfranchised women. Therefore, poor black women are disproportionately at
risk for engaging in sex-for-crack exchanges to support their drug habit.” Sharpe
interviewed several African American female crack addicts and the book is ﬁlled with
excerpts from their discussions. These interviews allow the reader to get inside the minds
of the women and hear their stories ﬁrsthand. Also, gaining information from the women
themselves is beneﬁcial because it limits the amount of assumptions and generalizations

that must be made, which can lead to falsiﬁcations and skewing of reality. 3"

The nature of the interviews found in Sharpe’s work vary in content; however,
prostitution is a common topic of discussion. One woman, describing her time as a
prostitute for crack cocaine, stated that “when I was whoring professionally, I practiced
safe sex. My pimp gave us condoms. And a man couldn’t do anything to me if he didn’t
use a condom, no matter how much money he had. My pimp told me, even if the man had
a hundred dollars, he had to use a condom. When I was doing it for crack that’s when I
didn’t practice it [safe sex].” Another woman, discussing the differences between being a

prostitute versus a “crack head” prostitute stated that “the difference is that when you are

22

prostituting, it’s like a profession. The men know that you are a prostitute and not a
crackhead; they handle you different. . ..when they know that you are doing it when you
are addicted to dope, you just might wind up getting anything done to you.” These
testimonies illustrate the harshness of and health risks related to sex for crack activity.
Prostitution may be considered by many to be an undesirable and frowned upon
profession. Some may consider becoming a prostitute hitting “rock bottom” as far as life
style choices are concerned what becomes apparent by reading Sharpe’ 5 work is that sex
for crack prostitution is an even “lower” level of activity. Sex for crack prostitutes ﬁnd
themselves in a world where, on a consistent basis, “they are subjected to humiliation and

ridicule” by drug dealers.35

Interviewees in Behind the Eightball described various ways that drug dealers
humiliated them and took advantage of their addiction to crack cocaine. One woman
discussed how drug dealers would treat them when their girlﬁ'iends from college came
around. She recalled: “This is when they [dope boys] would really torment us. [The dope
boys said to the college girls] ‘That’s a dope ho right there. I can get any one of them hos
right now. I can have her suck my click right now, in this car, with you sitting here, for
ﬁve dollars.’ And he could!” On some occasions, if a woman was known for having sex
for crack by the drug dealers, “the male crack holders refuse to sell” to them. They are
viewed as too familiar or too needy by the drug dealers and are penalized for it Another
woman, describing the treatment she received from drug dealers as an addict who had
become “too familiar” stated that “they treat you like shit. Won’t even sell you any. Tell

you to get the fuck off. Treat you like no better than a cockroach?“

23

Sharpe’s primary focus was undoubtedly sex for crack in Behind the Eightball.
However, Sharpe included a discussion about how crack cocaine use affected
motherhood for African American women. She notes three main points of concern related
to this issue. “First motherhood is extremely important to most poor women. However,
balancing the roles of motherhood while addicted to crack is nearly impossible. The
tension between the crack-user lifestyle and the responsibilities of mothering are often
irreconcilable. For example, women would “devise methods to separate their children
from drug-use- sessions, for example, by temporarily placing the children in someone
else’s care. Eventually, as the crack compulsion became stronger, these strategies were
abandoned and the women lost custody of their children through family intervention or
state-ordered foster care.” This is an example of how crack use and motherhood can
increase pressure on the extended family as well, being that the aunts, uncles, brothers,
sisters and grandparents are the individuals who may become responsible for the children

of crack addict mothers.37

Dr. Sharpe’s research exposes some of the harsh realities experienced by African
American female crack cocaine addicts especially by those who exchange sex for crack.
This work gives the women involved in the drug and sex industry a voice, which also
allows others a glimpse into their world. References to African American women cocaine
users in the past did not include information from interviews with the women, mainly

assumptions and eneralizations largely based on stereotypes and racism.

African American Women and Cocaine Use

African American Women and Cocaine during the Progressive Era

24

“It is generally recognized that immoral women and their cadets [pimps] are addicted to

the use of cocaine ”- Vice Commission of Chicago, 191138

Historical writing about Aﬁican American women and cocaine use, like African
Americans and cocaine use overall during the Progressive Era, is scarce. However,
references to African American women in connection with cocaine use during this era do
exist and they mostly share the same theme. Virtually every reference to African

American women using cocaine is connected to prostitution.

Joseph Spillane’s Cocaine (2000) states that African American women’s
introduction to cocaine was connected to prostitution. Further, Spillane states that, “some
suggested that cocaine was a lure to prostitution, an idea often linked to the Progressive
Era crusade against ‘white slavery’. The ﬁght against prostitution emphasized the
victimization of young women, enticed or forced to prostitute themselves by predatory
white slavers. Entrapping women with a ready supply of drugs seemed to an obvious way
in which agents might, as one journalist described, ‘cunningly persuade young girls who
have fallen into their power to take up cocaine”. Spillane writes that “By 1900, cocaine
had become by far the most common hard drug taken by poorer blacks and the
prostitutes, black and white.” This claim is supported by other authors discussing African
American women and cocaine use during this era. For example, James Bakalar and
Lester Grinspoon’s Cocaine: A Drug and its Social Evolution also supports the notion
that African American women’s use of cocaine was originally connected to prostitution.
Citing a report from 1903 by the Committee on the Acquirement of the Drug Habit, they

point out that the state of “Georgia reports almost every colored prostitute is addicted to

