You know, having lived in New York city my whole life, I have had to grapple with the presence of crack running rampant through neighborhoods in all five boroughs. I remember in the 80's (as a kid) being able to literally count crack vials on any given street when I was walking to my destination. I would even kind of stop sometimes and wonder, staring at vials, exactly who the person was that emptied that vial. Who was hooked on the stuff? Why did they have to smoke it on the street, couldn't they just go home and sit in their room or go on the roof? How far along into their addiction was this person? Sometimes I would also try to envision the dealer who put the vial together and sold it to the hapless addict. I remember in health education my teacher, Mrs. Skurnick, who would come every Tuesday and preach the evils of cocaine and particularly crack. She scared the bejesus out of me with tales of addiction and drug related health problems. I knew from that time on, that crack was a deadly poison, it was in our neighborhoods and it was sad. But I lived with the notion and got on with my life.
But today, watching the news, I was freaked out all over again when NY1 broke the story of police busting a meth lab here in New York City, in a Manhattan high rise. They then pointed out that lab was connected to another two in Queens, one in Brooklyn and one in the Bronx. I mean, METH!! Until now, the news had reported it as a problem that was rampant in rural and suburban areas of the country, but I was aware that it was spreading at an alarming rate. I know that they need these labs in order to make the drugs, and that the labs themselves were very dangerous in that they produce caustic chemicals and meth producers have been seriously hurt in lab explosions. Oh boy. So there goes my notion that you need a wide open, relatively private space in order to produce meth. It's like reliving the crack epidemic at age 8 all over again. I am saddened and to be honest, scared.
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