Word: cracking
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Byrne's death drew the sympathy of the nation. Moreover, it revealed to us, starkly and irrevocably, that all the rhetoric about the necessity of a war on drugs--particularly on crack--is all too true...
...Byrne, and of the thousands of police officers who lined the streets for his funeral procession, was brought back into grim focus by the trial of his alleged murderers. His fellow police officers wanted not only to honor him, but also to reveal their own growing frustrations about the crack epidemic plaguing our inner cities...
...They're mostly poor and black. All have other children in family and foster homes. Beatings by boyfriends and husbands were regular. What brought their world crashing down was an out-of-control lust for the intense feelings of power and well- being that flow from a hit of crack. "Crack has taken away these women's pride," says Thomas. "By the time they find their way here, they'll beg, steal and trade their bodies to the dope man for more." The mothers uneasily deny that their babies were affected by crack, but Thomas says all the children have...
...Rodgers, a beautiful but hardened 29-year-old former dealer who is pregnant with her eighth child. Beneath her gold-tinged curls, a small metal plate covers a hole smashed in her skull with a board swung by an angry boyfriend. Her dark eyes glitter when she speaks of crack. Then she looks weary, confused and angry. "When I came here, I figured I'd get a place to sleep and some food, and then split and get an abortion and get high once in a while," she says. "But I was just lying to myself, lie after lie after...
Mandela House has more than 60 women waiting to take Gray's place. The task is monumental, but Thomas perseveres even when mothers she loves desert her and return to the seductive glow of the crack pipe. "If they don't hear me now, they'll hear me later," she says. "Some will leave, start smoking rocks again and sink back to the gutter. But even when they're down there, they'll keep hearing Minnie. And they'll be back." It is a blessing that Minnie Thomas will be waiting...