1 00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:07,200 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hi, brain Stuff, 2 00:00:07,240 --> 00:00:10,400 Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vogelbon, and I've got a serious but important 3 00:00:10,440 --> 00:00:14,280 Speaker 1: topic for you today. In October of seventeen, President Donald 4 00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:17,800 Speaker 1: Trump declared the opioid crisis a national public health emergency. 5 00:00:18,239 --> 00:00:20,880 Speaker 1: In the White House ceremony, Trump said, nobody has seen 6 00:00:20,920 --> 00:00:24,040 Speaker 1: anything like what's going on now, referring to the thousands 7 00:00:24,040 --> 00:00:26,960 Speaker 1: of Americans overdosing every year from a class of narcotics 8 00:00:26,960 --> 00:00:30,760 Speaker 1: that includes prescription painkillers, heroine, and fentanyl, which is a 9 00:00:30,800 --> 00:00:34,199 Speaker 1: synthetic form of heroin. It's a serious problem and a 10 00:00:34,200 --> 00:00:37,080 Speaker 1: sentiment echoed by well meaning public figures across the board. 11 00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:39,720 Speaker 1: But the thing is, we have seen its like before. 12 00:00:40,200 --> 00:00:42,520 Speaker 1: Back in the nine eighties and early nineties, the crack 13 00:00:42,600 --> 00:00:47,000 Speaker 1: cocaine epidemic ravaged poor black communities across the country. When 14 00:00:47,040 --> 00:00:50,640 Speaker 1: krack arrived in economically depressed urban areas, it proved both 15 00:00:50,640 --> 00:00:55,080 Speaker 1: powerfully addicted and potentially lucrative. Violent turf wars erupted as 16 00:00:55,120 --> 00:00:57,400 Speaker 1: dealers fought for control of the market, and the group 17 00:00:57,440 --> 00:01:00,760 Speaker 1: of addiction caught many people. The guv mints response to 18 00:01:00,760 --> 00:01:03,160 Speaker 1: the crack epidemic was to double down on the war 19 00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:06,440 Speaker 1: on drugs, first declared by Richard Nixon in nineteen seventy one. 20 00:01:07,120 --> 00:01:10,400 Speaker 1: In nineteen six, Congress passed to the infamous one to 21 00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:14,120 Speaker 1: one sentencing law, which treated possession of one gram of crack, 22 00:01:14,360 --> 00:01:17,720 Speaker 1: not the sale, mind just possession, as the equivalent of 23 00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:21,640 Speaker 1: possessing one hundred grams of powder cocaine. This was on 24 00:01:21,720 --> 00:01:25,479 Speaker 1: top of a five year mandatory minimum sentence for first 25 00:01:25,520 --> 00:01:29,319 Speaker 1: time possession of crack. Since black people accounted for eight 26 00:01:29,800 --> 00:01:32,760 Speaker 1: of crack arrests, black communities were the hardest hit by 27 00:01:32,760 --> 00:01:35,440 Speaker 1: the criminalization of crack, which sent young black men to 28 00:01:35,520 --> 00:01:39,520 Speaker 1: prison at historic rates. The federal prison population swelled between 29 00:01:39,520 --> 00:01:42,520 Speaker 1: the years five and two thousand, and two thirds of 30 00:01:42,520 --> 00:01:46,000 Speaker 1: those convictions were for drug offenses. Studies have shown that 31 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:48,360 Speaker 1: although Blacks are no more likely than whites to use 32 00:01:48,360 --> 00:01:51,600 Speaker 1: illegal drugs, there six to ten times more likely to 33 00:01:51,640 --> 00:01:55,640 Speaker 1: be incarcerated for drug offenses. In contrast to the tough 34 00:01:55,680 --> 00:01:58,480 Speaker 1: on crime response to the crack epidemic, which took its 35 00:01:58,520 --> 00:02:01,680 Speaker 1: toll primarily on poor black unities, the government responds to 36 00:02:01,680 --> 00:02:04,720 Speaker 1: the opioid crisis, in which more than pent of overdose 37 00:02:04,840 --> 00:02:08,320 Speaker 1: victims are white, has been wildly different, particularly in the 38 00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:11,240 Speaker 1: way that elected officials and law enforcement talk about addiction. 39 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:15,600 Speaker 1: Police departments across the country adopted treatment first policies that 40 00:02:15,639 --> 00:02:20,120 Speaker 1: postponed or forwent criminal prosecution for opioid possession and diverted 41 00:02:20,200 --> 00:02:24,080 Speaker 1: drug offenders to treatment programs. Police officers in the small 42 00:02:24,120 --> 00:02:27,000 Speaker 1: town of Laconia, New Hampshire, a state hit particularly hard 43 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:30,440 Speaker 1: by overdose deaths, carry business cards that read the Laconia 44 00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:34,400 Speaker 1: Police Department recognizes that substance misuse is a disease. We 45 00:02:34,600 --> 00:02:38,119 Speaker 1: understand you can't fight this alone. One reason that most 46 00:02:38,160 --> 00:02:40,639 Speaker 1: opioid addicts are white could be because they are more 47 00:02:40,680 --> 00:02:43,959 Speaker 1: likely to be prescribed pain medication. One study showed that 48 00:02:44,040 --> 00:02:46,679 Speaker 1: doctors are less likely to prescribe pain medication for their 49 00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:50,200 Speaker 1: black patients, believing falsely that they have higher pain thresholds. 