Cultural WI: No Crack Epidemic

The Celtics remain a competitive team through the 1990s, due to the survival of star player Len Bias. Also, a lot of people stay out of prison - the drug war probably isn't as bad in this TL.

I will address Len Bias' survival in my alternate basketball timeline where Bird and Dr. J become Knicks teammates :)

But Bias doesn't become a Celtic, he goes to Seattle 'cause they had the 2nd pick before they traded it for Gerald Henderson

As for the overall crack epidemic, I think it's ASB to completely wipe it away because it is really easy to turn coke into crack. However, drug law changes could mitigate its effects
 
Incorrect. Meth is easy today now we understand all the flaws. Many halfway homes are filled with blind cooks who never understood the need for vents, or covering their skin. Next the problem remains you need a level of cooking skill that crack did not have. Crack takes an hour if meth takes a day. Baking soda and your kitchen compared to a mini-lab in your garage.

Given the incentive, I'm sure they're capable of figuring it out. It's not like modern rural America is known for its chemical geniuses either...
 
Meth fills the void. It's not too hard to make and you don't have to smuggle it over a border so it's not as expensive. I think to avoid the epidemic you have to change the social conditions that prompted it, namely mass unemployment caused by disinvestment from the inner city... meth has similar effects and given the effects of disinvestment stretching back to the 60's, there will be no shortage of derelict buildings to make it in.

Either that or heroin remains the major urban drug as it was in the '60s and '70s.
 
Given the incentive, I'm sure they're capable of figuring it out. It's not like modern rural America is known for its chemical geniuses either...

I think the reason meth is a predominantly rural drug is because a) the availability of certain fertilizers that are often used in cooking and b) it's a lot easier to get away with a chemical lab in the middle of nowhere, miles from a paved or patrolled road. Meth can certainly become popular in the inner city (as it's starting to become on the West Coast) but it will never really be made there.
 
If Ronald Reagan is still in office, the War on Drugs has less of a smokescreen and might be less effective, but black communities will still be devastated.
 
If Ronald Reagan is still in office, the War on Drugs has less of a smokescreen and might be less effective, but black communities will still be devastated.

Not unless you have heroin or meth take cracks place. You'll still have some of the gangland rise/family breakdown issues that came as side effects of housing projects and other failed social programs, the death of MLK and political groups turning into straight up gangs from the '70s on but it will be much less severe without crack as an engine.
Add the war on drugs will likely diminish greatly in the '80s without crack or a similar crime drug niche as Boomers grow too old for getting high or became smart enough to hide rather than flaunt drug use. And that the political motivations to go after drugs just won't exist once the hippies and counter-culture folks go from politically important to your pothead uncle.
Thinking of side effects of social programs what happens to the crack epidemic if the now infamous housing projects are never established?
On another note without the crack epidemic do the cocaine cowboys of the 1970s last longer before cocaine becomes the almost exclusive domain of organized crime?
 
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