High Price

by Carl Hart

  Our techniques weren’t exactly sophisticated. We’d wear baggy clothes and have someone distract the cashier while the rest of us tried to surreptitiously slide what they wanted under their shirt or down their pants. If the clerks had cared at all, they probably would have caught us, but I always got away with it. The only time I saw a kid get caught was when my cousin Bip slipped a comic book under his white T-shirt. The bright red of Spider-Man was clearly visible through the fabric. The clerk saw it and opened his mouth to start shouting at him.

  Immediately recognizing what had happened, Amp took charge. He began lecturing Bip himself. “I’m going to tell yo momma!” he yelled. “You know that’s wrong, what were you thinking?” He went on moralizing, while the clerk glowered, distracted by Amp’s speech from calling the police, searching the rest of us, or continuing his own lecture. He had no idea that Amp had put Bip up to it; nor did he know that we had our own stolen items concealed in our clothes. When Amp finished his performance, the clerk just glared at us and said, “Out.” Bip was thoroughly embarrassed.

  Outside later, we gave him even more hell, not just for getting caught but also for stealing something as useless as a comic book. Other than my sports books, none of us read anything, so we thought that stealing something to read, even a comic, was the height of hilarity. But Bip was so shaken by the whole event that I don’t think he ever stole with us again. He would later, in his twenties, serve time in prison for cocaine trafficking.

  Several other kids in my family also shoplifted from time to time. One of my sisters had a particular knack for changing the prices on items to get expensive items for almost nothing. This was before electronic tagging and inventory systems rendered her method obsolete. I was much more circumspect in what I’d do. It really had to be a sure thing for me. I had no intention of ever getting caught. For instance, when I was in middle school, we’d often hang out at a mall that was at the transfer point for the bus home. I never shoplifted there: too many cameras and security guards.

  In my own life, then, it was very clear that crime wasn’t always, or even very often, driven by or even related to drugs. Most of my peers shoplifted, whether or not they took drugs. Guns, similarly, had little connection to drug use or dealing in our lives. For us, shoplifting was not a matter of “stealing to support a habit” and we didn’t carry guns to “protect dealing turf.” We stole because we didn’t have what we needed or wanted; we stole to resist, to not be suckers. We kept guns to be cool. It was much more about necessity and poverty, about power, not just pleasure.

  At the time, I didn’t think critically about any of this. And so, when crack cocaine came along, I completely bought the party line about its connection to violence and disorder. I had similarly accepted without thinking the idea that drugs like heroin and even marijuana caused violence. I was soon seeing crack the way everyone around me did: as a scourge, the source of all our problems. I thought the drug itself was what made our neighborhood into a war zone.

  But evidence from research tells a different story. It is true that addiction and crime are correlated. People involved in crimes like burglary, larceny, and robbery are more likely to be addicted to drugs than those who don’t commit such crimes, and vice versa. However, around half of all people with drug addictions are employed full-time1 and many never commit crimes that aren’t related to the fact that their preferred drugs are illegal.

  The U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics examined the connections between drugs and crime in prisoners, analyzing data from 1997 to 2004. It found that only a third of state prisoners committed their crimes under the influence of drugs and only around the same proportion were addicted.2 That means the overwhelming majority were not intoxicated or addicted during their crime—and only 17 percent of prisoners reported committing their crimes to get money to buy drugs. Violent offenders were actually less likely than others to have used drugs in the month prior to incarceration.3

  The real connection between drugs and violent crime lies in the profits to be made in the drug trade. The stereotype is that crack typically causes crime by turning people into violent predators. But evidence from research shattered this misconception. A key study examined all the homicides in New York City in 1988, a year when 76 percent of arrestees tested positive for cocaine. Nearly two thousand killings were studied.4

  Nearly half of these homicides were not related to drugs at all. Of the rest, only 2 percent involved addicts killing people while seeking to buy crack cocaine and just 1 percent of murders involved people who had recently used the drug. Keep in mind that this study was conducted in a year when the media was filled with stories warning about “crack-crazed” addicts.

