Cocaine and Crack: The Promotion of an Epidemic

Abstract

Of all the drug scares that have beset the British drug scene over the last 25 years few can compete with the crack—cocaine scare in the late 1980s. Others may have used more shrill language and may have led to more repressive measures, but for sheer hyperbole this scare was the most intense. It lasted about 30 months and ended quietly in August 1990 when the National Task Force, a joint unit of police and customs concerned with controlling crack, whose very name suggested urgency and action, was wound down. During that period, as we were led to believe by some extremists, an epidemic of drug abuse, or rather of crack—cocaine abuse, was due to hit Britain. These fears were based on, or perhaps prompted by a great deal of speculation and much misinformation.