A Cop's Death Accelerates the City's War on Crack

They said it was "rock cocaine." It was almost another year before Hopkins got a firsthand look at a man who was smoking it. "I learned for the first time it was done with baking soda, not ether," says Hopkins. "And I examined what he had, and it was in vials. I knew we had something new on the market." Within a year, crack had saturated the city.

That same article—entitled "The Men Who Created Crack"—largely attributes the introduction of crack in New York to "a canny street tough named Santiago Luis Polanco-Rodriguez."

Polanco-Rodriguez grew up in Washington Heights and, by the age of 20, was involved in a pretty successful cocaine business, selling the powder in small glassine envelopes he stamped with "Coke Is It," a tongue-in-cheek adaptation of the Coca-Cola slogan. Sometime in early 1985, "Yayo," as PolancoRodriguez was called, started hustling crack. A Nov. 29, 1985, article was the first time that the New York Times wrote about this new drug.

"A new form of cocaine is for sale on the streets of New York, alarming law enforcement officials and rehabilitation experts because of its tendency to accelerate abuse of the drug, particularly among adolescents," the article read. "The substance, known as crack, is already processed into the purified form that enables cocaine users to smoke—or ‘free-base'—the powerful stimulant of the central nervous system."

News articles only speculate how Polanco-Rodriguez was introduced to crack. One theory held that the Jamaican gangs he was involved with in the cocaine business introduced him to crack soon after it first arrived in Los Angeles in the summer of 1985. "Another," the Times wrote, "is that the Medellín cartel in Colombia recognized Mr. Polanco-Rodriguez's marketing talents and taught him how to cook the drugs."

In any event, along with his mother, sister and three brothers, Polanco-Rodriguez is credited with starting what law enforcement officials called the first large-scale, organized crack operation in the city. He called his business Based Balls. In his book "New York Murder Mystery: The True Story Behind the Crime Crash of the 1990s," John Jay College of Criminal Justice sociologist Andrew Karmen wrote, "Crack was an immediate success."

"It could be marketed in smaller, less expensive units that seemed deceptively affordable to a younger, lower income clientele—who unfortunately had weaker commitments to conventional lifestyles, less to lose, and fewer resources at their disposal to help them cope with drug-induced problems," Karmen added. "As the pleasurable practice caught on largely among the most vulnerable and marginal of inner city residents, especially in New York, Los Angeles and Miami, the news media likened crack smoking to a ‘plague' that emanated from the netherworld and threatened to invade and destroy suburban sanctuaries. This imagery was reinforced nightly as news broadcasts featured action clips of narcotics squads raiding crackhouses, busting down doors, and carting off young black and Hispanic men in chains."