![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
You are in: UK | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
|
![]() |
Tuesday, 7 August, 2001, 12:10 GMT 13:10 UK
'I loved a crack addict'
![]() Aaleeyah Culver: "I felt I was losing my life"
Angered at perceptions that crack cocaine is a recreational drug rather than a hard one, student Aaleeyah Culver, 23, tells of her life with a crack addict on a south London estate.
I think crack is more evil than heroin - one pipe can be all it takes to turn you into an immoral monster. And crack is rife in London - I hardly met a person on my estate in south London who wasn't on it, or heroin, or both. Starting young There isn't enough help. It's not just about people choosing drugs, some of them don't see any other way of life.
I caught a friend's two-year-old trying to open a stone of crack from its cellophane with his teeth in the thoroughly practised manner of a regular addict. Luckily this child is now in care, but there will be many that are started on this road too long - most of the addicts I know have children.
I have seen whole families set off for London to go shoplifting for drug money. I know a girl who will give oral sex, even full sex, for £4 - the price of a stone of crack is about £10. Desperate measures Crack addicts often use heroin to sleep - my ex-boyfriend often couldn't sleep for days after a heavy smoking session.
I have only known one person who successfully used crack 'recreationally'. All the rest tell you, 'Oh my kids never go without' or 'I just do it when I have the money'. And the same people were knocking on our door for a pipe at 3am while their children slept, with their rent money, their wedding rings, their children's Christmas presents. Every crack addict without exception tells me in earnest how they aren't like the others - but after you hear the same spiel 20 or 30 times you begin to get the picture of this huge denial. Narrow escape I have never smoked crack and I never will. I do smoke weed, but not excessively.
This culture of crack will spread, and not just from the estates. Some middle-class kids with money to spend out for a night in the West End or wherever often go looking for powder cocaine, Es and ketamine. They often end up on a pipe, told that it's just like powder - which of course it isn't, it's much worse. What's going on with ketamine must be dangerous. The hard drug addicts I know wouldn't ever touch it - and they aren't the most discriminating people in the world.
But then I went running home to mummy and daddy, back in Hertfordshire. My university was suffering, my health was suffering, and my bank balance was suffering.
|
![]() |
See also:
![]()
14 Aug 00 | Scotland
06 Jun 00 | Americas
Internet links:
![]() The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites Top UK stories now:
![]() ![]() Links to more UK stories are at the foot of the page.
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Links to more UK stories |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To BBC Sport>> | To BBC Weather>> | To BBC World Service>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © MMIII | News Sources | Privacy |