Reversing the effects of the crack cocaine epidemic

The community’s response created barriers that hurt former crack users to this day.

Leaders in substance abuse treatment gathered last week to reflect on the failures of the war on crack cocaine and to lay a course to repair the damage to people still suffering in the system designed to punish them.

Driving the news: The conversation comes as the Palm Beach County Commission is poised to sign off next month on a plan to spend nearly $150 million in opioid settlement money over 20 years.

Why it matters: The contrast in the community’s response to the crack epidemic that erupted in the 1980s and the opioid epidemic of the 2010s is a painful fact. It created hardship and barriers that hurt former crack users to this day.

• In 2003, African Americans made up less than a third of the nation’s drug users yet were 80% of the people sentenced under harsh federal crack cocaine laws, according to a 2016 ACLU report.
• Black drug users were labeled as super predators or crackheads while mostly white opioid users are often viewed as victims of overprescribing doctors. In fact, both could be viewed as victims of an illness — addiction.
• A myth grew around children of crack users, who were labeled irredeemably damaged “crack babies.” A generation of Black children grew up with that stigma.

That brings us to Thursday’s conversation at the Drug Abuse Foundation of Palm Beach County in Delray Beach that explored: What if crack cocaine use had been treated as a public health hazard instead of a crime?

Keynote speaker Desmond Meade is a celebrated lawyer and advocate for returning citizens.

• He described the desperation he felt as a homeless crack user in Miami in August 2005.
• “I was waiting for a train so I could jump in front of it,” he said. “I was tired and I was ready to end my life.”
• But the train didn’t come. Meade checked into a substance abuse center and started a journey that led to his law degree. He was a driving force behind 2018’s Amendment 4, designed to restore voting rights to Floridians with felony convictions. 

Meade and other panelists shared this advice:

• Meade’s suffering was deeper because of how his family and society looked at him. “How many people would come to a funeral for a crackhead?” People do better when they have an advocate, he noted.
• Charles Ridley of Unify Palm Beach County highlighted the crippling effect of a drug-related felony conviction that typically blocks people from jobs, housing and social services that would help them recover.
• Alton Taylor, CEO of the Drug Abuse Foundation, said providers have a responsibility to make sure public resources are available to the entire community whether they ask for them or not. “Instead of making them knock on our door, we’re going to knock on theirs.”

Crack users were told they needed to pull themselves out of their dependence on the highly addictive drug. The response to opioid users is often more compassionate, the panelists pointed out. 

What’s next: The County Commission is expected to vote in October on a person-centered approach to spending the opioid settlement millions recommended by an advisory committee led by the recovery community.

• Ninety percent of the money would go toward housing, recovery support, job training, youth assistance and prevention. The idea is to end the vicious cycle of addiction, treatment and relapse by helping patients through difficult times.
• Ten percent would go to acute care. 

The bottom line: “We have got to embrace, acknowledge and support people who suffer from addiction from a public health perspective,” Maureen Kielian, the advisory committee chairperson, said in an interview Friday. “The war on drugs is lost. And we keep spending money on it.”

Carolyn DiPaolo

I am a co-founder, writer and editor for Stet News. I am also a former senior editor at The Palm Beach Post. For 20 years, I oversaw some of the most consequential stories published by the paper, including the “Corruption County” reporting project that led to multiple arrests of elected officials. I am a member of the Leadership Palm Beach County Class of 2013. I live in West Palm Beach with my husband, Bill DiPaolo.