The Crack Epidemic (1984-1990)
Crack cocaine first began to be used on a massive scale in Los Angeles in 1984. Between February and July 1984 cocaine abuse and related violence had exploded to unprecedented levels in the city, and by 1985, crack was available in most of the major American cities. South Central, where the crack cocaine problem was the worst in the country, became the site of many police raids. Previously unknown gangs were growing and new were emerging. The rap music genre, TV shows and movies portrayed that part of Los Angeles as a no-go zone and a highly violent area.
Read more about this topic: Crime In Los Angeles
Famous quotes containing the words crack and/or epidemic:
“I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and bad dreams; or I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
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What an inane cardplayer. And the age may support it.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)