Gamble: With crack cocaine, you saw different jail sentences. The perception of crack cocaine was that it was a minority drug problem, and I never agreed with that because from my world, I saw folks crossing all sorts of racial genres and sexes affected by crack cocaine. The perception was it was a drug being used by a lower-class folk, and the response was more jail time.
With the cocaine and the opioid problems, you saw more of a treatment-based response because the users were of a higher socioeconomic class of folk, using raw cocaine. Now with the opioid problem, you have a more upper class of white families being affected by opioid abuse. Now, once again, you see the response of more treatment and money being thrown into it. Substance abuse affects our entire country. I don’t care if you’re white, black, green or yellow. You cannot find a family in this country that has not suffered the ills of substance abuse.
Dirksen: It affects everybody. Young people, older people, working…
