Speaking with Big Ron yesterday on the drug implosion that is Baltimore, he reminded me that the crack epidemic which began in the mid-1980s had petered out by the mid-1990s, and that our current crop of crack addicts are 40 to 60-years-old, which has also been my observation. Since the mid-1990s, the drug scene in and around Baltimore has focused on heroin, with far more money flowing in weed deals than crack deals.

This does not, however amend the time line of the crime ages of Baltimore:

1968 Race Riots

1971 Heroin Wars

1985 Crack Epidemic

2015 Race Purge-Drug Surge

What the crack epidemic of 85 did was trigger a wave of white flight from tough enclaves like Southwest Baltimore and Waverly and strengthen and expand the drug distribution networks, which may carry any drug. The circumstances of Big Ron’s family moving from Southwest Baltimore to Northeast Baltimore in ‘85, and then by ‘95, seeing all of his friends become heroin junkies supplied by black dealers from deeper in the city, is an expression of the same paradigm shift.

In Baltimore, the ultimate effect of the ‘85 Crack Epidemic was to compromise neighborhoods culturally, expand supply networks, and strengthen the heroin tare, with crack as a sideline. For instance, just outside of Baltimore on Ritchie Highway yesterday, two women were busted for selling heroin and crack [with an equal weight of each] and even powder cocaine, in a strip mall parking lot.

In the long view, just like 19th Century China was the story of British heroin imports expressed in the Opium Ears, the Taipang Rebellion, and the Boxer rebellion, the story of Baltimore has been about CIA importation of heroin and the phony federal drug war expressed in the four watermark events.

The ‘68 riots set up Baltimore for the heroin wars, emptying neighborhoods to serve as distribution and consumption hubs.

The ‘85 Crack Event also emptied neighborhoods of productive citizens and expanded the carrying capacity of the drug trade.

In this light, the 2015 Race Purge-Drug Surge was a genius event, with a simultaneous vacancy-generating, supply-expanding, and police-suppressing event doing in one year what had previously taken decades.

Baltimore has arrived at its anarcho-tyranny destination, a municipality as prey in the global stage, the buzzards and jackals of the macro-state salivating at the kill.

Recognizing and Surviving the Condition of Anarcho-Tyranny