The girl with the pillbox hat was “snorting” the powder form of cocaine – inhaling it through her nose. Related: David Carr: New home isn’t pretty, but I came from hell anyway When it finally goes on the street market in the Twin Cities, it’s sold in two basic forms: powder and crack. Twin Cities cocaine usually comes from a variety of in-country sources, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and Miami. Typically, area wholesalers deal in amounts of a kilo or less at one time. Police do not think it generally comes directly to the Twin Cities from South America in large shipments. Most of it is produced in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia and is illegally imported into the United States. Is it addictive? Is it dangerous by itself? How many people are involved with it? How easy is it to get? Is law enforcement effective? Do we need heavier law enforcement and longer prison terms for dealers?Ĭhemically, powder cocaine is a crystalline alkaloid, C17-H21-NO4, derived from the South American coca plant Erythroxylon coca. And there has been increasing controversy. Somewhere along the line, it became the last recourse of the damaged and disillusioned, and the scourge of the poor.Īs the dangers of the drug have become apparent, there have been increasing calls for stiffer law enforcement, harsher penalties and more sophisticated treatment for addicts. At the beginning of the decade it was the chemical of choice for the rich, the self-centered and the high-powered. Then you look around to get high again.”Ĭocaine has been called the drug of the ’80s. When you come down, you look around, you say, ‘S-, I’m nothin’. My friends would say, ‘Jeez, are you doin’ that already?’ I’d say, ‘Listen, this is my first time today.’ It was 10 o’clock in the morning and I thought I was doing good to last that long.” “I do some cocaine, I carried it in my purse. “I’d skip out of school, go riding around,” she said. You’re walking down the street and this dude comes along, he says, ‘Hey, you lookin’?’ I mean, you don’t have to go out and search. “In my neighborhood, you don’t look for it it looks for you. “Where do you look for it?” He was amused and glanced sideways at the girl to share his amusement. People would say, ‘Hey, here comes the straight-edge.’ They’d say, ‘Hey, there’s the narc.’ I wasn’t cool anymore.” “That all went away when I started treatment. I was socially accepted by all these people.
“When you have coke, you have so many friends, so many people who take you to parties and stuff. They are both trying to kick their habits. But it was the taste and smell that kept me coming back,” he said. “In my neighborhood, you don’t look for it it looks for you,” he said of cocaine. Despite a war on drugs in the Twin Cities, the cocaine crisis continues to ruin lives - and end them – Twin Cities Close MenuĪ 17-year-old outpatient of a drug treatment facility at Fairview Deaconnes Hospital gazes out a window in January 1989.