25

cocaine”. This claim was not supported by any qualitative or quantitative research and is

a clear illustration of the blatant racist climate of that time period.39

Repetitive references to African American women and cocaine use in relation to
prostitution make the historiography on their cocaine use very narrow. Information about
African American women’s cocaine use during the Progressive Era in relation to
something other than prostitution would be beneﬁcial. There’s evidence that suggests
cocaine was used for many different reasons during this era, by several segments of the
population. In fact, “the best documented cases of cocaine abuse were white professional
men, especially physicians.” Since cocaine was very popular among white professionals
during this time, it would be interesting to ﬁnd out if women who were considered Black
elite, while small in number, used cocaine. Was cocaine use looked down upon by the
Black elite because of its use by the poorer classes of Blacks and criminals? Were upper
class Black women during this able to use cocaine for medicinal purposes like many
Whites during the time? Answers to these questions are not found in writings about

African American women’s use of cocaine in the late 19th and early 20th century. ’0
African American Women and Cocaine during the Mid-20" Century

The overall de-popularization of the drug in addition to it becoming illegal during
the Progressive Era are among the factors that help explain the scarcity of writing on
African American women’s use of cocaine. The historiography on Black women and
cocaine use goes from minimal references during the Progressive Era to virtually no
mention during the mid 20th century. Presumably, if the dominant trend of society as a

whole is decreasing use of cocaine, African Americans’ use would have also lessened.

26

This idea is offered by David F. Musto in an article, titled “America’s First Cocaine

Epidemic.”

Musto argues that America’s ﬁrst cocaine epidemic started in the late 19th century
and ended shortly after the Harrison Act of 1914. Commenting on the end of the ﬁrst
cocaine epidemic, Musto writes “the public’s adamant anti-cocaine sentiment, which had
reduced the drug’s appeal after the turn of the Century and resulted in legal restrictions,
now facilitated operation of the laws. Unlike Prohibition, which was not backed by a
public consensus, the Harrison Act, which Congress made more restrictive over the years,
was largely successful.” Musto posits that “of course some Americans continued to use it,
but their numbers eventually shrank. By the time I was in medical school, during the late
1950’s, cocaine was described to medical students as a drug that used to be a problem in
the United States.” Bakalar and Grinspoon appear to agree with Musto and believe that
cocaine use and popularization decreased dramatically during the mid 20th century.
“Between 1930 and the late 1960’s the use of cocaine and medical and general interest in
the drug seem to have declined greatly.” They suggest that “most of the books that deal
with cocaine as a social issue or a clinical problem were published in the 1920’s; most of
the novels, stories, and memoirs that show familiarity with its recreational use are from
the same period. Even in the ﬁrst decade of the new drug culture’s ﬂowering, cocaine
remained relatively unpopular, expensive, rarely available, and bracketed with heroin as a

drug to be avoided?“

According to James A. Inciardi, Duane C. McBride, and Hilary L. Surratt in“The
Heroin Street Addict: Proﬁling a National Population,” “from the 1920’s through the late

1950’s, heroin addiction was a visible part of the American drug scene.” The authors also

27

stated that “In 1965, based on the number of narcotics-related hepatitis cases being
reported to the Centers for Disease Control, it appeared that an epidemic of heroin use
was under way in the United States. Moreover, empirical studies of crime and drugs were
ﬁnding that heroin users accounted for growing proportions of felony arrestees in major
metropolitan areas.” Although this work suggests that heroin use was used throughout the
United States as the most popular narcotic of choice during the mid 20th century, it does

not dedicate attention to African American women speciﬁcally.42

While the use of cocaine may have indeed decreased after the Progressive Era, its
use probably did not entirely disappear. The gap in research on Aﬁican American
women’s cocaine use, and Aﬁican Americans use overall, from the 1930’s and into the
1970’s needs improvement. The likelihood of cocaine use completely ceasing, being that
it was so highly addictive, is minimal. More research in the African American
“underworld” during this time period would undoubtedly expose the presence of cocaine.
If not in the “underworld”, research on the recreational practices of the Black elite of this

period could possibly bring cocaine use to the surface.
African American Women and Cocaine during the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s

The virtual disappearance of writing about African American women and cocaine
use during the mid-20th century mirrored the belief that cocaine use overall had decreased
dramatically during this time period. The re-emergence of cocaine that began in the late
1970’s, and the birth of crack cocaine in the 1980’s, created an interest in Aﬁican
American women and cocaine use. Interestingly, the content about African American

women using drugs during the 80’s crack crisis is very similar to that of the Progressive

28

Era Prostitution is still a dominant theme concerning African American women and
cocaine use. However, unlike the turn of the 20th century, writing about African
American women and cocaine use during the 1980’s and 90’s is much broader and
detailed. In addition to prostitution, issues related to Black women’s cocaine use such as

incarceration, disease, and reasons for addiction are now discussed.

