General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I'm trying to pinpoint the decade when the CIA allegedly dumped cocaine in black [View all]Hestia
(3,818 posts)People, who could afford it, were demanding higher highs, which then really drives the addiction.
An excellent book about the timeline of crack is "Land of opportunity: one family's quest for the American dream in the age of crack"
(Land of Opportunity used to be Arkansas' Motto; Changed to The Natural State)
What is really funny, is I used to work with a guy who knew the people in the book, who are from Marianna, AR. It's about the Chamber Brothers, who were living in Detroit, who saw an opportunity with this new way of processing cocaine, which really cheapened the price. This happened after the collapse of the car companies, so the brothers took advantage of being able to buy duplex's and apartment buildings for next to nothing and set it where the lower floors had the cheapest crack and prostitutes, rising in pricing on the upper floors.
All the executives were people they grew up with in Marianna, which is why it went on for so long and no one talked. Thing is, if it had been a legitimate business, the brothers would be billionaires by now. They were brilliant businessmen. Every weekend they would bring lawn bags full money back to Ark., buried the money somewhere, best estimates were $50 million in mid-eighties. Feds never found it.
They should have gotten out of prison in the early 2000's but have fallen off the radar, probably bought an island somewhere and are living their HEA.
New Jack City is loosely based on their story.