American Notes Narcotics

On the mean streets of New York City, where the drug entered the marketplace last year, it is known as "crack." Dealers sell pellet-size "rocks" of the highly purified cocaine in small plastic vials for prices starting at about $10. Crack is smoked rather than snorted, and a single hit provides a short but intense and practically instantaneous rush. The drug of the moment, it has been reported in at least 13 states, and police in New York and California have been busy busting the "base houses," or "rock houses," where the stuff is sold and smoked. Said William Hopkins of New York's substance abuse services division: "Drug addicts are always looking for the ultimate high, and they all agree that crack is the ultimate."

Crack's low price and quick payoff make it especially alluring to teenagers. Young abusers, said Arnold Washton, a New York expert on treating cocaine addicts, "run the gamut from inner-city ghetto kids to kids from affluent suburbs." But the price of this highly concentrated drug is greater than many youngsters realize: New Jersey's national cocaine hot line (1-800-COCAINE) has found that 98% of the callers say they became addicted to crack within six months.