This has been the summer of celebrity deaths. I was saddened and shocked to hear about the death of DJ AM last Friday. He survived obesity, a deadly plane crash, and I thought drug addiction. But according to a police source for the
NY Daily News, the cops discovered
DJ AM with a nearly empty bag of crack stuck to his chest. Wait, hold up. Crack? As in
Pookie from New Jack City crack-cocaine? I thought crack was always a "black" drug. A cheap narcotic
you could only find in the alleys or on the corners of the black ghettos ( I wonder why), not the suburbs. And definitely not on someone making crazy money like DJ AM, who commanded up to
$25,000 to spin at a party. Even Whitney told Diane Sawyer in 2002 she she makes too much money to smoke crack. But crack isn't
wack to all of the rich. In 2005, when DJ AM spoke to People magazine about battling his addiction to food and drugs he said, "I was the only fat crackhead in L.A. And last summer Oscar-winning actress
Tatum O'Neal was arrested in New York for buying crack.
But think about it. There's always been racial disparities when it comes to the rock.
Time magazine published an article on crack reform laws earlier this month. Time reports last year 80% of people with crack-related offenses were black. Ten percent were white. As for powder-cocaine offenders, more than 52% were Hispanic, roughly 30% were black and about 16% were white. Still, if you get busted
pushin' rocks or using rocks, expect to spend a much longer sentence than those caught riding the white horse. Crack-cocaine violators spend an average of 115 months locked up compared to 91 months for powder-cocaine offenders. In other words black folks are doing more time then other people who
commit the same crime. The only difference is the type of drug.
Why do I find white people using crack a bit intriguing? Well, in my neighborhood I've seen a few white crackheads lately, about about two or there. That doesn't seem like a lot but my neighborhood is predominately black and Mexican. It is slowly becoming gentrified. I wonder with gentrification if we'll see more white drug users turn to crack for their high. Also, I lost two wonderful uncles to the pipe. That stuff literally devours people's soul. Anyone that has a family member addicted to crack knows what I mean. When you see crack heads on the street, they look like walking corpses. Anything that would make a woman sell her body, even her baby, for a hit, has to be some powerful stuff. So when I heard this news about DJ AM it made me think of my own deceased uncles. I know people get addicted to drugs, sex, booze, food, whatever because they're trying to medicate emotional pains they just can't face on their on. Hopefully DJ AM got the peace he hungered for during his short 36 years on Earth.
Alcohol and other drug addiction is a slow suicide. I feel a lot of people who OD on drugs are not saying .... "I want to kill myself". They are looking for a higher high then they had last time.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely some people do OD accidentally. In this case there's speculation of a suicide.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/magazine/20090903_Sideshow__Pills_suggest_DJ_AM_suicide.html