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Drug use in America reached its peak in 1979, when one in ten Americans
used drugs on a regular basis. During the 1970s, cocaine reappeared, touted
as the "champagne of drugs" because it was expensive, high-status,
and said to have no serious consequences. The price dropped steadily,
and by the mid-1980s, six million Americans used it regularly. Cocaine
was gradually rediscovered to be highly addictive and dangerous, a fact
driven home by the death of college basketball star Len Bias in June 1986.
By then, drug mafias based in Colombia were powerful, well-organized,
and entrenched. When their middle-class customers began to shun powder
cocaine, these criminals refocused on traditional inner-city drug markets.
They introduced crack, an intensely addictive and relativley cheap form
of smokable cocaine, setting off America’s most devastating drug
epidemic. Whole communities were overwhelmed by the scope and horror of
this drug. American law enforcement was also initially overwhelmed.
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