Crack: The Enduring Crisis

NO SIMPLE SOLUTIONS TO RAGING EPIDEMIC

When he had to, Paul Reed Jr. convinced men and women to sell themselves. He robbed store clerks at gunpoint. He broke into homes and businesses. He ripped off his customers and traded for stolen merchandise. And he always worked with a loaded handgun.

Seven years ago, the 36-year-old brought his dangerous and lucrative crack business to Melbourne. He had left Miami because nearly every street cop knew him by name.

Then, stretches of Fee Avenue, University Boulevard and U.S. 1 became Reed's new turf. They're home to crack addicts looking for their next fix. Reed served them well.

His business generated $1,000 a day at its peak during the late 1990s. But his operation was just one in a countywide crack industry. Brevard County activists, cops and others say seemingly limitless supplies of crack are sold from Mims to Palm Bay and from Port Canaveral to Interstate 95.

"There's no greater drug epidemic in Brevard," said Cmdr. Mark Riley of the Brevard County Sheriff's Office. "It's a constant problem. It's now part of our society."

Even as abuse of other drugs grabs news headlines, the drug that exploded in the late 1980s remains wildly popular at state and national levels. Crack users and dealers continue to fill up jails and prisons, costing taxpayers billions of dollars. Meanwhile, lawmakers, police and advocates of rehabilitation debate whether treatment is the best way to combat the street's cheapest and quickest high. Addicts and ex-addicts say without a personal committment to get clean and stay clean, nothing changes.

In other words, there's no clear answer to solving an epidemic that never went away, but no longer dominates the public's conscience.

"The media attention went away, but crack never did," said Joseph Califano, president of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at New York's Columbia University and former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in the Carter Administration. "Crack is very cheap, very available and easy to move around."

Paul Reed knows this perhaps as well as anyone.

For at least two years in the late 1990s, Reed ran his crack operation from three motel rooms in south Melbourne, which he rented by the day for $55 each. For Reed, who often smoked up to $400 a day in crack, the drug became more of a choice than an addiction.

But that choice involved prostitution, armed robberies and gunfire. Reed, who showed no remorse, said he doesn't remember the worst thing he did to further his enterprise because there are so many.

Most of the people Reed sold to, ripped off and stole from still aren't afterthoughts, he said. His biggest regret is getting caught.

Crack, which he sold for as little as $5 a rock, paid all his bills and left him with plenty of cash. He used it to buy designer clothes, expensive jewelry and flashy cars.

Almost daily, Reed swapped stolen items for crack. Once, a man gave Reed his low-rider pickup truck - which the man later stole back - because he didn't have enough money for crack.

Reed ran his operation deftly, those who know him said. He often melted his crack, reformed it to make it look bigger and sold it to unsuspecting customers at higher prices. Crack addicts aren't rocket scientists, Reed said.

Reed never worked without his handgun. But crack deals don't have to be shady to be dangerous. All crack addicts are thieves, he said.

"If we were sitting here smoking crack, and you had some on the table - and you turned your head for a second - I'd steal it from you," the 36- year-old said, shoving his hands in his pockets for effect. "But if someone stole crack from me, I'd shoot 'em."

Despite his glaring flaws, Reed clings to what integrity he has left. He refused to name any cohorts or customers.

"Go to U.S. 1," he said. "You'll find 'em."

Reed's story, a revealing look into the Space Coast's drug culture, portrays another side of the drug addict's personality.

Ever since he was a boy smoking marijuana and drinking beer with his friends, Reed clung to a semblance of a normal life. In Melbourne, he occasionally held jobs and kept an apartment with his fiance and her young children. But Reed's two cellphones and two pagers always kept him connected to the easy money and the easy prey.

Many Arrests

Reed learned his trade while growing up in Miami, where he was born and raised.

Today, the 5-foot-9, 145-pound father, brother and son is penniless and behind bars. He hocked everything he owned to bond out from seven arrests since November of last year, including his most recent, Aug. 4.