  Thirty-nine percent of New York City’s murders that year did involve the drug trade, however, and most of these were related to crack selling. But these killings were primarily disputes over sales territories or robberies of dealers by other dealers. In other words, they were as “crack-related” as the shoot-outs between gangsters during Prohibition were “alcohol-related.” The idea that crack cocaine turns previously nonviolent users into maniacal murderers is simply not supported by the data. When it comes to drugs, most people have beliefs that have no foundation in evidence.

  My own drug use was completely dissociated from my other criminal behavior. I didn’t slow my car to let Richard point the gun at that white guy because I was crazy from being high or wanted money to get high. And we didn’t keep the gun on hand because of drugs, either. I never shoplifted or sold marijuana because I needed money to smoke it. In fact, I actually didn’t like marijuana much. By sixteen, I’d tried cigarettes, reefer, and drinking but, as always, my main goal was staying cool. That meant low to moderate use: I didn’t want to feel out of control, ever, and I could see how getting drunk or really high could interfere with this desire.

  My priority was athletics. I wasn’t going to do anything that might impair my performance on the basketball court. Switching my primary sport from football to basketball in high school because of my injury had already put me at a disadvantage. While I was playing football for hours and hours every day in elementary and middle school, most of my teammates and competitors had already been focused solely on basketball. But back then, I’d played basketball, both organized and in pickup games, only as something to do in the football off-season.

  I tried to make up for the years of practice I’d missed by playing relentlessly at night, even when I’d already had a few hours on the court that day at school. Sometimes I was the only guy shooting hoops at 2 a.m. in the projects where my family had finally resigned us to living. No matter what was going on, I always practiced at least two to three hours a day. And then, if I was angry, bored, couldn’t sleep, or was just sick of dealing with people and their drama, I’d go out and do even more drills and shots, rarely tiring of ensuring my skills were on point. (I now realize it must have driven the neighbors crazy, given that the court was in the center of the projects in an open plaza surrounded by ten buildings.) The summer between eleventh and twelfth grades, I was on three different teams and must have played in practice and games for at least six hours on most days then, often more.

  All those kiddy biographies I’d read about athletes stressed hard work and infinite practice. They said that drugs were bad, that smoking anything could hurt performance. They heavily emphasized believing in one’s own inner strength and willpower, reinforcing the American ideal of the self-made man, the guy who triumphs through sheer persistence and unending grit. They showed me that the way to win was to outwork your competitors and use everything you had to maximize your skills.

  And so, though everyone else thought my height was a disadvantage—I was five foot seven on a good day—I chose not to see it that way. I was a point guard. I didn’t have to get in there and rebound with the trees. My job was to distribute the ball. I was always one of the quickest people on the court and had exceptional ballhandling skills. If I got to the basket on a big guy, well, ei
ther I was going to score or he was going to foul me, I didn’t care. I was fearless. I’d take it right to you. It was to my advantage that the bigger guys often didn’t expect that, but I wasn’t going to let anyone punk me. I came from a neighborhood where at any time, you might have to fight to defend your reputation, facing violence that might turn deadly. I brought that level of intensity to the court. The worst thing you could do was foul me. Okay, I get two free throws. I could handle that.

  Shooting a free throw during a high school basketball game.

  By eleventh grade, I’d moved up from junior varsity to varsity. By senior year, I’d be most valuable player on a team that, because we had a seven-foot center, was thought to have a good chance at the state tournament. My junior year, though, for the first time ever in my life, I just rode the bench. That was because I’d switched sports and wasn’t up to the level of the lifelong ballers. I couldn’t stand that, so any edge I could get, I would take.

