The Rock Repertoire
| DOI | 10.1177/026455059704400104 |
| Published date | 01 March 1997 |
| Date | 01 March 1997 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
26
The
Rock
Repertoire:
Crack
Cocaine,
Polydrug
Use
and
Criminal
Careers
With
the
help
of
a
trained
team
of
indigenous
fieldworkers,
Howard
Parker,
Professor
of
Social
Policy
Research
at
Manchester
University,
and
Tim
Bottomley
of
Trafford
Community
Drugs
Team,
Manchester,
penetrated
the
subeultural
work
of
established
crack
cocaine
users.
They
describe
the
impact
of
crack
or
rock
cocaine
’dependency’
on
drugs
careers
and
the
tendency
of
users
to
slide
into
a
complex
repertoire
of
poly
drug
use
orbiting
around
crack
which
often
in
turn
led
to
acquisitive
crime,
drug
dealing
and
prostitution.
C rack
(or
rock)
cocaine
was
defined
~
rack
(or
rock)
cocaine
was
defined
as
a
demonic
drug
in
the
late
1980s.
The
UK
was
given
dire
warnings
by
the
Americans
that
extensive
crack
use,
particularly
in
deprived
’ghetto’
communities,
would
reap
havoc. Yet
the
crack
epidemic
did
not
materialise
and
the
epidemiological
sink
was
not
dramatically
filled
by
a
flood
of
new
users
at
the
end
of
the
eighties,
as
had
occurred
a
few
years
earlier
with
the
deluge
of
new
heroin
users.
Nevertheless,
there
is
good
reason
to
believe
that
the
incidence
tap
has
been
dripping
steadily
throughout
the
nineties.
Crack
cocaine
use
continues
to
show
increases
in
most
recent
drugs
prevalence
surveys.
Moreover,
drugs
services
are
clearly
aware
of
increasing
numbers
of
users
on
their
patch
as
the
NTORS
research
has
been
finding’.
Because
of
this
growth
we
need
to
gather
up
all
we
know
about
crack
or
rock
cocaine
and
be
much
clearer
about
its
status.
As
yet,
the
medical
and
social
science
research
communities
cannot
agree
about
the
drug’s
potential
for
creating
problematic
use.
For
some
commentators
it’s
just
cocaine
in
a
pipe
whilst
for
others
it’s
a
dangerous
addition
to
the
heavy
end
of
dependency-inducing
hard
drugs.
However,
there
is
no
on-going
research
plotting
crack’s
colonisation,
particularly
in
the
deprived
urban
communities
where,
on
the
basis
of
earlier
heroin
epidemics,
we
know
it
will
do
most
damage.
This
article
highlights
a
few
findings
from
one
attempt
to
explore
crack
cocaine
in
such
communities.
Unconventional Methods
Because
most
regular
crack
cocaine
users
and
certainly
those
living
in
deprived,
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