VICTIM OF THE DRUG WAR
Sousa Jamba has a crisis of confidence in the crack zone
Panama City, Florida A MOST unfortunate thing happened to me on my third trip to the United States. President Bush had just enunciated his anti-drug policy and every citizen seemed ready to help bring the epidemic to an end. I had mistakenly placed a copper, Arab smoking pipe in my bag when I had moved house in London. I had only discovered that it was there after security men at Gatwick airport had spotted it in their X-ray machines. The pipe was closely ex- amined, sniffed, and looked at suspicious- ly. The security men had the right to do so. I told them it was a souvenir that a friend of mine had brought from Saudi Arabia. I suspect that they did not believe me; but 1 was allowed to go through because it is not illegal to possess one.
On the plane, I showed the pipe to an American woman passenger next to me. She advised me to leave the pipe on the plane because the American authorities would entertain no other possibilities when confronted with a young, black male in possession of a pipe apart from it being used for the smoking of crack.
I said to myself that I had nothing to fear. I would give the authorities at Miami International airport the telephone num- ber of the Asian friend in London who had given me the pipe and she would confirm my story. I also persuaded myself that if they were not going to believe me then they would at least believe her. At the airport I was held for almost two hours. All the while, the pipe was in my hand luggage; I expected the authorities to search me at any time. I was slightly nervous. I told myself that all I would have to do was to stick to the truth. I even thought that if the officials did not believe my story then I would offer to have a lie- detecting test.
The waiting-room in which I and several other passengers were held was small and had a low ceiling. The people there never stopped smoking. I suddenly discovered that I suffer from a mild form of claus- trophobia. Everyone in the room had an anxious look. I sat next to a Lebanese man who told me that it was not easy for someone of his nationality to travel any- where in the world without being taken for a terrorist. There were also several Hai- tians who had boxes of Barbancourt rum. A tall West Indian who had been made to strip to be searched was almost in tears. He was saying that in the many years he had lived in Britain he had never been so humiliated.
At last I was called. The officer, who was extremely pleasant to me, apologised for having kept me so long and said they had held me because they wanted to make sure that my documents were genuine. He demanded to see any other document with my name and photograph on it. I showed him my London Transport monthly pass. The officer let me through.
America was, indeed, a country at war. Everywhere crack was the main subject. On the journey from Miami to this city, the bus stopped at Tampa. There I bought two newspapers, the Tampa Herald and the St Petersburg Times. Both had long stories of crack victims; one about a penitent, black mother who attributed her daughter's problems to the crack she had smoked when she was pregnant, the other about a young white university student majoring in criminology who had become a crack addict.
At Tampa we were joined by a young black man. He too was going to Panama City. He soon confided in me that he had once been a drug dealer. His name was Dave and he was 20. Dave told me that the gold teeth which had replaced his incisors had cost him $1,004. Life was now not easy as there were many people who were jealous of his teeth: he knew when and where to smile. He said there were people known to have been killed by criminals with the intent of knocking off their gold teeth. I believed him.
I asked Dave how he felt the drug menace would be wiped out. He said there was only one way — the United States had to wipe Colombia off the earth. Had he felt any pangs of regret when he had seen some of the victims of his wares, I wondered? He said no. 'If you don't do it somebody else will,' he added. Dave also gave me an interesting perspective on the drug busi- ness — the connection between crack and voodoo. He said the reason most drug dealers — both white and black — never stayed long in prison was that each of them consulted a voodoo doctor who, in Dave's opinion, is better than the best lawyer in the country.
Dave told me this story: 'I was charged for armed robbery, possessing cocaine, and speeding. My mother and my aunt went to see a voodoo doctor. He told me to write the judge's name on a piece of paper, stuff the paper into a frog's mouth, close the mouth with three pins, and then throw the frog into a lake while facing it backwards. That was not all. I had to write the judge's name on a lemon peel and put it in my left shoe. I was supposed to go to jail for 15 years; I have only been there for three weeks.' Dave asked me to go and stay with him in Panama City; I declined the offer. I had to go to Springfield — a nearby City on an assignment from Wig-Wag, a New York magazine.
Dave was very honest. He said he had taken to drug-peddling because of the money. Talking to him, I got the sense he felt that his days and those of his masters were over. In fact, Dave told me that he had just become a born-again Christian. Meanwhile, I had been wondering how I could best dispose of the pipe. On the one hand, I felt my Asian friend would be hurt when I told her that I had to throw the pipe away. But on the other I am aware that this is a country at war, and the possibility of my being a casualty could not be ruled out. I have just thrown the pipe into the sea.
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