RICHARDS, Eugene (Dorchester, 1944)Cocaine True Cocaine Blue

There is no escape. If you live in America, you are affected by the drug world—or you are a part of it. Every year approximately one million teenagers and adults use cocaine for the first time. As many as six million Americans regularly use crack, heroin, or other illegal drugs, and as many as one million are addicted. Crack-related murders, violence, crime and auto-vehicle fatalities continue to plague life in every major city in America. The economic cost of drug abuse in health care, crime, forfeited education, and property destruction will be many billions of dollars this year. Drugs are taking a devastating toll on our families, on our friends, and on our medical, legal, and social systems.

"Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue", by Eugene Richards, is an indepth and intimate look at the embattled inhabitants of three representative troubled communities: East New York; North Philadelphia; and the Red Hook Housing Project in Brooklyn, New York. Accompanying the bold photographs are Richards's personal observations and interviews, with additional reporting by Time/Life front-line correspondent Edward Barnes. Interviews with gang members, addicts, dealers, parents, children, the elderly, sex workers, police, and the clergy give voice to the afflicted communities.

Richards alerts us to how drugs threaten the very fabric of our society, be it through lives lost to addiction, gang gunfire, AIDS from shared needles, or crime.

"Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue" is a history of our times, a compelling, terrifying document that will educate us and promote dialogue, a first step toward affecting change.