Sami wanted to buy crack.

This is about 1990 peak of the crack epidemic.

Today things are ugly, there are lots of prostitutes smoking crack and this gives us a bad rap.

Drug abuse trends in the region indicate that cocaine, coca paste and crack cocaine abuse is increasing.

And it turned out, there was this audience that didn't know it wanted crack cocaine, but, when it came, it really did.

And one of the sad parts of this is that indeed, among the many other ramifications of crack cocaine is that the most talented individuals in these communities this is what they were striving for.

According to the age old belief of Malayalees, an auspicious kani at dawn on the Vishu day is lucky for the entire year.

And to do that, you have to actually go back to a time before crack cocaine, in the early '80s, and look at it from the perspective of a gang leader.

Because you could smoke crack cocaine you can't smoke powdered cocaine and smoking is a much more efficient mechanism at delivering a high than is snorting it.

Cocaine used to be America s problem, to the point that the United States started a major campaign against sellers and consumers of crack cocaine in the inner cities, drug traffickers, and suppliers in the Andes.

The 44th were a crack division, but their expertise was fast moving mechanised warfare, and the terrain meant they had to leave their heavier equipment behind, go slowly with what they had.

The larger sluices may be concealed under the roots of trees (such as crack willows), which have grown up from seedlings established in the brickwork.

But if you think about it, I would say that in the last twenty five years, of every invention or innovation that's occurred in this country, the biggest one, in terms of impact on the well being of people who live in the inner city, was crack cocaine.

Now to give you a sense of just how bad the inner city was during crack and I'm not really focusing on the negatives, but really, there's another story to tell you there if you look at the death rates just of random, young black males growing up in the inner city in the United States the death rates during crack were about one percent.

And that was the beginning of what turned out to be a beautiful relationship that involved Sudhir living in the housing project on and off for 10 years hanging out in crack houses, going to jail with the gang members, having the car windows shot out of his car, having the police break into his apartment and steal his computer disks you name it.