Get breaking news and the latest headlines on business, entertainment, politics, world news, tech, sports, videos and much more from AOL. Things You Probably Didnt Know About Crack, Americas Most Vilified Drug. Photo Credit shutterstock. Its no secret that crack cocaine carries a stigma. Positions On How To Get Pregnant Ovulation Calculator American Pregnancy Positions On How To Get Pregnant Ovulation Test Positive For 4 Days Early Signs Of. While casual pot smoking and cocaine use are tolerated in college dorms and clubs, crack cocaine is often considered to be on a different level a hard drug, like heroin. Few well off people would casually do, or suggest trying crack cocaine, and if they did, theyd likely get a litany of concerned responses from friends. Powder cocaine use, however, maintains an element of glamor its associated with the culture of elites, from socialites like Paris Hilton to Wall Street traders. Crack, many people think, is such a hard drug that using it once could cause a user to act recklessly, even dangerously, become addicted, or die. But most of the claims about crack cocaines potential for destruction have proven exaggerated or flat out false. As neuropsychiatrist and Columbia University researcher Dr. Carl Hart told Alter. Net, the hype around crack has a lot more to do with political expedience politicians cynically vilifying poor black people for electoral gain than the drugs actual potential for harm. Dr. Hart, the author of a recent book, High Price, says targeting crack cocaine in black communities was easier than addressing more grave concerns like poverty, unemployment and dwindling federal aid for struggling families. Crack rose to prominence in poor, black, urban environments and not in the suburbs not because of its overwhelming strength but because it was an affordable source of pleasure to communities deprived of basic resources. Crack caught on, certainly, but it did not ravage cities the way the media and politicians have claimed. Most people never become addicted, and those who do are likely vulnerable to the conditions in their environment that make addiction more likely. Here are four myths about crack that arose thanks to drug war propaganda. Cost Of Ecns License. Crack in the ghetto. Despite racialized images of crack users, data from National Institute on Drug Abuse NIDA reveals that people reporting cocaine use in 1. Hispanic. People who admitted to using crack were 5. Hispanic.  From a rational perspective, these numbers should not be surprising whites are, after all, the majority, and have a long standing tendency to use drugs at rates higher than blacks. Nonetheless, in 2. U. S. Sentencing Commission released data showing no drug matches crack in terms of racially biased convictions. According to the data, 7. Hispanic, and only 1. As far back as the early 2. PHOTOCREO-Michal-Bednarek_HelpingHand_Shutterstock_0.jpg' alt='Shutterstock Crack Login' title='Shutterstock Crack Login' />African Americans was considered a threat to the safety of white America. A 1. 91. 4 article in the New York Times warned, Murder and Insanity Increasing Among Lower Class Blacks Because They Have Taken to Sniffing Since Deprived by Whiskey Prohibition. The article, by Dr. Edward H. Williams, proclaimed Most of the negroes are poor, illiterate and shiftless. Once the negro has formed the habit he is irreclaimable. The only method to keep him away from taking the drug is by imprisoning him. Download Vstroker here. And this is merely palliative treatment, for he returns inevitably to the drug habit when released. Cocaine produces several other conditions that make the fiend a peculiarily dangerous criminal. One of these conditions is a temporary immunity to shock a resistance to the knock down, effects of fatal wounds. Bullets fired into vital parts that would drop a sane man in his tracks, fail to check the fiend. In other words, Dr. Shutterstock Crack Login' title='Shutterstock Crack Login' />Hart wrote of the passage in High Price, cocaine makes black men both murderous and, at least temporarily, impervious to bullets. What shook me about the article, Dr. Hart writes, was how similar the article was to modern coverage of crack cocaine in the mid 1. He continues, The message is that that crack users are irretrievable. The terms inner city and ghettoare now code words referring to black people. The language is not as egregious in the 8. Dr. Hart told Alter. Net. Dr. Hart points to the popular 1. Hours on Crack Street as an example of the racialized images of crack users. Even the. New York Timesnoted the incessant focus on seemingly mentally unwell, poor black New Yorkers as the face of the crack trade. We were meant to think the derelict was a crack addict it was just as likely that he was an alcoholic, the Times remarked. Dr. Hart said language commonly used to describe crack userspoor, troubled areas, inner city, ghettoimplies, black people, and poor people, basically. In 4. Hours on Crack Street Dr. Hart says, All the people selling drugs and misbehaving were black, and so when you associate these images with black people, the only conclusion a viewer can draw is that these are the people using these drugs. The main thing we did with those images is make people believe the real problem was crack cocaine. Crack was making these people behave so poorly, and in ways we found egregious, Dr. Hart told Alter. Net. So, if the real problem is crack cocaine, all you have to do is get rid of crack. You convince the people that all of your efforts have to be placed on ridding the society of crack. D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B5-%D1%81%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B4%D1%86%D0%B5-%D1%81-%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%89%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B9.jpg?ver=6' alt='Shutterstock Crack Login' title='Shutterstock Crack Login' />Now you dont have to deal with issues like unemployment, lack of skills, job trainingall you have to do is say were going to rid ourselves of this drug in our society. Nobody asked about whether people were employed, or responsible before crack cocaine, committing crimes before cocaine. Dr. Hart points out that problems associated with crackchildren raised by family members other than their parents, violence and unemploymentexisted before the height of the so called epidemic, and continue to plague the same communities today. The unemployment rate for black folks before crack cocaine hit was nearly 2. It was the highest before crack cocaine was introduced, and remains high today after crack cocaine is no longer considered this big problem, Dr. Hart told Alter. Net. Autodesk Autocad Mep 2012 Crack'>Autodesk Autocad Mep 2012 Crack. Plus, how ravaging can a substance be that, during its peak years, never exceeded an annual use rate of 5 among high school seniors Dr. Hart points out that The daily ratethe one most likely to lead to addictionnever exceeded 0. But because so few Americns had tried the drug, sensationalizing it was even easier than say, marijuana. Crack vs. coke. The only difference between the crack and powder forms of cocaine is the removal of hydrochloride, which allows for a lower melting point, and the ability to be smoked. Crack cocaine is typically produced by mixing powder cocaine with baking soda and water over heat. The process removes hydrochloride and allows for an oily freebase of cocaine to float above the liquid residue. Separated, the freebase cocaine dries into a rock like shape. Shutterstock Crack Login' title='Shutterstock Crack Login' />But on a molecular level, crack and powder cocaine are still nearly identical. What makes crack cocaine more potent is not its form, but the method by which it is ingested. As with other substances, smoking creates a quicker, more intense high than snorting. Nonetheless, the law treats crack as if it were far more potentially damaging or threatening to society than powder cocaine. Before the Fair Sentencing Act of 2. Now, the disparity has been reduced to a still large 1. Crack babies. Recent research has found that claims suggesting crack exposed infants would grow up with severe mental or physical deficiencies were exaggerated and misinformed. Amid a surge in crack cocaines popularity and the doom and gloom media frenzy surrounding it, a 1.