Scholarship on African American women and cocaine use are clearly not popular.
Most references to African American women and cocaine during this period are
mentioned in passing or receive a section in a general book about drug addiction. Only a
small number of sources devote themselves in a major way to African American
women’s cocaine habits: James Inciardi, Dorothy Lockwood, and Anne Pottieger’s
Women and Crack-Cocaine and Tanya Telfair Sharpe’s Behind the Eight Ball: Sex For

Crack Cocaine Exchange and Poor Black Women (2005 ).43

Reasons for Use

The writing at the turn of the 20‘h century that dealt with African Americans failed
to discuss women’s reasons for use of the drug. Noted articles such as “Negro Cocaine
Fiends, New Southern Menace” in 1914 barely discuss women’s use overall. As stated
earlier, previous references to women’s cocaine use did little more than mention them as
prostitutes that used the drug. No mention of social or psychological factors contributing
to their cocaine use is discussed. In addition to the only full text dedicated to black
women’s use of cocaine by Dr. Sharpe, other researchers have discussed some of the
factors contributing to African American women’s cocaine use in passing. Books such as

Crack Cocaine Crime and Women: Legal, Social and Treatment Issues (1996) and Fast

29

Lives: Women Who Use Crack Cocaine are examples of this trend. One of the more
informative works on this issue was written by Grace Xuegin Ma and George Henderson.

Like Sharpe’s work, Ma and Henderson’s book was published after 2000.

Grace Xueqin Ma and George Henderson discuss some of the various reasons
African Americans use crack cocaine in Ethnicity and Substance Abuse: Prevention and
Intervention (2002, pay particular attention to women. Ma and Henderson suggest that
there are several reasons African American women use crack cocaine. For one, they state
“childhood adversity, including inadequate parenting” as possible reasons for cocaine
use. They argue that inadequate parenting can make children “vulnerable to maladaptive
behaviors in their adulthood.” Ma and Henderson also list many other reasons why
African Americans begin to use crack cocaine. “The initiation to drug use is more likely
to occur when adversarial demands of life exceed a person’s adaptational capacity.”
Henderson and Ma refer to an interesting study from 1993 on African American women,
who used crack cocaine. This study found that “a signiﬁcant number of women who used
crack cocaine have a history of sexual abuse and depressive symptoms. Those who were
victims of incest or rape had greater drug use and were younger than women without

such sexual trauma.” 4"

Ma and Henderson also suggest that “African American women, similar to
African American men, may use drugs in large part in response to the stresses they face
in their adult lives including conditions such as minority status and reduced economic,
social and political expectations.” These stresses were also experienced by Aﬁican
American women and men earlier in the 20"" century and may have contributed to their

use as well. Again, these suggested factors go unmentioned in earlier writings about

30

African Americans and cocaine use. The changing content of writings about African
Americans and cocaine use suggest that the use of cocaine in the community has taken on

increased seriousness.45

African American Men and Cocaine Use
African American Men and Cocaine during the Progressive Era

One of the few and perhaps the most important and most cited works discussing
Black cocaine use during this era was an article titled “Negro Cocaine Fiends” in 1914.
Williams discussed what were considered at the time, some of the positive and negative
aspects of Black male cocaine use. Williams clearly believes that the use of cocaine only
enhanced or conﬁrmed the racial stereotypes already held by Whites of this era. Medical
opinion, shared by most employers, held that black workers were not only better able to
endure physical labor but to endure environment conditions that white workers could not.
Cocaine supposedly increased these advantages, “adding strength, endurance, and making
the black user impervious to the extremes of heat and cold.” “These beliefs in cocaine
and increased worker productivity were so strong that some believe “the popularity of
cocaine in workplace settings dominated by black laborers, often promoted by employers,
suggests one way in which the generalized use of cocaine could have begun in Black
communities.” Among others, author Joseph F. Spillane cites “Negro Cocaine Fiends” in
his book titled Cocaine: From Medical Marvel to Modern Menace in the United States,
1884-1920. Spillane discusses how Black men’s use of cocaine was viewed as a positive,

as was cocaine in general at the time.46

31

The generally accepted positive aspects of cocaine use among African Americans
during the Progressive Era fail in comparison to the negative references and ideas Whites
had about Black male “cocaine ﬁends.” Around the turn of the century, Whites
expressed a signiﬁcant amount of fear of their white women being raped by “coke
crazed” Black men. While the use of cocaine in the late 19th century was not unusual for
the general population, Bakalar and Grinspoon note that negative ideas about the drug
were connected to male Aﬁican American users speciﬁcally. “It is obvious that the race
issue exposed sometimes directly and sometimes in the guise of a fear of crime, appears
prominently in the condemnations of cocaine. Just as opium was associated with the
Chinese in the drive to outlaw it, so cocaine was associated with blacks.” Whites began to
fear the power and effects of cocaine on Black men. Some whites during the prOgressive
era believed that “cocaine made black men invulnerable to bullets.” In the south some
police departments “convinced that black ‘cocaine ﬁends’ could withstand normal .32
caliber bullets reportedly switched to .38 caliber revolvers.” “They thought it increased
the cunning and strength of blacks and enhanced their tendency toward violence-

especially of course, sexual violence against white women.”47

White Americans fear of male Black “coke ﬁends” raping their women was the
popular belief in the beginning of the 20th century. Michael Cohen expanded on this
discussion in his article titled, “Jim Crow’s Drug War: Race, Coca Cola, and the
Southern Origin of Drug Prohibition.” Here, Cohen cites the 1902 article “Negro Cocaine
Fiends” that stated “Cocaine users themselves did not become criminals until urban
police and civic leaders in the New South generated a moral panic over the casual use of

cocaine among urban blacks, blaming everything from rape to urban riots on the drug’s

