Where The War Is Being Lost

If America's struggle against drugs is indeed a war, then the nation's inner cities are the trenches. Ghettos have always been the main marketplace for narcotics, but never before has the drug trade been so pervasive or its repercussions so brutal. The primary reason is crack, the cheap and highly powerful cocaine derivative. The booming crack business has led to unprecedented violence by dealers fighting for their share of the market. Widespread addiction to the drug has helped further shred what was left of the tattered social fabric of the ghetto. The mean streets of the inner city form the bloody...