[lbo-talk] ya crackhead!

[Kelley]

the cop thread reminded me of a thread that had been going on at the 
Teaching Sociology list. Playing devil's advocate, a list member has been 
suggested that some of the liberal and radical left claims about crack, 
cocaine, and unfair sentencing is based on ideological committments that 
may blind us to reality: the reality, here, is that crack was/is (?) a far 
more serious threat to communities than other drugs and that the harsher 
sentencing was based on the fact that crack did rip communities apart.

leaving aside Justin's (andie's) point that we probably shouldn't be 
busting people for drugs to begin with, my gut instinct is that this 
argument that crack is a horrid, horrid addicting drug and because it's so 
horrid it ruined communities, etc. is something only a crackhead could 
dream up. HA!

the problem, OT1H, is that much of our understanding of addiction is based 
on pretty faulty models of addiction. OTOH, there's a lot of myth about 
crack. etc.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Resources you'd recommend? I'm just 
curious and really don't want to have a war over addiction and treatment 
models or anything else. Mostly curious about the crack/community 
breakdown/violence thing.

Kelley