32

inﬂuence. By the dawn of the twentieth century, the South’s fear of Negro cocaine ﬁends
running amok trumped the drug’s commercial proﬁts and medical beneﬁts.” The idea that
fear of the male “Negro cocaine ﬁend” was able to cause businessmen to lose proﬁts,
illustrates the overwhelming feelings of panic and paranoia experienced by whites
concerning cocaine use and Black men. Also, this action illustrates their strong belief that
Black cocaine use was prevalent during this time. However, Cohen as well as Bakalar
and Grinspoon agree that cocaine use was far more prevalent among whites, including
white women. “Progressive reform measures focused on a single aspect of the complex
social problem of mass drug addiction; by scapegoating Black male cocaine users,
reformers overlooked the far more deeply rooted problem of an epidemic of narcotics
addiction among southern white women at this time.” “In actual fact, the best-
documented cases of cocaine abuse were white professional men, especially physicians.”
It is probable that black people used cocaine at a much lower rate than White people
being that “they had less money and less access to physicians.” “A report in 1914 on
2,100 consecutive black admissions to a Georgia insane asylum, for example, indicated
that only two were cocaine users.” Given the high probability that these Black insane
asylum admissions were most likely poor and possibly vagrants, which was the presumed
population of Black cocaine users, the fact that only two used the drug speaks to the

likely lack of use throughout the community.48

Although the writing on African American men and cocaine use during the
Progressive Era is scarce, it appears to be extremely static. Reports on cocaine use in the
African American community were also low in number, but society’s perception of

prevalent “Negro” cocaine abuse is evident. Whether or not Black male cocaine use was

33

actually common or a serious problem is not important since “in any case, the cocaine-
crazed black dope ﬁend played an important role in the campaign to prohibit the drug.”
This campaign to end the legalization of cocaine led to the Harrison Act of 1914. The
Harrison Act “forced every opiate addict and cocaine user outside the law.” The public’s
fear of cocaine also contributed to the its “adamant anti-cocaine sentiment, which had
reduced the drug’s appeal after the turn of the century.” According to Inciardi and
McElrith, the Harrison Act coupled with the general public’s growing dislike for cocaine
made it far less common, illegal, and basically an underground unpopular drug for
decades to come. The prohibition and de-popularization of cocaine presumably
drastically decreased African American consumption as well. Consequently, the already
scarce writing about Aﬁican Americans and cocaine use virtually disappeared after the

Progressive Era until its re-emergence into the public during the mid 20th century.49
Cocaine Use by African American Males during the mid-20"I Century

According to William H. James and Stephen L. Johnson in their study Doin’
Drugs: Patterns of Aﬁ'ican American Addiction, after 1914, “The Harrison Act put habit-
forming drugs under federal control closed the drug stores that were dispensing addictive
drugs, and for a time forced the sellers of these drugs underground.” Although Blacks’
use of cocaine decreased after the Progressive Era, drug use altogether in the African
American community did not. James and Johnson note that the decreasing availability of
cocaine after the Harrison Act along with the rising price of the drug, led “African
Americans to be numbered among those selling as well as using opium, heroin, and
morphine”. In fact, in their discussion of African American drug use during the 1940’s,

50’s and 60’s, James and Johnson say that “heroin addiction, concentrated in urban areas,

34.

constituted the largest drug problem in African American communities during this
period.” There was not much availability of cocaine for African Americans, and the
cocaine industry overall “had been a cottage industry largely limited to Chile” until the
mid 1970’s. James and Johnson state that even during the 1970’s, “the high cost of
‘powder’ cocaine, used intravenously or intranasally, limited its use among African
Americans.” The writing or lack of writing on African American men and cocaine use

during this period is similar to that of African American women of this same period.50
African American Men and Cocaine Use 1970-1990’s

Cocaine made its comeback in the United States beginning with the rise of drug
lords like Escobar, Ochoa, and Lehder in Colombia beginning in the late 1970’s and early
1980’s. These drug trafﬁckers began to send large amounts of cocaine into the United
States. According to James and Johnson, “by 1980, the DEA estimated that the cocaine
trade brought $7 billion annually into southern Florida. . .large amounts of cocaine were
coming into the United States, and much of it was heading directly into African
American communities.” This ﬂooding of the black community with cocaine became the
foundation for the “crack era” or crack epidemic of the 1980’s and beyond. This period in
history saw a dramatic increase in young Aﬁican American male’s involvement with
distribution of the drug. As a result, writing on African American men and cocaine
would be found in relation to distribution and issues related to this activity, usually in

connection to street gang activity, gun violence and increasing incarceration rates. 5 '

The disproportionate rate that African Americans are using and possessing illegal

drugs is alarming. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health also states that

35

reportedly, crack cocaine was the most common drug type for African Americans. “At
year end 2003, there were an approximate total of 1, 256, 400 sentenced State prison
inmates, 250,900 of who were incarcerated for drug offenses. The majority of drug
offenders in State prisons were black men (133,100).” In 2004, 695 Whites were arrested
for possessing crack cocaine, while 3,161 Blacks were arrested for possessing crack
cocaine; again most of these were black men. That same report states that during 2006,
there were “25,763 federal defendants charged with a drug offense whose race was
reported the US Sentencing Commission. Approximately one quarter (29.2%) were

9952

black with most these being males.

