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Abstract
This article traces the development of crack markets in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the period 1980-2000. It seeks to explain why crack appeared so late on the scene there and why, when it did, its markets were different from those found in many other neighborhoods. The article is based upon more than 20 years of ethnographic observations in Williamsburg and adjacent neighborhoods, and upon in-depth interviews with drug distributors, users and neighborhood residents. While other areas had their own patterns, the crack scene in Williamsburg was especially affected by the heroin-and-cocaine era that preceded it. A full understanding of both of these eras - the heroin-and-cocaine era of the 1970s and early 1980s and the crack era of the late 1980s and early 1990s - requires an accounting of how local, regional, national and international forces intersect to produce different market structures and different drug "epidemics" and outcomes. This work demonstrates how local-level changes in consumer demand for a variety of drugs, evolving patterns of use, and the locally specific community structure affect the social organization of drug distribution and have a historical dynamic that both precedes and determines the story of any single drug in any locale.