This is his American dream. As he sits on the block waiting for his rock he doesn’t complain. Instead, he moves real quick and fast to get what he needs. Panhandling is the key strategy in getting money. Food can wait, but getting high, shit, it’s the number one priority. What looks like yellowish salt rocks or small pieces of putty is what keeps him coming back and wanting more.

Crack cocaine is his best friend. More than his best friend—it’s his so-called “wife.” He is married to her and has never thought of cheating on her with any other type of drug. He makes sweet, passionate love to his crack cocaine as he puts it in his pipe, puts it to his lips, takes his left hand to hold it and right hand to light it. As it bubbles in the pipe he takes a deep and long inhale as the smoke fills his lungs to the point where he exhales and goes into a long-winded cough. He sits back after blowing out the smoke, his head hitting the concrete wall like a bulldozer demolishing a house. Then, a huge smile grows gradually along his face, now satisfied with the first hit of crack cocaine from his pipe. He opens his eyes and stares blankly at nothing. Almost in a trance, he is almost to the point of no return. This is just the everyday life of “Ralph.” A life that a lot of people wonder about. A life that a lot of people stray away from. A life that a lot of people said they would never fall into. A life that has a predictable ending—death.

The Tenderloin district is one of the roughest neighborhoods in San Francisco. Hosting pimps, prostitution, drugs, alcohol, theft and homelessness, this neighborhood is truly one of a kind. Lost souls roam the streets, panhandling passersby for money so they can either eat or get high. Drug dealers come out of hiding and addicts flock to them like pigeons to breadcrumbs at a local park. For some, the restroom is a parked car in an alleyway or an abandoned car on the street, as they shit or piss on or by the vehicle. On this particular day, a Ford Mustang’s passenger window is busted and the glove department is stripped of its possessions. This community thrives off drugs and crime. Crack cocaine, heroin, marijuana, meth, LSD, paste. But the police couldn’t care less about the drug user—they want the drug dealer.

Crack cocaine is derived from powder cocaine. Different substances are added to make a rock known as a “crack rock” or, in slang terms, “devil’s dandruff.” Crack cocaine hit the street scene (mainly in urban communities) in the 1980s, making it the most popular drug in America at that time. The Department of Health and Human Services National Household Survey reported in 1985 that the number of people who admitted using crack cocaine on a routine basis increased from 4.2 million to 5.8 million in that year alone.

Crack cocaine is cut into tiny bits of what looks like pieces of soap and has a somewhat yellowish color. It takes only seconds to get high. It can either be smoked through a glass pipe known as a “devil’s dick” or “crack pipe,” or it can be melted down and injected through a needle into the body.

“Sammie J,” a fifty-three-year-old male, has been doing crack cocaine for two and a half years now after losing his home to bankruptcy. “A lot of my reason for using is because I don’t know how to deal with life emotionally, I guess. It’s my escape,” says Sammie J. The addiction to crack cocaine plays a vital role in Sammie J’s daily life. He is trying to get his life back together by attending City College of San Francisco, but the demons within his body and mind make him give into the use of crack cocaine. Just recently, he used his financial aid check to get high. “I got two thousand dollars from school and I blew that in two weeks,” says Sammie J.

The drug game isn’t always true when it comes to supplying addicts with the drugs they need. Drug dealers will sometimes do anything to manipulate addicts, because they know that addicts are desperate and defenseless. “People are scandalous. They’ll sell you soap, pieces of a pill, peppermint candy, trying to say it’s crack. And with me being a white boy, forget it. I can’t fight anybody…it’s called ‘gaffle,’ that’s the new language,” says Sammie J.

Walking through the Tenderloin, Sammie J comes across a man who sells crack cocaine. They make eye contact and the transaction takes progress. They dart into the doorway of an abandoned building, hiding from the open sidewalk so that neither the police nor “snitches” can see. The dealer reaches into his pockets, rummaging around trying to grab pieces of crack cocaine to sell Sammie J. After the “devil’s dandruff” is received, they part ways and Sammie J heads off to a place to smoke. He approaches a young lady and asks if she has a pipe, and if he can borrow it to smoke. She says yes, but only if she can join. She takes out the pipe, pulls strands off a copper brillo pad, inserts the strands into the pipe as a filter, puts the crack cocaine on top of the strands and then hands it over to Sammie J. They settle on the side of a building, taking turns smoking openly in the bright, warm sun. His mouth fills with smoke as he passes the pipe to the young woman. “That was pretty mild stuff,” says Sammie J after exhaling the smoke. His pupils are reduced now to the size of a period on a piece of paper, and he is more relaxed. He walks off slowly with a smile upon his face.

This is Sammie J’s second time today getting stoned. In three hours, he has spent fifteen dollars on crack cocaine. “A good day for me would be like smoking a hundred bucks worth,” says Sammie J after smoking. “That was titillating, sort of like an appetizer.” The price can range from five dollars for little pieces to one hundred dollars or more for large rock that lasts about an hour and contains five to ten hits.

Since receiving a food stamp card, Sammie J usually gives his card to a Mamasan, a madam or escort, who exchanges his card for cash. For example, if the card is worth sixty dollars, Sammie J will only receive thirty dollars—half the amount—in cash, and the Mamasan will keep the card. No matter the amount of a card, the Mamasan will receive half, keep the card, and give half of what’s owed to that person in cash. According to Sammie J, the disabled, who receive government aid, mostly use this method.

The disabled receive help from the government financially, but choose to use their money on drugs and alcohol rather than saving up for somewhere to stay or to buy food and clothing. “They receive social security income (SSI), government assistance (GA) or disability checks. A friend of mine had it and he got two thousand dollars a month for like eight or nine months. But if you’re on SSI, you don’t get food stamps, but if you get GA, which is only four hundred dollars a month, you get food stamps,” says Sammie J.

Possession of crack cocaine yields serious consequences. According to drugpolicy.org, federal law sets a hundred-to-one sentencing disparity between the two forms. This means that distribution of just five grams of crack cocaine (about a thimble full) yields a five-year mandatory minimum sentence, while it takes five hundred grams of powder cocaine to trigger the same five-year sentence. Crack cocaine is the only drug for which there is a federal mandatory minimum sentence for mere possession. In 2006, 82 percent of those sentenced under federal crack cocaine laws were black, and only 8.8 percent were white— even though more than two thirds of people who use crack cocaine are white.

Since using crack cocaine, Sammie J battles constantly with his addiction. The only way he’ll be able to overcome and beat this addiction is if he seeks rehabilitation and stays away from the neighborhood. “I’m staying in the Tenderloin right now in a shelter, and this is not the best environment for an addict,” says Sammie J. “I call it the ‘Triggerloin,’ because it’s a trigger.” But how is he to overcome this if he lives in the neighborhood with the influences around him 24/7? Will the police really do their job and help get drugs off the streets and put these addicts in rehabilitation centers? Or will they slowly watch them die as they live out the good ol’ American dream?