Generation X - The Crack epidemic
- Vasco
- 29 de nov. de 2020
- 2 min de leitura
Atualizado: 18 de dez. de 2020
The Generation X is the name given to the generation of those who were born between the 2nd World War Babyboom and the millennials, roughly from 1965 to 1980.
The Xers went through something similar to what we are going at the moment. They saw with their own eyes and felt in their skins the rise of an "epidemic" and I'm not talking about AIDS because that's for this week's podcast :) .
Although it was not an actual epidemic, the damages and the effects it had on communities, more specifically the African American one were quite identical to what an actual epidemic would have been like. We're obviously talking about the crack epidemic that took place in the US in the early 80's.
In order to explain what happened, we must first understand what Crack really is.
Crack is a smokeable form of cocaine. It was cheaper, simple to produce and it could be sold in smaller quantities to more people, being therefore more profitable than, for example, cocaine.
During the Xers adolescence, the surge turned out to be the main factor for the rising crime and violence on the streets. But how?
Well, dealing Crack didn't require any advanced prior knowledge and it was highly profitable. This two factors combined contributed to the massive involvement of the poor seeking new lifestyles and basically new economic statuses. This economic situation was the reason for the growing amount of gang wars regarding the Crack monopoly in impoverished neighbourhoods and for the resulting rise of crime and violence in the 1980's.
Despite not being a true epidemic, the name "Crack Epidemic" suits really well what it represented at the time. To be fair, in my opinion, regardless of the time, a drug outbreak always works exactly as a contagious disease. It's something brand new, addictive, forbidden and, therefore something wanted by a large number of people. Besides that, another similarity is that it is more likely to spread in poor and less equipped areas like poor neighbourhoods or developing countries.
To conclude, I would categorize it as a kind of disease that isn't biological. In my point of view it's something more like a social/cultural disease.
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