Cohort Differences in Drug-Use Pathways to Crack among Current Crack Abusers in New York City

Abstract

Much prior literature has focused on substance use progression through alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana leading from a time of no drug use as a youth to the possibility of serious drug abuse. This article extends this literature by empirically examining retrospectively the sequence of hard drugs used as reported retrospectively by 994 hard drug abusers from New York City. The sequence was strongly mediated by birth year. Nearly all (81%) current crack abusers born prior to 1953 had previously injected heroin. At the other extreme, prior heroin injection was rare (10%) among crack abusers born since 1967. Many (37%) of these younger crack abusers initiated use of crack just after having used gateway drugs. Theoretical and policy implications of these findings are discussed.