  In this context, avoiding cigarettes and reefer seemed an easy choice. And so, when I wanted to abstain, I always had the out that I was worried about my wind on the court. To be cool, of course, I wasn’t always completely abstinent and I certainly wouldn’t preach about not using. But as a result, my early drug use was mainly symbolic and I carefully monitored any high that I experienced in order to avoid feeling like I was out of control.

  As is the case for most people, however, the first drug I ever tried was cigarettes, sneaking a stolen Kool or Benson & Hedges with Amp and Mike in my aunt’s backyard when I was seven and they were ten and eleven. None of us really knew what to do with a cigarette. Our main goal was to look older and impress the neighboring girls who were hanging clothes out to dry in the backyard that faced ours. Thinking I was safe from adult eyes, I got one from my cousins, lit it up, and inhaled deeply. I blew the smoke out, then posed with the cigarette between my fingers, doing my elementary school best to look Hollywood-cool and sophisticated. Stifling a cough, I found that it only made me dizzy. It also provoked the most excruciating headache I’d ever had, which is actually one of the most consistent toxic effects of nicotine.

  Worse, soon, those girls were laughing at us—and not with us. We’d thought that the tool shack, which blocked the sight lines from the house, would give us cover from adult eyes. We even felt like we were making some progress with those ladies, flirting over the fence while we tried to look like men with our “squares,” which was what we then called cigarettes. But either my aunt’s boyfriend Cooper had noticed that some of his smokes were missing or something else caught her attention. They both came out of the house, very quietly, signaling to the girls not to let on that they were behind us.

  Before we even knew what was going on, they were screaming at us, “What in hell do you think you’re doing?” and chasing us around the yard. The girls were barely able to contain their hysterics. I never tried another cigarette until I was in the air force in the United Kingdom—and even then, was never more than a social smoker, for the same reasons that drove my moderation with marijuana, primarily concerns about athletic performance. I have never purchased a pack of cigarettes for myself in my life, but during my military service, I did smoke with friends at pubs to enhance the alcohol buzz. I felt that this intensified the excitement that the first drink stimulates. Later, I was intrigued to find a study that examined this phenomenon, suggesting that I was correct.

  My first alcoholic drink had been less eventful than my first cigarette. I was probably twelve. I remember going to the refrigerator, desperately thirsty after playing football in the stifling heat. Other than water, the only beverage in the fridge was a pink Champale (the poor person’s champagne) and I wanted something better than water. I drank down the whole twelve-ounce bottle, thinking I was enjoying its cloyingly sweet taste.

  But what I later realized that I really liked was the sense of relaxation, that calm but also somehow exciting chill that came over me. Again, though, alcohol never became something I needed or even particularly wanted. Street lore had it that twelve or sixteen ounces of the malt liquor Private Stock would keep your manhood erect forever—so I tried that from time to time when I was with a girl. Of course, like most lore, this too was an oversimplification. Sure, a low dose of alcohol can reduce anxieties, and thereby enhance sexual performance. But larger amounts will most likely be disruptive to performance. And so, other than my occasional use of the drug as a sexual aid, alcohol wasn’t my thing.

  In fact, I was so uninterested in alcohol as a teen that my mother actually kept a full bar including liquor and other supplies in the bedroom I shared with my little brother. She had no fear that we’d indulge. I’d seen how alcohol could make some adults lose their cool and look foolish (I wasn’t observant enough to notice pleasant, stress-relieving effects occurring when people drank moderately). I’d also seen how it could make people sloppy and pathetic. One of my mother’s friends was a Vietnam vet named Paul. He would frequently show up drunk in our living room and lament his experiences of the war. I felt sorry for him in that state. Mom’s alcohol was safe in my room.

  Weed was probably the drug I had the closest relationship with during high school. It seemed to be everywhere in the late 1970s and early 1980s (of course, every generation of high school students after the 1960s has said the same thing). But at that point, more than two-thirds of all high school students reported having tried it at least once. In my world, reefer was ubiquitous. Someone in our group always had it. Until I was about fifteen, though, I’d never bothered to smoke it myself. As with cigarettes, I was concerned about potential detrimental effects on my game. But one night, two of my friends—Derrick “Super Slick” Abel and the other I’ll call Frank, whom we referred to as Snake—decided that they were going to get me high.

