Crack cocaine estimate of the day

by  Tyler Cowen in

At present, no more than about 200 young people start using crack-cocaine each day. Ten years ago, the corresponding estimated daily rate was 1,000.

That is from this paper, via Kevin Lewis.

Comments

Nick L

Probably due to the availability of more substitutes today.

ummm

harsher laws, bad economy, increase cost

Cliff

You don't think all those were about the same 10 years ago?

Comments for this post are closed

Rahul

Has the cost really increased? I don't have latest data but from 1990 through 2008 cocaine prices seem to have fallen to ~half.

Comments for this post are closed

Comments for this post are closed

Rahul

Market saturation?

Comments for this post are closed

Axa

+1: substitutes = cheap amphetamines

Nathan W

Proliferation of meth = less kids using crack.

I personally wonder whether the obvious lies regarding marijuana take away from the message that crack cocaine and methamphetamines can legitimately wreak havoc on proper functioning of the brain.

Comments for this post are closed

Comments for this post are closed

Michael

My general feeling is that drug use by teenagers has been falling across the board:

http://www.drugabuse.gov/sites/default/files/styles/content_image_landscape/public/pastyearusealldrugs.jpeg?itok=1xh2T850

Comments for this post are closed

Comments for this post are closed

Doug

Powdered cocaine, methamphetamine and MDMA purity is at historic highs. Plus you have an endless array of pharma-grade research chemicals sold openly on the Internet. They're being synthesized at a way faster rate than drug bureaucracies can schedule them. Crack's a drug that most users don't even like, but simply use because alternatives are too low-quality to produce a rush.

Z

Yep. I was in GNC a few years back and a couple of bean poles were scouring the pre-workout supplements. One of them asked me if I knew which one had the most DMAA. I had to laugh. They did not look too bright, but the Internet makes it easy enough I guess. Not long after DMAA was banned.

Comments for this post are closed

Comments for this post are closed

Steve Sailer

Perhaps people learn?

vetr

Not many constants in social science, but one such constant is that the proportion of self-destructive people in a culture (given an average level of creativity, with respect to other cultures) is generally the same over the generations. The instrumentalities of self-destruction are fungible, as alluded to in this post. (The proportion may be seen as a reciprocal - one over five, one over six, is my guess - of the number of relatively normal people who opt for long-term instrumentalities of happiness - with a few negative trends during wars, political and social revolutions, plagues and famines, and with rare positive trends during those times which are called revivals (such as occurred under the good kings of Israel such as Asa and Josiah, or during the modern ages in a few countries within - mostly barely within - living memory...)

Comments for this post are closed

Comments for this post are closed

DTWm

com'on now --- yet another totally worthless fact-challenged research "study" ??

what is the scientific definition of "young people" ?
obscure, self-reported data from some Crack addicts cannot possibly be reliable in drawing broad objective conclusions, especially by some distant guy sitting in a cubicle with a PC crunching 5th-hand "reports" on cocaine use.

Comments for this post are closed

Jan

Meanwhile heroin overdoses are rising quickly, coming on the heels of years of increases in prescription drug abuse.

Nathan W

After recognizing the dangers of prescription pain killers, I think some doctors are becoming more hesitant to prescribe.

My general assumption is that heroin users are often looking for a strong pain killer and are not so interested in the "rush".

There may be a connection here.

Comments for this post are closed

Comments for this post are closed

C Peter Hansen

Why is crack cocaine a category. It's just cocaine packaged for a easy sale and super fast effect. It would be one thing to talk about cocaine and then break things down to smokers, sniffers and shooters, but the obsession with crack cocaine reeks of ideology.

prognostication

For all intents and purposes though, no one is smoking pure freebase cocaine, so I think you're making a distinction without a real difference here. Basically the only cocaine being smoked IS crack cocaine, and for all intents and purposes the only way people take crack cocaine is smoking it.

Comments for this post are closed

Timothy

There is enough of a difference in context that it's meaningful, I think. I've done cocaine 15-20 times, most recently once every couple years or thereabouts (Shit's bad for you, kids - you're not missing that much and if you feel there's any chance you'd fall addicted to it stay away for sure.) Some pattern like this has been not too uncommon in my social circles. But I've never met anyone (beyond random street crackheads, I guess) who has smoked crack. I've never had the opportunity to buy crack. Drug dealer I knew used to actually make crack, but only as a step in removing some impurity and he turned it back into powder. This man fell for the needle but even once he was on that he talked about how smoking crack was over the line for him. Separate worlds, even if the cook is pretty simple.

Nathan W

Ya man, I'm curious, but figure I'm too prone to addiction to go near anything beyond the "harmless" ranking of "1" on the UN scale, which makes weed and magic mushrooms perfectly legit in my distorted interpretation whereby "probably harmless" is interpreted as "harmless" :)

Anyone who touches the stuff tells me the same thing. It's not all it's cracked up to be, so stick with the green.

Comments for this post are closed

Comments for this post are closed

Comments for this post are closed

Kabal

*Insert joke about immigrants using up all the crack cocaine, robots automating away crack cocaine usage, or price floors blocking out young people*

Comments for this post are closed

Charlie

The CIA had its hands full torturing people. We can't expect them to be in all places at all times.

Comments for this post are closed

Benjamin Cole

Is this why I cannot find a good, cheap crack-whore anymore?

Thor

You should be looking for an "espresso-whore" nowadays...

Nate

It's all about the oxy/opiate/heroin or meth, depending on locale.

Comments for this post are closed

Comments for this post are closed

Comments for this post are closed

Nathan W

Just imagine the crack and meth usage rates in a high school where "the" renowned pothead and weed facilitator widely decries the evils of crack, meth and other hard drugs. Practically a service to society, if you ask me :) Well, those were the days.

Comments for this post are closed

Comments for this post are closed