In New York City's Spanish Harlem, the highs come cheap. To create a "blunt," teenagers slice open a cigar and mix the tobacco with marijuana. To enhance the hit, they fashion "B-40s" by dipping the cigar in malt liquor. In Atlanta, police observed 100 teenagers and young adults at a rave party in an abandoned house -- the rage among middle-class youths everywhere with money to burn -- and their rich assortment of hooch: pot, uppers, downers, heroin, cocaine and Ecstasy, a powerful amphetamine. In Los Angeles, Hispanic gangs chill out by dipping their cigarettes in PCP (phencyclidine, an animal tranquilizer), while black gangs still favor rock cocaine. Some of the city's Iranians go in for smoking heroin, known as "chasing the tiger," while Arabs settled in Detroit prefer khat, which gives an amphetamine-like high and is also the drug of choice in Somalia.
The high times may be a changin', but America's drug scene is as frightening as ever. Last week the University of Michigan released a survey showing a rise in illicit drug use by American college students, with the most significant increase involving hallucinogens like LSD. Meanwhile a canvas of narcotics experts across the country indicated that while drug fashions vary from region to region and class to class, crack use is generally holding steady and heroin and marijuana are on the rise. Junior high and high school students surveyed by the government report a greater availability of most serious drugs. Law officials and treatment specialists on the front lines of the drug war report that the problem transcends both income and racial differences. "When it comes to drugs, there is a complete democracy," says Clark Carr, executive director of Narconon Professional Center in North Hollywood, California.
The government paints a much brighter picture. According to the 1992 Household Survey on Drug Abuse, released last month by the Department of Health and Human Services, the nationwide pattern of drug abuse is in decline. The study shows an 11% dip in illicit drug use by Americans 12 years or older, from 12.8 million in 1991 to 11.4 million in 1992. The drop is pronounced in all age groups except those 35 and over, who use drugs at a rate comparable to 1979 levels. Yet the number of hard-core abusers remains unchanged. And a smorgasbord of nouvelle intoxicants is being served up to a new generation of users.
The frenetic '80s infatuation with stimulants has become the mellower '90s flirtation with depressants. Heroin, which has a calming effect, is gaining on crack, which produces high agitation. Some drug experts sense a sociological sea change. "It's really relevant that in the '80s the drug of choice was one that the second you did it, you wanted more," says Carlo McCormick, an editor at a culture and fashion monthly who was the host of LSD parties in New York City in the '80s. "At this point with the current crop of drugs, you're set for the night." Others have a wider perspective. "If you look historically at a large population that has been using a stimulant like cocaine," says James Nielsen, a 26-year veteran with the Drug Enforcement Administration, "they will then go on to a depressant like heroin."