50 00:02:50,600 --> 00:02:53,480 Speaker 1: But we spoke with Eco Yanka, a law professor at 51 00:02:53,600 --> 00:02:57,120 Speaker 1: Shiva University, who finds this treatment first rhetoric a little 52 00:02:57,120 --> 00:02:59,760 Speaker 1: bitter sweet. He says that while it's heartening to see 53 00:02:59,760 --> 00:03:02,920 Speaker 1: local law enforcement and elected officials talking about addicts as 54 00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:06,360 Speaker 1: victims instead of moral degenerates, it's not like any of 55 00:03:06,360 --> 00:03:09,760 Speaker 1: this is based on new information. He said. We spent 56 00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:12,640 Speaker 1: two generations locking up young black men for any reason 57 00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:15,440 Speaker 1: we could, in large part covered by the War on drugs, 58 00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:17,640 Speaker 1: and then we have an explosion of addiction in the 59 00:03:17,639 --> 00:03:20,680 Speaker 1: white community, and suddenly everyone starts reading all the science 60 00:03:20,680 --> 00:03:23,960 Speaker 1: that's been around for two decades. Yanka is one of 61 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:26,720 Speaker 1: many voices calling out the clear racial divide between the 62 00:03:26,800 --> 00:03:30,800 Speaker 1: hyper criminalization and moral outcry over crack addiction and the 63 00:03:30,919 --> 00:03:35,240 Speaker 1: leniency and compassion shown towards opioid addiction. When pregnant black 64 00:03:35,280 --> 00:03:38,240 Speaker 1: mothers became addicted to crack, it created a national panic 65 00:03:38,280 --> 00:03:41,360 Speaker 1: over crack babies. Today, a baby is born addicted to 66 00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:45,160 Speaker 1: opioids every nineteen minutes, but there's no parallel vilification of 67 00:03:45,200 --> 00:03:48,720 Speaker 1: opioid moms. The crack baby panic of late nineteen eighties 68 00:03:48,760 --> 00:03:51,520 Speaker 1: was sparked by one preliminary study of just twenty three 69 00:03:51,520 --> 00:03:54,480 Speaker 1: infants and led to predictions that an entire generation would 70 00:03:54,520 --> 00:03:58,160 Speaker 1: grow up sickly, brain damaged, and heavily dependent on social services. 71 00:03:58,760 --> 00:04:02,760 Speaker 1: Longitudinal studies have since exposed the crack baby myth, showing 72 00:04:02,760 --> 00:04:05,600 Speaker 1: that full term babies born to crack addicted mothers show 73 00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:09,000 Speaker 1: no health differences compared to their peers. One of the 74 00:04:09,080 --> 00:04:12,960 Speaker 1: key talking points of the presidential campaign was the economic 75 00:04:13,040 --> 00:04:17,000 Speaker 1: toll of globalization on rural, mostly white communities, and how 76 00:04:17,040 --> 00:04:21,240 Speaker 1: the ensuing joblessness and hopelessness helped to fuel the opioid crisis. 77 00:04:22,160 --> 00:04:25,239 Speaker 1: We spoke with Maya Slavitts, a New York based journalist 78 00:04:25,279 --> 00:04:28,640 Speaker 1: who has written extensively about addiction. They said, the reason 79 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:31,120 Speaker 1: we saw crack hit black neighborhoods the way it did 80 00:04:31,160 --> 00:04:33,440 Speaker 1: in the eighties and nineties was because they had high 81 00:04:33,520 --> 00:04:37,320 Speaker 1: unemployment levels and were hit hard by d industrialization, all 82 00:04:37,360 --> 00:04:39,720 Speaker 1: the same things we're seeing in rural white communities now. 83 00:04:40,480 --> 00:04:43,520 Speaker 1: Yanka says that plenty of sociologists and economists were making 84 00:04:43,560 --> 00:04:46,360 Speaker 1: those connections back in the nineteen eighties, but their voices 85 00:04:46,400 --> 00:04:48,840 Speaker 1: and data were drowned out by a media narrative that 86 00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:51,520 Speaker 1: preferred to place the blame for the crack epidemic on 87 00:04:51,600 --> 00:04:55,800 Speaker 1: negligent black mothers and absent black fathers. While we'd hope 88 00:04:55,800 --> 00:04:59,080 Speaker 1: that the narrative surrounding today's opioid epidemic wouldn't change if 89 00:04:59,080 --> 00:05:01,880 Speaker 1: its racial demograph were reversed, we can at least speak 90 00:05:01,880 --> 00:05:04,200 Speaker 1: glad that some of the people facing addiction aren't going 91 00:05:04,240 --> 00:05:06,599 Speaker 1: it alone, and that some of the programs being created 92 00:05:06,640 --> 00:05:08,920 Speaker 1: will help all of our struggling citizens in the future. 93 00:05:14,400 --> 00:05:16,920 Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by 94 00:05:16,920 --> 00:05:19,720 Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil. For more on this and lots of other topics, 95 00:05:19,800 --> 00:05:34,479 Speaker 1: visit our home planet, how Stuff Works dot com.