CRACK AND CRIME

Tony Blair is running out of time. In less than 100 days, the Prime
Minister has promised that street crime will be brought under control.

Everyone knows, of course, that this pledge was little more than a
soundbite, a short-lived gimmick to get Mr Blair off a particularly awkward
hook. But others, notably the growing number of bloodied and beaten people
who have been the victim of violent street crimes, will doubtless want to
hold the Prime Minister to his word, and when the time comes remind him of
his pledges.

Doubtless, Mr Blair will be able to cite any number of successes, while
blaming the wider failure of his policies on such unforeseen events as the
rise of crack cocaine abuse to near epidemic levels.

The only problem with this last explanation, however, is that the
Government has known for a good number of years that crack cocaine, and the
violent, often gun-related crime which accompanies it, was spiralling out
of control. Indeed, it is almost a decade ago that Robert Stutman of the
American Drug Enforcement Administration came to Britain and made dire
warnings that the country would soon be on the verge of a crack epidemic.

Why, many might ask, have the warnings been ignored?

Why, if the bulk of this evil trade comes from Jamaica, has it proved so
difficult to stop the mule-train from Kingston to Heathrow? And why has it
proved so difficult to stop members of violent, Yardie gangs, from
returning to Britain within days of being deported by the courts?

Clearly, there needs to be closer co-operation between the police and
customs to prevent this kind of thing recurring.

In addition, it would be helpful if the police had the same powers to
detain suspected crack dealers as customs officials, since the drug is
often transported in a rock-like form in the mouth and swallowed when
arrested by the police.

Longer detention periods would allow the drug to be detected when it has
filtered through the body.

Crack is doubly dangerous in that it is both instantly addictive and
induces in the addict withdrawal symptoms tinged with violence and paranoia.

Whereas heroin addicts might seek to fund their habits through burglary and
shoplifting, the crack fiend is so out of control that he is reduced to
random attacks in the street in the hope of stealing a mobile phone or
car-jacking a vehicle.

Couple this with those aspects of black culture which promote a macho,
aggressive, misogynstic lifestyle, and it is easy to see how dealing in
crack fits in with a criminal sub-culture of guns, fast cars and violence,
and how it makes Tony Blair's pledge to tackle street crime all the more
difficult to enforce.

The speed with which crack took over the streets of New York in the 1980s,
and helped to give the city such a violent reputation, took drug
enforcement agencies by complete surprise.

The drug, which at first was used primarily in poor black areas, quickly
became a cheap alternative to cocaine and the drug of choice of the yuppie
middle classes, as block by block even affluent New York fell under the
spell of crack.

A similar trend is happening here in Britain with young clubbers using the
drug. It is imperative, therefore, that the lessons of New York are learned
before the terrible effects of a crack epidemic are visited on Britain