  Snake was probably the best basketball player in our neighborhood, about six foot four and two hundred pounds. He was being raised by his grandparents, who spoiled him by giving him pretty much anything they had, as little as that was. They let him drive their old clunker of a car whenever he wanted. Smoking reefer was one of his favorite things to do. And that evening, he and Slick were determined to share the experience with me.

  Snake drove us to the spot in Opa-Locka where he bought his stuff. Then we parked at the end of some deserted street and together smoked a couple of joints, listening to the mellow sounds of The Quiet Storm on 99.1 WEDR.

  “Shit, I don’t feel nothin’,” I declared. “This ain’t shit.”

  Snake and Derrick looked at me and then at each other. Laughing, someone said, “Yeah, he fucked-up.” I continued to insist I was fine and that I really didn’t feel any different from usual, but both of them just laughed and repeated, “That nigga fuuuucked-up.” Everything I said, every time I laughed or just looked at one of those guys only confirmed for them that I was actually high. I still didn’t think so.

  In fact, I didn’t notice anything unusual at all until they dropped me off back at home. My sister Joyce took one look at me and said, “Damn, you must be fucked-up.” I’d heard that same line earlier. I brushed her off. But I think I must’ve been acting a bit cautious and tentative, not like my usual bold self. My eyes were probably red or maybe I reeked of weed. I didn’t yet understand how marijuana affects consciousness.

  I went into my room and then things started getting strange. I put on some music and tried to fall asleep. But suddenly, I felt like I was inside the beat. I thought to myself, “What the fuck is this?” The song was surrounding me, throbbing, inescapable. That wasn’t the way music was supposed to sound. My heart seemed to have sped up, too. I felt as though it were keeping time with the R&B rhythm. Was it unhealthy if it did that? Could it kill me?

  It was thoroughly disconcerting. I knew I wasn’t usually so conscious of my heartbeat; I knew I didn’t usually find music so intense. I didn’t understand at all that this was what was supposed to be enjoyable. I didn’t like having my senses or consciousness altered. I found it disorienting and even slightly fri
ghtening—the idea that people would deliberately seek substances that changed the way they saw the world mystified me.

  Indeed, I’d never even thought before about the possibility that drugs could change the way you see things. The idea hadn’t occurred to me. When I’d watched people get “fucked-up,” I’d seen it wholly from the outside, not realizing that from the inside, it could be an entirely different way of experiencing life. All I was aware of was people’s outwardly strange behavior.

  And as a teenager, I didn’t spend much time thinking about how other people saw things; that was part of what allowed me to do things like mess with the white guy on the street. It hadn’t occurred to me that perceptions could vary much in one person or from one person to another. Later, I’d recognize how understanding the idea of differences in consciousness and changing sensory experiences might let you get a sense of other people’s points of view and allow you to empathize with situations that were unlike your own. At the time, however, I was simply distressed by the loss of control. Reefer didn’t seem fun or enlightening. If anything, it was kind of disturbing.

  Curiously, when I later read sociologist Howard Becker’s research on how marijuana users actually have to learn how to enjoy the high, I initially didn’t buy it. By that point, I myself had become so caught up in viewing drugs through the prism of how the brain is affected, I’d forgotten the role that social forces can play. Thinking back on my own early experience, however, I realized that I’d been just like Becker’s subjects whose first high wasn’t memorable or pleasant. It was only when they had smoked multiple times with other users who taught them how to detect and appreciate the sensory distortions and other effects that they began to interpret them positively. Only much later in my career would I begin to recognize that factors like prior experience with drugs and the environment in which they are taken are extremely important for understanding and experiencing drug effects.