Five of the arrests involved possession of crack, the most serious charge among all of the arrests. Other charges included possession of marijuana and driving with a suspended license.

Reed pleaded guilty to all of the charges, which earned him a 10-year prison sentence earlier this month. Sometime soon, Inmate No. 426222 will move from the Central Florida Reception Center in Orlando to one of the state's prisons.

Although Reed's two prior prison stints were short - he's never served more than two years behind bars - he has 31 criminal convictions dating back to 1988, Florida prison records show.

"Some people - they live for just crack," a handcuffed Reed told Florida Today recently from across a cold steel table in a small holding cell in the Brevard County Detention Center. "They know better, but all they want to do is smoke."

Reed, who wore a yellow jumpsuit, battered white tennis shoes, white tube socks and an inmate ID badge, insists he's not sick or addicted. But adds: "I don't think I'm too strong-willed, either. Because I keep coming back to jail."

He's not the only one.

Between 1980 and 1996, the number of inmates in state, federal and local lockups tripled from 500,000 to 1.7 million, according to the U.S. Justice Department. In December of 2000, state prisons operated between full capacity and 15 percent above capacity, while federal prisons operated at 31 percent above capacity.

The drug offenses for which inmates like Reed are behind bars generally increase in seriousness depending on where the offenders are locked up. The offenses range from possession - Reed's problem the last year - to operating a criminal enterprise.

About 58 percent of the 155,000 federal inmates are serving sentences for drug-related crimes, such as trafficking, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

In Florida, 18 percent of the state's prisoners were doing time for drug crimes, such as manufacturing, at the end of July, state records show. Of those, more than two-thirds were in for crack and cocaine offenses.

In Brevard, half of the jail's 318 drug offenders - nearly a quarter of the jail's 1,406 inmates - were behind bars at the end of July for crack or cocaine charges, jail records show.

The man who prosecuted Paul Reed pushed for a 20-year sentence.

"I've seen far worse records, but I've never seen a guy commit six felonies in nine months," Brevard Assistant State Attorney Mike Doyle said. "That's the terrible thing about crack. Once you get on it, it ruins your life. It turns some people into zombies."

Reed said he's never been a zombie. He's persuaded others to sell themselves to get money for a "$20 piece," but he said he's never sold himself. He was the guy calling the shots, not taking orders.

Reed first started using drugs when he was 12, hanging out on the streets with a friend smoking marijuana and drinking beer. He loved the life.

"To me, it was like entertainment," he said.

Reed once played high school football, basketball and ran track. But he was kicked out of Miami Jackson Senior High after skipping 96 days his sophomore year. By then, he was snorting cocaine.

At 17, Reed earned his GED. A year later, he was smoking "juice joints," marijuana cigarettes mixed with crack.He enrolled at a technical college but got kicked out after a falling out with a teacher. It was then that Reed started smoking crack daily.

Euphoria, Despair

"It's like bam!" Reed said of the intense crack high, clapping his hands. "Like nothing you ever felt."

But the euphoria wears off fast. Then, anxiety, depression, irritability, extreme fatigue and possibly paranoia set in. The social consequences of heavy use can be equally unpleasant.

During a crack binge, addicts alienate family and friends, become suspicious of everyone and spend most of their money and time on getting more of the drug.

Powder and crack cocaine are similar in their psychoactive and physiological effects, but the risk of addiction soars if cocaine is smoked as crack, researchers found.

Excluding people in custody, between 1988 and 1998, up to 3.9 million Americans used crack and cocaine daily, and roughly 2.9 million to 6 million were occasional users, according to The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.

Between 1989 and 1998, American users spent as much as $77 billion a year on crack and cocaine. By way of a rough local comparison, NASA's annual budget is about $14 billion.

"It's easy money and it's fast money," said Detective Michael Wofford, who has worked in the Melbourne Police Department's narcotics unit the past 10 years and knows Paul Reed. "They're many Paul Reeds out there. Dealers arrested and taken out of the loop are replaced in a matter of days."

The chase for the ultimate high led to crack's invention, which turned into a dream-come-true for Reed and dealers like him.