Some have blamed the “crack epidemic” within the African American community
on a conspiracy by the White United States Government to speciﬁcally destroy Black
people. In I Heard It Through The Grapevine (1993), Patricia Turner discusses why
African American cocaine use became an epidemic by examining various conspiracy
theories which are prevalent in the Black community. Within the Black community,
many believe that neighborhoods predominately populated with African Americans were
targeted by the White US. government as locations to distribute crack cocaine. This
theory of purposeful cocaine infestation in Black neighborhoods ﬁts perfectly within the
context of the overall belief that they (White people) “will do anything to keep the black
race down.” Turner asked several individuals to “describe any theories you may have
heard linking drug abuse among blacks to a white conspiracy or plot”. Most of her
respondents noted that either “the government,” “the powers that be,” or “higher ups”
were conspirators in infesting the Aﬁican American community with crack cocaine.

Turner reports that 10 percent of respondents cited the CIA as responsible for this

36

problem, and another 10 percent cited the Reagan Administration speciﬁcally as the

major conspirator.53

Among other responses cited by Turner, one respondent stated that “I’ve heard
that it is the work of the government or an even more powerful group to destroy the black
race with drugs, mainly powerful artiﬁcial substance today-crack cocaine. It is an effort
to rid the country of an unwanted element. Crack cocaine became a major problem during
the term of Ronald Reagan, as did an increase in black on black crime. Some say he is the
devil in human form.” Another respondent stated that “I have heard on several occasions
that drugs were brought into black communities by whites so that the blacks could be
controlled. Blacks would die out due to the power struggle in the drug market.”
Interestingly, many respondents to Turner’s questions about possible conspiracies would
point to “illegal drugs” overall; however, when asked speciﬁcally what drugs were
involved in the conspiracies most speciﬁed cocaine, crack cocaine, and heroin. This
illustrates a clear connection between conspiracy theories involving drugs, African
Americans and cocaine as the particular drug of emphasis. Theories such as this gain
relevance when the disproportionate statistics involving African American male’s
connection to cocaine distribution are illustrated. It would have been interesting to hear
White American’s opinions about conspiracy theories related to cocaine and the Black
community. Are these theories exclusively relegated to African Americans? When
examining the work of authors who discuss the connection between gang activities, black
males and crack cocaine distribution, acknowledging conspiracy theories, such as those

described above, will assist in contextualizing the issue at hand.5‘1

37

Books about gang activity in the late 20th century usually have some discussion
about crack cocaine distribution. In these discussions, African American males are the
primary subject. Gangland: Drug Trafficking by Organized Criminals (1989) is an
example of this. In Lyman’s overall discussion of gang activity, he discusses the
prevalence of crack selling by gangs such as the Black Guerilla Family, Bloods, Crips,
Black Stone’s and others. He states that crack “has evolved into the most sought after
illicit drug commodity on the street, with widespread involvement by organized gangs of

criminals.” Each of these gangs is predominately populated by Black males. 55

These same sentiments are shared in Gangsters (1997) by Lewis Yablonsky.
Yablonski describes African American male gang bangers involvement with crack
cocaine by stating “crack is a commodity for both Black and Chicano gangs; crack is a
heavily addicting drug that has dominated hoods and barrios throughout the United States
since about 1985. Gangsters are involved in the distribution and sale of these drugs at all
levels. Some 065 and Gs have direct contact at the very top of the drug business with
manufacturers and distributors on an international level. Gs and WBs, at the lower rungs

of the drug business ladder, deliver and sell drugs on the street?“6

In his discussion of crack cocaine’s presence in gang culture, Yablonski also
mentions how occasionally the gang member distributor can becoming addicted
themselves. Yablonski says that “some of the purveyors of the commodity get hooked on
their product. This usually leads to the abuser being ostracized from the gang.” This part
of the relationship between young African American male gang members and crack

cocaine is not often discussed in books related to this issue. The overwhelming majority

38

of discussion about gang members and crack cocaine are designated for distribution of
the drug and consequences related to it. Particularly, the violence surrounding crack
distribution, the incarcerations of gang members who distribute cocaine, and the
hierarchy of gangster distributors within their organizations, are the points of discussion
for authors on this topic. Other books such as Gangs and Gang Behavior (1997), and
Gangs in America (1996), mention African American males and cocaine distribution in

their discussions about gang activity.57

In a chapter titled, “Crack” Street Gangs, and Violence” in Gangs and Gang
Behavior (1997), authors Malcolm W. Klein, Cheryl L. Maxson and Lea C. Cunningham
add to the discussion about the relationship between crack cocaine and street gangs. Their
research is located in California, speciﬁcally the Los Angeles area. Klein, Maxson and
Cunningham state that Black gangs’ drug involvement initially was that of use and
addiction as opposed to control and distribution. The authors cite the police and press
reports as the sources which began to connect predominately Black street gangs such as
the ‘Bloods’ and the ‘Crips’ as the main distributors of crack cocaine throughout several
cities. These reported connections coincide with the overall crack boom of the mid
1980’s throughout the country. Interestingly, the authors state that “street gangs would
not become the principal mechanism for crack distribution in their neighborhoods.” In
their research, based in South Central, L.A., the researchers found that while most
cocaine arrests in the area were in the form of crack, there were few recorded differences
between gang and non-gang cases. They ﬁnd that “there is little evidence that gang

membership brings anything special to the crack trade”. This study is cited by Jeffrey

39

Fagan in his discussion about street gang activity and cocaine in an article titled “Gangs,

Drugs, and Neighborhood Change” found in Gangs in America (1996).”

