BRITAIN BACK ON THE BRINK OF VIOLENT CRACK EPIDEMIC

Last time, it was a false alarm. This time, the escalating use of highly
addictive cocaine rocks could ravage this country

Kamal Ahmed and Martin Bright Sunday June 9, 2002 The Observer

In the cold, wet autumn of 1986, Anthony 'Crumpet' Lemard choked to death
on his vomit, face down in a police cell in Kensington, west London. He had
been arrested a few hours earlier after police were called to a block of
flats a few miles away where Lemard was 'going berserk', brandishing a
knife and 'acting crazy'.

It was just another death in the drug-fuelled parts of London, another
statistic to add to the thousands of deaths recorded every year of people
whose drug use ends in tragedy. But Lemard was different. When pathologists
tested his blood and urine, they found the highest concentrations of
cocaine ever seen in England. Experts were puzzled how anyone could have
taken such huge amounts of cocaine. Then one official said Lemard may have
been taking a new form of cocaine that enters the bloodstream more quickly
and in far higher concentrations. It was a new drug from America. Lemard
had been taking crack.

A few months later, police in Toxteth, Liverpool, started reporting
increasing levels of violence among drugs gangs. In May 1987 three police
were severely beaten in a raid on a pub. Their assailants seemed 'totally
hyped up', psychotic and lacking in fear. Police had found a number of
'crack factories' in backstreet houses. Yardie gangs were starting to
encroach on inner-city areas. Kenneth Oxford, Merseyside's then Chief
Constable, told the police authority that small amounts of a new drug
called 'crack' had been found in the area. Use, he said, was not widespread.

Since then, crack cocaine - also known as gravel, rock, stones and wash -
has stalked Britain's drugs debate. After Lemard's death and Toxteth's
problems, an early flurry of stories indicated that an epidemic was about
to strike Britain, similar in its devastation to the one that ripped
through inner-city America. Robert Stutman, from the US Drugs Enforcement
Administration, told British police in April 1989: 'Two years from now you
will have a serious drugs problem.' Panic was in the air, but the epidemic
never materialised. Cocaine use rose and then stabilised through the 1990s.
Crack was only a small part of the problem, although serious where it
affected deprived inner-city estates. The Metropolitan Police's Crack
Intelligence Unit, set up in the late 1980s, was quietly disbanded after
three years because it did not have enough work to do.

But now new worries are surfacing. Could the threat of a crack epidemic be
re-appearing? Last autumn, little noticed in the depths of the annual Drug
Misuse Declared in 2000 report, was a line which set alarm bells ringing in
government: 'There were significant increases in the use of both powder and
crack cocaine in 2000 compared with levels in previous surveys.' Use for
young adults between the ages of 16 and 29 was particularly worrying.
Officials from the UK Anti-Drugs Co-ordination Unit also noticed another
worrying development from America. In February, drugs experts in Boston
started reporting a sudden rise in use of crack cocaine. Boston had been
one of the cities plagued by the drug more than a decade ago, but seemed to
have the problem under control. Now it is not so sure.

In a fortnight's time David Blunkett has called a 'cocaine summit' to
discuss the issue, focusing on crack. The Metropolitan Police, whose
Operation Trident has targeted cocaine use in London, will be joined by
Avon and Somerset Police (Bristol has a particular crack problem), the
National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, Home Office officials and
Customs and Excise.

The meeting, to be chaired by Bob Ainsworth, the Home Office Minister with
responsibility for drugs, will discuss new treatment programmes for cocaine
and crack users and look at one of the major problems for users of the drug
- - there is no 'replacement' drug which can be prescribed for those seeking
to rid themselves of the habit. Unlike heroin users, who can be prescribed
methadone to control and eventually reduce their drug habit, you are either
on crack or you are not.

Research is continuing in America on finding an antidote to the drug. The
British pharmaceutical firm Xenova is involved in trials with Yale
University on a drug which blocks the movement of cocaine from the
bloodstream to the brain. A spokeswoman admitted on Friday that they were
still 'a number of years' from any widely available treatment.

The figures on crack are worrying. 'If you combine crack and cocaine, this
is the second most popular drug in this country,' said Aidan Gray of the
cocaine charity Coca. 'With this proportion of people using, you have a
higher number with problems.'

Lord Adebowale, chief executive of the Turning Point drugs charity, told
the Home Affairs Select Committee: 'Five years ago, 1 per cent of users in
the southern region were crack cocaine users; it is now 12 per cent. We are
seeing a rapid increase. There does not appear to be a huge body of
evidence about what we do with crack users in this country.'

