NOT "Like Crack"

Apparantly I have the kind of face that gives people permission to 1) ALWAYS ask me for directions, even if there are 100 other people on the street, they will undoubtedly ask me, and 2) tell me ANYTHING.  I don't know why strangers think I'm trustworthy, but it seems that I have that aura.  Just this week a random stranger showed me a bag of heroine and his change and told me where he had just bought dope because I "look like a state worker and probably want to know." 

Maybe it was this odd little moment that brought me back to my days in drug treatment court as a public defender that spurred this train of thought.

And maybe its because it is the holidays and everyone is pinning and posting, wanting you to know that THEIR family recipe is THE BEST in the whole world.  So good, that it is practically addicting.

Uh oh, rant time.

While food addiction is certainly real (and not so great, ergo, not something you should use to boost the street cred' of your recipe...) I can guarantee you that your brownies, your dip, or your homemade bread is NOT, in fact, like crack.  No, not at all. 

That makes each of these descriptions heinous lies:

And, below, the chef proclaims to the world that they "like crack," sure ya do, hun...

Why you would name a treat intended for humans after a commercially produced dog food is beyond me.

And my personal favorite:

 I can think of no description less appetizing.  No, not one.  It is unfathomable that this "white trash/ crack dip on crack" has so many re-pins.  My faith in humanity is dwindling.


The white, middle class women who undoubtedly made these asinine comments about their recipes have literally no idea what they're talking about.  They honestly can't.  If they had even a tiny little scintilla of an idea of what crack actually is, then there is no way they would make these ridiculous comparisons.

And I almost get it, pop culture downplays crack and even makes it funny sometimes.

After all, if you can be a mayor of a major North American city like Toronto and use crack without any real ramifications, then its not that big of a deal, right?

(Although let's be honest-- do you really want to be like that^ guy?)


After knowing more than a few crack addicts in Philadelphia, I could not help but find depressing humor in the wildly inappropriate episode of Always Sunny in Philadelphia where Dee and Dennis get laid off, lie about using crack to get welfare, only to realize they must take a drug test to qualify, and in their efforts to purposefully fail the drug test, become addicted to crack.

Like I said, wildly inappropriate.  Yet a humorous view of a very serious issue.  (Also, I'm pretty sure that corner^ is right by my old apartment.)

So what is crack?  It isn't sugar or brownies or gooey cheese.  It is COCAINE.  Cocaine that is diluted usually with baking soda and water, and cooked into a hard substance that "cracks" into chunks that can be vaporized and smoked.  So it is just a form of cocaine that can be smoked, rather than snorted or injected.  Thus, this makes it more accessible to most "normal" people who don't have syringes lying around, or who can't bear the thought of needles/blood, or are smokers already.  It is also, in my experience in criminal law, cheaper than powdered cocaine and therefore more accessible to "normal" people who don't want to spend top dollar for drugs, or teens and kids who don't have that much money.  All that is to say, crack is the modern, more mainstream version of cocaine. 



Back to our pop culture, we saw ScarFace and his woman incessantly snorting cocaine, with hundred dollar bills flying around all over the place.  As that would suggest, powder cocaine, or "coke" is largely viewed as a rich man's drug, and even a white man's drug.

Alternatively, crack cocaine is in much more prevalent use by low income individuals and also black individuals.

This racial dichotomy with different forms of the same illicit substance is especially interesting when you realize how legislators around the country have systematically criminalized the sale and use of crack cocaine far harsher than that of powdered cocaine.  That is, a (poor/black) man caught with crack will be imprisoned longer than a (rich/white) man caught with the same amount of coke.  All things being equal, it looks suspiciously like insidious racism enacted into so-called public policy.

 

At least pop culture taught you this much: Walter White made crack, not fictitious "crack bread," but actual crack.  And look what happened to him.  He became a murderer and did not have such a great life.  Just sayin...

So how about those brownies?  With all the connotations that come with an illicit drug like crack, which carries racial baggage and quite literally destroys lives, is that really an appropriate descriptor to tack onto your little recipe?  I submit that it is not.  Please select a more appropriate word.


Unless, of course, your recipe does the following, in the which case it may, in fact, be like crack: