Fentanyl crisis looms: We can’t afford to sleep

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When crack was first introduced to the streets of America in the 1980s I never imagined it would have the impact it did. It literally destroyed communities and the fools stupid enough to try it.

The black community was the worst hit. Why? Because crack was a drug that was affordable and at that time black communities were the most economically challenged in the United States.

It was the first time that I saw, first-hand, the incredible impact of drugs on a micro and macro scale. I had seen what alcohol could do to people’s productivity and health and I had seen ganja send a few people mad. I even knew some guys who used cocaine. Crack was another level.

I saw crack destroy people and, by extension, their families. It’s hard to put into words the degree of degeneration that accompanied this addiction without coming across as crass or uncouth. However, it is necessary to be true to the subject area.

The drug had the ability to transform the personality of its victim to cunning and manipulative and that conduct became a general characteristic of the addict.

Crack users didn’t generally become wild, or mellow, or violent, like some other addicts. They could be these things but it wasn’t the constant I saw in them. What was ever present was the manipulation that became a tenet of their behaviour.

They would have an engaging conversation with you, reason with you, laugh with you, but it always ended with needing that money. The whole interaction was really all about getting your money.

Crack turned virtuous women into whores, heterosexual men into men willing to engage in homosexual behaviour, and good people into demons.

Nothing mattered to them when they needed that drug and they would sell their children and your children to fulfil that need.

The drug never stopped taking from them; its effects were short-lived. So the victim was never free of its grasp.

I was a young man when it appeared on our soil. I saw the effects and feared for my children when they were born. I feared that someone would trick them into using it just once and I’d have to watch them morph into the bastards I saw crack addicts become. As a result, I took my kids to meet Richard Austin, a former great Jamaica and West Indies cricketer who, unfortunately, became a drug addict.

In the midst of his madness he had a lucid moment and said, “Don’t try it, yute. I was the greatest cricketer in the world and look on me now.”

He was indeed a sight — dirty from street living, smelly and focused on nothing more than his next hit on the crack pipe or whatever drug was available.

I am not sure of the impact it had on my kids.

However, despite my harsh views of him because of the part he played in the rebel tour of Apartheid South Africa, I felt nothing but sympathy for him.

I remember as a young cop the first dealer I charged for possession of crack and my deep disappointment that the fine was only $10,000. I was aghast. There were several countries where the mongrel would have been executed for being in possession of crack. I was bewildered and wondered if the system didn’t see the damage to the user.

The Americans eventually dealt with the issue the way they do most of the time: they used long sentences and made dealing in that narcotic punishable by a 40-year holiday in a penitentiary.

It worked. But it also resulted in imprisoning countless users, many of whom were black.

The result? The imprisonment of a generation of black men.

The crisis improved locally too. I think that was more because the addicts were a walking, breathing representation of horror, so fewer people participated in crack use.

Using it wasn’t considered “cool”. Crack hit the black communities in the United States hard because drug use is almost cultural among young people in the United States, irrespective of race. However, there was nothing out there that was as addictive or as cheap as crack.

In Jamaica, the use of substances, such as alcohol and ganja, is almost universal, with close to 100 per cent of people having at least tried them. However, a drink of liquor or a drag of weed won’t turn you into an addict. One hit of a crack pipe could.

I remember asking a dealer how he felt watching the person he was selling his poison to deteriorating more and more everyday as he profited. He replied: “Mi nah force nobody fi buy it.”

If I were not a policeman that conversation could have ended differently.

I speak of this sad chapter of our history because I see another one coming. Fentanyl is destroying parts of the United States at a rate that has replicated the crack epidemic.

In the opinion of some it is far worse.

The ability of this drug to kill is far greater than any before, although heroin and cocaine are serious contenders.

My concern is what we need to do to prepare for the outbreak. Trust me, fentanyl will become a crisis in Jamaica eventually.

We were not prepared for crack, we suffered for that. Let’s not make the same mistake twice.

There needs to be an intensive education programme about fentanyl for our young and it needs to start in the high schools. Our laws need to be modified to allow for an easier route to separate a dealer from a user and minimum 10-year sentences for dealing in it.

No bail must be offered to people charged with distributing fentanyl.

We must be specific in the legal classification of the drug and not treat it like a regular prescription drug. The media must develop a programme of public education highlighting fentanyl’s destructive path in the United States and discouraging its use here.

Ecstasy and other such pills are available here already, albeit illegally. It is easy for people to make the mistake and think that this is just another tablet to make you feel high.

This is a tablet from hell itself. It makes you an addict much quicker and can be fatal upon taking it because it is being manufactured in street labs by street chemists.

We have a history of being unprepared for the obvious, of making the same mistake over and over again. We can’t afford to sleep on this one.

The fentanyl crisis exists. It doesn’t have to become a crisis on our shores if we prepare to combat it before it becomes one.

Feedback: drjasonamckay@gmail.com

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