At one time, only intravenous injections could deliver the more potent and rapid high cocaine users craved. Initially, "free-base" cocaine caught on. But the solvents used to help convert the crystalline coke to liquid, usually ether, tended to ignite when heated. So a safer method spread - crack, which a child can make.

A solution of water, baking soda and powder cocaine is about all it takes to make crack.

The impure, less-expensive rock cocaine produces a more intense high than powder cocaine. Heavy users burn through rocks, which is much cheaper than the real stuff. An ounce of crack, for example, sells for about $1,000. An ounce of powder cocaine costs about $5,600.

But what most sets crack apart from other drugs, including cocaine, is its byproducts. Paul Reed and people like him lose their conscience. They'll do anything to keep their business alive. And most users will do anything to get their next rock.

"Because of how dealing's are - the betrayal, the deceit, the power plays - it breeds violence," Detective Wofford said. "And dealers don't just make money. They make a lot of money. One thousand dollars a day - that's mediocre. In some cases, it's a lot more."

'Always New Faces'

Reed developed his cache at The Colonial Motel, on U.S. 1 in Melbourne, he said.

"I tried everything I could to get him out of here, but he's pretty good at what he does," said Virginia Pierce, a manager at the motel the past 12 years. "He'd move in after other people would rent the rooms. He's bad news. But he's not the only one. There's a whole bunch out there like him. They come and they go. And there's always new faces."

About nine years ago, Pierce's daughter witnessed a crack deal that went bad in the motel's parking lot. Shots ensued and one person was killed. "But that's the only killing I've heard of," Pierce said.

Despite periodic drug stings, crack deals are routine at the motel, Pierce said. Police cars in the parking lot don't discourage hard-core users.

"They get pulled into it, and they can't get out," Pierce said. "I've seen people that owned $200,000 homes that live here because they lost everything."

Reed's last arrest was at the motel. He was busted while smoking a cigarette outside his motel room. Police found a crack rock in a cigar case in Reed's pocket.

Five or six years ago, crack was more prevalent than it is today, Pierce said. "But what we do have seems to be harder core than it was."

During the past decade, crack use has been "pretty steady - pretty much the same," said Wofford, who knows numerous users, many of whom become nameless and faceless.

"After a while, they stop working," Wofford said. "The only thing they want to do is the drug. Then they turn to crime to support it."

Wofford said crack can destroy just about anyone.

A joint study by Columbia University and the University of Minnesota in 1996 found that 46 percent of crack users were white, 36 percent were black and 11 percent were Hispanic.

Crack, which initially surfaced in cities, is rampant in lower-income areas because it's cheap and available. But the university researchers said race is not a determining factor in crack use. Availability and social conditions are the key factors.

'$3 A Rock'

Harold Koenig and his wife live in an upscale, gated community in Satellite Beach, but in the mid-1990s he pulled his 20-something daughter out of multiple crack houses across the county. She was living in an apartment and was supposed to be attending classes at Brevard Community College.

"I pulled her out of crack houses in Palm Bay, Satellite Beach, north Melbourne, south Melbourne and Cocoa to name a few," the 75-year-old said of his daughter, who he adopted when she was a baby.

"I could take you to hundreds of places within minutes of your office where I could find crack for $3 a rock."

Koenig's daughter eventually broke from the Paul Reeds of Brevard and remains clean, but Koenig's fight against drugs has continued. Koenig researched drugs and incarceration for about three years. He also founded HEART, Help Early Addicts Receive Treatment, and serves as the group's president.

HEART officials are working to get an amendment on Florida's November 2002 ballot that would allow first- and second-time nonviolent drug- possession offenders a choice between treatment and jail. A similar law has seen success in Arizona, and a treatment-instead-of-jail program began in California in July.

"The idea is these offenders need treatment, whereas if they're jailed, their situation will become worse because they're not getting the treatment they need in jail," Koenig said. "This is important because we'll save some lives. And our government will save a massive amount of money."

'Easy. . .Money'

In Congress, Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Palm Bay, said HEART's initiative is worth considering. "Certainly it's something that might work."

