From: pez@manhattan.com (Gizmo) Subject: The Adventures Of Smacks Past (Part 30) The Great Panic Of 1972 Date: 1996/10/17 newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard THE ADVENTURES OF SMACKS PAST (PART 30) THE GREAT PANIC OF 1972 And what a panic it 'twas it 'twas. Indeed. If you are an active heroin user, be glad you didn't have to go through this shit. It sucked, big time. Here's what happened. Somewhere around 1971 or so, the governor of the State of New York instigated and then had passed a bunch of new drug laws, which were designed to clean up New York. These became known as the "Rockerfeller Laws," named after the former governor of New York. Much hoopla was being made over these new laws before they were passed. I distinctly remember being worried about them. Once they were passed and were to go into effect on such and such a day in the future, we really started worrying about them. I had a small growing marijuana business at the time, and I had a habit as well. The new laws were so draconian that the tiniest amount of anything could get you tossed in jail. For example, as memory serves, if you were caught with a joint of pot it could mean jail time. A bag of heroin was a felony, as was cocaine in any amount. LSD, you name it, all of the drugs were being tagged as felony's or Class A misdemeanors. Plus the new laws did not allow any kind of plea bargaining. Whatever you were charged with, that's what you had to go to court for, unless you cooperated with the police, i.e. rated someone out! Rating someone out, was the only way to get probation. The "Gestapo State" looked like it could happen for sure. Additionally, the new laws had a really macabre element to them. They allowed just about anyone to "turn you in." For instance, your parents could call the police, tell them you were a drug abuser, and the police would act on that information, sort of like a "john doe" bust. Your mom, your sister, your brother, your wife, your friend could "turn you in." When done this way, you were then "eligible" for the so called "Rockerfeller Program." This was a program that was a lot like jail, except it was supposed to be treatment for drug users. And you could be thrown into one of these programs even if you happened to get busted for nothing more than a few joints. You would be lumped in with hard drug addicts, criminals etc. It didn't matter. You were in for 18 months. The rest of the laws were just super harsh. A gram of coke, could get you five years in a state prison. I will never forget the day they went into effect. The night before, you could still go and buy heroin for $2. a bag. It was good white dope. It was cheap and strong. The day the laws went into effect, me and my friend Gino tried to cop some stuff. It took all morning. We went to Harlem, Manhattan, The South Bronx. Everywhere we went, everyone was "out." This went on for hours. Finally in the West Bronx somewhere, we copped. We found some stuff. And the price? All of sudden it was $10 a bag. We couldn't believe it. Plus the quality dropped off. Thus was the beginning of the end of dope as we had known it for the past 10 years. As the weeks rolled into months, the quality of dope continued to drop and was increasingly hard to find. All the dope distributors were panicking. The white heroin of the past was replaced with real crappy brown dope. And instead of just "Chinese rock," or "tar" the dealers insisted on cutting it with any kind of white powder they could lay their hands on. Procaine, Quinine, milk sugar. Yuchh. Bummer. You would buy these $50 "quarters" in Harlem, that had a lot of powder in them, and the powder would be speckled with little brown dots of "dope." It burned your veins, gave you bad rushes, sometimes made you sick, and if you were smart got you to quite for awhile. Which is what I did. It just wasn't worth it anymore. This state of affairs lasted until a few years after the "Rockerfeller" laws were repealed. By 1977/78 things started to return to normal. Finally white dope was flowing into the city again. But the price stayed at $10 a bag and has not come down since. Copyright 1996 Gizmo