At a conference last month on the implications of increased crack-cocaine
use for the criminal justice system, the National Association of Probation
Officers presented worrying evidence about crack users on the Government's
new Drug Treatment and Testing Orders. Across 10 London boroughs there had
been significant rises in crack users being seen by the drug teams since
September 2000. In east London the numbers had risen by half and in west
London by 70 per cent.

Probation workers said violence was almost always an issue with crack
users, who were difficult to control without serious coercion.

Early statistics show that success rate of existing treatments is low. In
south and west London half of all crack users were shown to have breached
the conditions of their orders and returned to court. If the rules were
strictly applied, workers said, more than 90 per cent of crack cocaine
addicts now on treatment orders would end up in prison.

For users, the first rush of crack soon descends into the darkness of
addiction, crime and a crumbling lifestyle. When Louis had his first smoke,
he thought it was just a different way of taking cocaine. A successful
computer salesman in his late twenties, earning UKP50,000 a year and
driving a Saab convertible, Louis thought he had it all. His UKP200-a-month
cocaine habit was an indulgence, but he saw it as a secret luxury that
suited his high-stress lifestyle. Crack changed everything.

'It was a completely different buzz - 100 per cent more intense, much more
euphoric. They say the first hit is the best and it was, but there was also
a more-ish factor.'

Louis was already having problems with a constantly blocked and bleeding
nose from his cocaine habit, so he was happy to switch to smoking crack. In
months he was spending UKP500 a day on 'rocks' and taking on massive bank
loans to support his habit.

Louis, a former public school boy now aged 32, is evidence that consumption
of crack crosses all social boundaries. Drug workers call it the 'equal
opportunities drug' because users are found in all parts of the country,
across the race and class divide. But unlike social drugs, such as
cannabis, ecstasy or even cocaine it is difficult to sustain a normal life
as a crack user because of its addictive qualities.

Louis started to prowl the streets of north London in his Saab, looking for
new sources of crack. 'I cringe now about the danger line I crossed, in my
suit with all my computer equipment, to make contact with a dealer.
Anything could have happened.'

Louis's life was collapsing around him. 'I would leave my flat at night
with the lights on and the stereo still playing, thinking I'd be out for
half an hour while I scored. I would go out on Monday, end up at the crack
house and not get back home until Wednesday.'

For 18 months, Louis sank into the violent underworld of the north London
crack gangs. 'Guns were involved and I saw street battles. I was asked to
use my car to transport vast quantities of drugs.'

Louis was eventually targeted by the police as a possible big-time dealer,
but when he was stopped and searched they found only Rohypnol, the date
rape drug, which he used to come down from crack so that he could sleep.

He got away with a caution, but it acted as a warning and Louis decided to
seek help. By now he had lost his job and girlfriend and built up UKP40,000
of debts. He now attends a day programme at Turning Point, one of the few
agencies with specialist training to deal with crack addicts.

Fellow Turning Point client Jim, a 32-year-old builder with three children,
was introduced to crack when a friend came into some money and bought
UKP1,000 worth of rocks. 'I never had any trouble with powder [cocaine] and
I never really fancied crack. But it was such a buzzy feeling. They say
it's better than sex, but it's not like that at all. It's a different sort
of feeling, like your brain goes into overdrive.'

Jim also found it impossible to hold down a job once he he got 'the taste',
and the shift into crime was immediate. 'I was getting through UKP300 of
crack over a couple of days. I could borrow maybe UKP50 or UKP60, so the
rest of it had to come from somewhere. I wouldn't think twice about going
on the rob. It feels like nothing else matters. It affects different people
different ways, but if you had the flavour and you saw someone at a cash
machine, it wouldn't matter if he was 12ft tall and 6ft wide, you'd just
take the money.'

Jim found himself in court, and his girlfriend stopped him seeing his
children. Two months ago, he finally went to his doctor for help and was
referred to Turning Point, where he is undergoing intensive therapy in an
attempt to keep him off crack and out of trouble. 'The problem is that it's
everywhere. I've seen people smoke it on building sites. Sometimes you're
stuck there all day with nothing to do. That's when it starts.'

The highs and lows of crack addiction

* According to the Home Office, there are 178,000 regular crack users in
England and Wales.

* Crack, often referred to as 'ice', 'rocks' or 'tornado', is crystallised
freebase cocaine.

* The name crack is thought to refer to the crackling sound crack makes
when it is smoked.

* A typical hit from one vial of crack costs around UKP20. The subsequent
high lasts between five and 10 minutes.

* Side-effects of heavy use include sleeplessness, hallucinations,
convulsions and paranoid delusions, which can lead to violent behaviour.

* Users can smoke as many as nine vials in one sitting, with the cost
spiralling to UKP500 a day.