But Weldon said when former president Bill Clinton came into office in 1992, he shifted too much money from interdiction to rehab, allowing more cocaine to funnel into the U.S.

"They admitted their approach didn't work," Weldon said. "You need a balanced approach, but part of the reason a lot of lawmakers became disillusioned with Clinton's plan is a lot of these drug-treatment programs weren't successful in keeping people off drugs. In some programs, only 5 percent of the people who go through rehab remain drug-free."

Weldon said he supports President Bush's faith-based initiative, part of his plan for the war on drugs. It would move more federal dollars into drug programs with high success rates.

There's no simple answer, said state Sen. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, who has heard that 90 percent of crimes have a nexus with drugs.

But HEART's initiative is a "horrible idea," Posey said, partly because it eliminates tough consequences. He also said staying off drugs depends as much on a person's ability to get and keep a decent job as it does on treatment.

Rehab hasn't worked for Paul Reed, who said the best job he ever had was selling crack. His other jobs, hauling trash and working as a cook in a diner, were a joke to him. Mostly, he took them to convince himself his life didn't revolve around crack. But it did.

"It's so hard to solve the problem because it's too easy to make money from selling drugs," Posey said. "We have to set an example that there's consequences. We've done that. This is the first year in 10 years that we didn't have to build (state) prisons to incarcerate people."

'Bad Out There'

Paul Reed has been in rehab a half-dozen times.

"It hasn't worked because I didn't want it," he said.

Seven years ago, inside a grocery store, Nita McDaniel wanted rehab to work.

"I had a cart full of groceries and I didn't have a way to pay for it," said the 43-year-old Melbourne resident, a crack addict for about 15 years. "My oldest son started crying and said he couldn't take it no more. He said he didn't love me anymore. I knew then I needed to get some kind of help."

McDaniel checked herself into a local substance abuse center. After three days, it was time to go. But McDaniel wasn't cured. She knew she was headed back to the streets. So, she found a recovery house for women in Palm Bay. She stayed for a year. She went to outpatient treatment for another year.

"I sold food stamps, sold my body, stole from my sons," recalled McDaniel, who works the midnight shift as a cashier and cook at a local hospital. "I did the same exact thing those girls are doing now on U.S. 1. Whatever it took."

McDaniel doesn't know why crack grabbed her. "I needed help, but I didn't think I did. Something had to happen in my life for me to make a change."

Now, McDaniel listens and tries to help drug addicts as a volunteer at the Academy of Recovery on Stone Street in south Melbourne.

"There's no kids playing on Stone Street," McDaniel said. "All you see is crack addicts walking around. Believe me, it's bad out there around the neighborhoods. It takes away peoples' lives."

Sidebars:

FLORIDA INMATES: Less than a third of the drug offenders were doing time for possession. More than two-thirds of the drug offenders were behind bars for cocaine or crack.

Total inmate population: 72,075
Drug offenders: 12,877

80% Cocaine and crack
3.1% Marijuana
2.1% Ecstasy
15% Other
1.3% Heroin

Figures are from July 31, 2001

FEDERAL INMATES: Nearly 90% of drug offenders were doing time for trafficking. Crack and cocaine accounted for 41% of all drug offenses.

Total inmate population: 135,000
Drug offenders: 25,184

21% Crack
20% Cocaine
28% Marijuana
12% Methamphetamine
7% Opiates
0.5% Hallucinogens
11% Other

Figures are from Dec. 31, 1999
* Categorized by primary offense
Percentages might not equal 100% due to rounding..
Sources: Florida Department of Corrections, U.S. Department of Justice

BREVARD INMATES: Eighty percent of all jail inmates facing drug charges were arrested for possession. Half of those facing drug charges were in for cocaine or crack.

Total inmate population: 1,406
Drug offenders: 318

50% Cocaine/Crack
17% Paraphernalia
17% Marijuana
16% Other

Figures are from July 31, 2001
Categorized by primary offense
Source: Brevard County Detention Center