In F agan’s discussion about crack cocaine distribution among street gangs, he
states that Klein, Maxson and Cunningham found no evidence that gang members were
arrested more often than non-gang members for crack sales. However, Fagan goes on to
mention that “among gangs, involvement in the drug trade varies by locale and ethnicity.
Chicano gangs in LA. do not sell cocaine but sell small quantities of other drugs. The
crack and cocaine trades in that city are dominated by Aﬁican American youth both gang
members and non-gang youth”. This is an interesting occurrence. Why are African
American gang members, who are located in the same environment as gang members of
other ethnicities, the predominant cocaine dealers? Fagan also states that Chinese gangs
speciﬁcally “have remained outside the cocaine and crack trades.” These statements,
although small in number, again connect African American gang members speciﬁcally to
cocaine distribution. While works such as these do mention Aﬁican American gang
member’s involvement with crack cocaine in passing, more research in this area is
needed. Since a vast majority of literature about African American males and cocaine
during the turn of the 21St century has been related to gang activity, this relationship

deserves more in depth attention.59
Conclusion

The historiography on African Americans and cocaine dates back to 1900. This
scholarship does not include many books and articles dedicated solely to the issue of

African American cocaine use. Writings about African Americans and cocaine during the

40

Progressive Era were scarce. Positive references to African American cocaine use during
this time would mention cocaine’s aiding in the believed “increased strength and
endurance” of Aﬁican American laborers. Writing about the negative aspects of Black
cocaine use during this time far outweighed positive narratives. References to
prostitution, sexual aggression, and an overall “crazed negro state” dominated comments
made in writing about African Americans during the progressive era. These writings only
focused on lower class Blacks and lacked any mention of other classes of African
Americans who may have used cocaine. Also, ﬁrsthand accounts from African American
cocaine users themselves appear to be absent from writings during that time.
Unfortunately, the absence of primary accounts and more in depth research on African
Americans ﬁ'om all social classes during the progressive era severely limit and impair the

writing from this period.

In the decades following the Progressive Era, writing about African American
cocaine use virtually disappeared. This was due to many explanations, ranging from lack
of use among African Americans to an increase in heroin addiction during the mid-20th
century. Whatever the reason, writings about African American cocaine use were
dormant until the later years of the 20th century and the rise of cocaine in a hardened
formed called crack. Even more so than in the Progressive period, the mid 20th century
witnessed a severe lack of information about African American cocaine use. Without
more information about cocaine habits concerning African Americans during this period,
an accurate, efﬁcient and ﬂuid history of African Americans cocaine use in the 20th

century is impossible.

41

Crack cocaine’s emergence in the United States during the 1980’s led to a change
in the writing about African Americans involvement with the drug. Gone were the days
of “crazed negro” references and fear of white women being rape victims. Late 20th
century writings about African American cocaine use focused on many other issues
related to cocaine use and abuse. Similar to references about Black women and cocaine
use at the beginning of the 20th century, writing about women during the later part of the
century also focused on prostitution and cocaine use. Tonya Sharpe, James Inciardi, and
Anne Pottieger among others, discussed African Americans activities in prostitution
related to cocaine addiction. While these books and their focus are appreciated, more
research on other segments of African American women’s and men’s cocaine and/or
crack habits is necessary. A total picture of the drug’s effect on the Black cormnunity is

not possible when attention is only paid to street and crack house prostitutes.

Writings from the last period and turn of the 21St century related to African
American men focus primarily on distribution of the drug and issues related to that
activity. Gang affiliation and incarceration are the dominant issues of discussion in more
recent writing about African American men and cocaine. Books such as Gangsters,
Gangland, American Street Gangs and Gangs and Gang Behavior all highlight this point.
More writing on cocaine and/or crack use by African American males is necessary. The
current information about Black men and crack suggests that use among this group is
virtually invisible. Also, who are all these young men selling this drug to? What is being
done with the proﬁts of these crack sells? What impact is this business having on the
community as a whole? These questions have not been answered and analyzed in enough

detail within the current scholarship on African American cocaine use. More research in

42

broader areas and segments of the African American community must be done to paint a

more accurate picture of African American’s involvement with cocaine.

In my future dissertation research, I will critically explore cocaine’s relationship
to the African American community on several levels. One area that I will study is the
connection that cocaine has with hip hop culture and rap music in particular.
Overwhelmingly, rap artists make references to distributing cocaine more so than any
other drug. In fact, references to dealing cocaine are the most mentioned criminal activity
by rap artist. I will argue that this history or experience of dealing cocaine has become
celebrated by rap artists and fans alike. Reﬂections on past cocaine dealing or “hustling”
comprises a majority of many rap artists overall content in their songs and albums. An
apparent addiction to the money and the drug dealer lifestyle has captured the
imagination and souls of many rap artists and fans. I will research the effects of this
current trend of cocaine dealing popularization on the youth of the Black community.
Why is this harmful practice so prevalent and increasingly accepted by many youth in the
Black community? How are the abusers and addicts of this drug viewed within hip hop

culture and rap music?

Conversely, the argument could be made that drug distribution, which at times is
a complex example of organized crime, is a business comprised of “ghetto entrepreneurs”
determined to make “something out of nothing”. Is drug dealing viewed as a viable
option of obtaining the American dream of wealth and ﬁnancial prosperity for those born
into oppressive ﬁnancial situations in the Black community? Is this business possibly a

positive escape for some at the expense of others who were going to fall victim to some

form of destruction anyway? As the saying goes, “if I don’t sell it they’ll just get it from

43

somebody else anyway”. Have legal ﬁnancial resources and optimism abandoned many
Black comrmurities to the point where a form of genocide has strangely become
acceptable even desirable behavior to be gloriﬁed in song, video and culture? In my
future analysis of cocaine’s relationship to hip hop and Black America, I will attempt to

answer these questions.

Another area of focus that I will research will be an expansion on some of the
conspiracy theories mentioned in this paper. Clearly, there has been speculation about
how this “crack crisis” came about in United States however, I would like to do a
comprehensive examination of the subject. I will analyze all the various theories about
how cocaine inﬁltrated and continues to inﬁltrate the Black community in an attempt to
ﬁnd an actual answer. Until someone gets to the core of the problem concerning African
Arnerican’s involvement with cocaine, this relationship will continue to harm the Black

community.

44

NOTES

 

' James B. Bakalar and Lester Grinspoon, Cocaine. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1971. 17; Joseph F.
Spillane, Cocaine: From Medical Marvel to Modern Menace in the United States, 1884-1920. Baltimore
and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. 9

2 Bakalar and Grinspoon, Cocaine, 17, 22; David F. Musto, “A Brief History of Cocaine”. American
Scientist. Nov-Dec. 1998. V86. 587.

3 Bakalar and Grinspoon, Cocaine, 22.

’ Bakalar and Grinspoon, Cocaine, 29, 37.

5 Spillane, Cocaine: From Medical Marvel to Modern Menace in the United States, 1884-1920, 91;
Bakalar and Grinspoon, Cocaine, 38, 40; Earl Ofari Hutchinson. The Mugging of Black America. Chicago:
African American Images, 1990. 56.

6 Hutchinson, The Mugging of Black America, 56; Fullilove, Mindy Thompson and Watkins, Beverly
Xaviera, “Crack Cocaine and Harlem’s Health”. Marble, Manning, Editor, Dispatches ﬁom the Ebony
Tower. 2000. 123.

7 Hutchinson, The Mugging of Black America, 56, 28; http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/history/ 1985-
1990.html; Christopher Mrela, “Drug Related Mortality, Arizona, 1985-1995”, Arizona Center for Health
Statistics.

8 Hutchinson, The Mugging of Black America, 51.

9 http://www.doitnow.org/; Shilts, “How Crack Cocaine Spreads AIDS”, San Francisco Chronicle, Feb 13,
1989; William Brown and William Sheldon, “The New American Apartheid”, The Black Commentator,
July 15, 2004, Issue 99.

1° Auriana Ojeda, Drug Trafﬁcking. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 2002. 63.

u Maureen Flanagan, America Reformed: Progressives and Progressivism I 890 's-l 920 ’s. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2006; Bakari Kitwana. The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and The Crisis in
A ican American Culture. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2002.

' William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. 58; Bakalar and Grinspoon, Cocaine, 1971.

13Thomas Simonton, “The Increase of the Use of Cocaine among Laity in Pittsburg”. Philadelphia Medical
Journal. 1903; Spillane, Cocaine: From Medical Marvel to Modern Menace in the United States, I 884-
1920, 84; Bakalar and Grinspoon, Cocaine, 38.

'4 Bakalar and Grinspoon, Cocaine, 39; Edward Williams, “Negro Cocaine Fiends, New Southern
Menace”, Feb. 8, 1914.

'5 Williams, “Negro Cocaine Fiends, New Southern Menace”, Feb. 8, 1914.

I"’Pero G. Dagbovie, The Early Black History Movement, Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnston
Greene. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007. 110; Williams, “Negro Cocaine Fiends,
New Southern Menace”, Feb. 8, 1914.

'7 Bakalar and Grinspoon, Cocaine, 38.

'8 Bakalar and Grinspoon, Cocaine, 38.

’9 William H. James and Stephen L.Johnson, Doin ’ Drugs: Patterns of Aﬁ'ican American Addiction.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.

2° Thomas E. Hanlon, Timothy W. Kinlock, and David N. Nurco, “Heroin Use in the United States: History
and Predsent Developments”. Heroin in the Age of Crack-Cocaine. London: Sage Publications, 1998. 12,
13; Mitz, S. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu. 2007.

2' Richard W. Thomas, Life for Us Is What We Make It:Building Black Community in Detroit, 1915-1945.
Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992.45.

22 Thomas, Life for Us Is What We Make It: Building Black Community in Detroit, 1915-1945, 31.

23 Hanlon, Kinlick, Nurco, “Heroin Use in the United State”, 13.

2’ Hanlon, Kinlick, Nurco, “Heroin Use in the United State”, 20; Bakalar and Grinspoon, Cocaine, 1971;
Hutchinson, The Mugging of Black America, 51., Inciardi, Lockwood, Dorothy and Pottieger, Women and
Crack-Cocaine, 1993., James and Johnson, Doin ’ Drugs, 1996., Spillane, Cocaine: From Medical Marvel
to Modern Menace in the United States, 1884-1920, 2000., Patricia Turner, 1 Heard It Through the
Grapevine: Rumor in Aﬁ'ican American Culture, University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles,

45

 

1993; Michael Cohen, “Jim Crow’s Drug War: Race, Coca Cola, and the Southern Origin of Drug
Prohibition”, Fall 2006.Vol. 12, Iss. 3.

25 Hutch insion, The Mugging of Black America, 52.

26 Hutchinson, The Mugging of black America, 53.

27 Spillane, Cocaine: From Medical Marvel to Modern Menace in the United States, 1884-1920, 91.

2” Spillane, Cocaine: Medical marvel to Modern Menace, 94, 95.

29 Inciardi, Lockwood, Pottieger, Women and Crack-Cocaine, 68.

3° Inciardi, Lockwood, Pottieger, Women and Crack-Cocaine, 68.

3 1 Edwards JM, Halpem CT, Wechsberg WM, “Correlates of exchanging sex for drugs or money among
women who use crack cocaine”. Aids Education and Prevention. 2006. 18; Lam WK, Levine B, Riehman
KS, Wechsberg WM, Zule W, “Gender differences in the impact of social support on crack use among
African Americans”, Substance Use and Misuse. 2008. 43.

32 Edwards J M, Halpem CT, Wechsberg WM, “Correlates of exchanging sex for drugs or money among
women who use crack cocaine”. 2008.

33 Tonya Telfair Sharpe, Behind the Eight Ball: Sex for Crack Cocaine Exchange and Poor Black Women.
New York and Oxford: The Haworth Press, 2005. 15.

3‘ Sharpe, Behind the Eight Ball, 14.

3’ Sharpe, Behind the Eightball, 109.

3‘ Sharpe, Behind the Eightball, 115, 114.

3’ Sharpe, Behind the Eightball, 18.

3" Inciardi, Lockwood, and Pottieger, Women and Crack-Cocaine, 67.

39 Spillane, Cocaine: Medical Marvel to Modern Menace, 98, 94; Bakalar and Grinspoon, Cocaine, 39.
’0 Bakalar and Grinspoon, Cocaine, 39.

4' David Musto, “America’s First Cocaine Epidemic”, Summer 1989, pp. 59-64; Bakalar and Grinspoon,
Cocaine, 43.

’2 Inciardi, McBride and Surratt, “The Heroin Street Addict: Proﬁling a National Population”, 32.

‘3 Sharpe, Behind the Eight Ball, 2005.

’4 George Henderson and Grace Ma, Ethnicity and Substance Abuse: Prevention and Intervention.
Springﬁeld: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, 2002. 127, 128.

4 Henderson and Ma, Ethnicity and Substance Abuse, 128.

’6 Henderson and Ma, Ethnicity and Substance Abuse, 128; Williams, “Negro Cocaine Fiends, New
Southern Menace”, Feb. 8, 1914; Spillane, Cocaine: Medical Marvel to Modern Menace, 92.

’7 Spillane, Cocaine: Medical Marvel to Modern Menace, 92.; Inciardi and McElrath, The American Drug
Scene, 192.

’8 Cohen, “Jim Crow’s Drug War”, Fa112006. Vol. 12, Iss. 3.; Bakalar and Grinspoon, Cocaine, 41.

’9 Bakalar and Grinspoon, Cocaine, 39; Inciardi and McElrath, The American Drug Scene, 192; Spillane,
Cocaine: Medical Marvel to Modern Menace, 105.

5° James and Johnson, Doin ' Drugs, 14, 20, 27.

5' James and Johnson, Doin ’ Drugs, 27; Sullum, Jacob, “Exorcising the twin demons, guns and drugs”,
Voodoo Social Policy. October, 1994.

52 James and Johnson, Doin ’ Drugs, 27.

53 Turner, 1 Heard It Through the Grapevine: Rumor in Aﬁican American Culture. University of California
Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1993. 180, 182.

54 Turner, [Heard it Through The Grapevine, I82, I83, I86.

55 Michael D. Lyman, Gangland: Drug Traﬂicking by Organized Criminals, 1989.

56 Lewis Yabloski, Gangsters: Fifty Years of Madness, Drugs, and Death on the Streets of America. New
York: New York University Press, 1997. 99.

”Yabloski, Gangsters: Fifty Years of Madness, Drugs, and Death on the Streets of America, 200; Ronald
C. Huff, Editor, Gangs in America, Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1996, and
Larry Mays, Gangs and Gang Behavior, Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1997.

’8 Lea C.Cunningham, Malcolm W. Klein, and Cheryl L. Maxson, “Crack”, Street Gangs, and Violence”.
Mays, Gangs and Gang Behavior, 274, 276, 284; Jeffrey Fagan, “Gangs, Drugs, and Neighborhood
Change”. Gangs in America 2"“ Edtion.’lhousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1996.

59 Fagan, “Gangs, Drugs, and Neighborhood Change”, 49, 50.

46

 

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48

 

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America. New York: New York University Press, 1997.

49

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