Blow Back

When students from Lincoln High School pleaded guilty last month to a cocaine deal that killed a former classmate, it briefly forced into the spotlight a drug that is typically kept well-hidden.

Nineteen-year-old Kraig Crow was found face-down in Gabriel Park on Aug. 21 after a massive cocaine overdose. It was a highly unusual death. On average, Oregon sees about one cocaine death a week. But the vast majority are from smoking or shooting the drug. People rarely die from snorting it as Crow did, says Dr. Larry Lewman, a forensic pathologist at the state medical examiner's office.

Crow's death was alarming to some because of his youth and his middle-class status. But beneath the public concern over vulnerable teens, the story hit home for a more intimate reason—powdered cocaine remains the drug of choice for many of Portland's beau monde. And unlike crack or methamphetamine, coke is not accustomed to getting bad press.

Conversations and interviews with more than a dozen bartenders, restaurant owners, cops and users for this story reveal that powder cocaine remains a strong player in Portland's drug firmament—socially acceptable and readily available. WW was able to score half a gram of coke within 30 minutes of walking into a Northwest Portland bar.

Despite its reputation as a drug of crass excess, cocaine never went out of style in unpretentious Portland—not after President Reagan, not after the '90s tech boom, and certainly not today, when the drug is more affordable than ever. A gram of coke now costs $40 to $50—half of what it did 10 years ago.

As a downtown bartender for more than 10 years put it, coke today is "cheap, it's good, and it is everywhere."

It's an open secret that coke is a mainstay in some of the city's top clubs and restaurants. Club, bar and restaurant managers say they can't control what their employees and customers do. Moreover, Portland police largely stay out of the establishments. Users say the drug can be found virtually anywhere wealthy Portlanders let off steam. That includes clubs like H20 and Voodoo Lounge, bars like Vintage 318 and the Matador, and eateries like Mama Mia Trattoria—all places named by sources for this story.

First, a primer: Coke comes in two widely used forms, powder and crack. Both come from the South American coca plant. Powder cocaine, when it's cooked with baking soda and broken into rocks, yields crack cocaine, a smokable form that's more potent and addictive.

The change alters not just the physical form of the drug, but virtually everything else about it—who uses it, how much it costs and the high it creates.

The crack rush is legendary—a 10-minute freight train through the user's head. The myth of getting hooked the first time has been widely debunked, but because of its intensity and fast action, crack invites compulsive use. Powdered coke brings similar feelings: euphoria, supreme confidence and mental acuity. But it's slower to peak and lasts half an hour or more.

A racial divide comes into play. In 2005, 67 percent of Oregonians seeking treatment for powder-cocaine abuse were white; 17 percent were black. For crack cocaine it was 57 percent black, 34 percent white, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The irony is that crack is the more expensive drug. With powder cocaine, a $40 bag will last most users an entire evening. But crack smokers are forced to buy one $20 rock after another to maintain their high. When they stop, there's a debilitating crash that can bring on extreme depression.

Crack is sold and smoked openly on the street because many users have nowhere else to go. That leads to widespread arrests. Cops don't differentiate between crack and powder cocaine in their records, but the vast majority of Portland's cocaine arrests—which make up almost half of the county prosecutors' felony caseload—are for crack, not powder.

That disparity has led to allegations nationwide of racial profiling by cops and prejudice in the courts. But police and prosecutors here say when they bust crack dealers, they're simply responding to neighborhood complaints and going after the most blatantly public criminal activity they see.

"There's a lot of drug activity that goes on behind closed doors that is never detected. And powder cocaine fits into that category," says Mark McDonnell, Multnomah County senior deputy district attorney. "People who use crack cocaine tend to have a more advanced addiction. So they're more desperate. That's why you see it on the street corner."

"At first, she attempted to say she found it on the counter and was going to turn it in," Sgt. Robert Voepel wrote in his report. "I told her to not disrespect me or herself by telling me a lie." Both suspects were charged with possession. The woman was ordered to attend a 12-month diversion program; the boyfriend got 18 months of probation.

Doug Fir general manager Bryan Deckert says the arrests incident happened "long in the past," and he's not aware of any cocaine use currently at the club. "Portland in general is not a drug culture," he says. "It's very fortunate for us that this is an exception and not the norm."

Coke use extends to restaurants as well. A former waiter at Mama Mia Trattoria downtown says "it was prevalent among a fair number of the staff" at the popular Italian eatery, which he recently left after two and a half years. That included after-hours use on the premises, he says.

Lisa Schroeder, co-owner of Mama Mia, tells WW she fired some staffers for poor performance and now believes coke was the problem. "I don't know for sure what was going on," she says. "People were showing up at work late, hot food was not going out hot, and I didn't know why."

Schroeder, who also co-owns Mother's restaurant next door, now believes her restaurants are drug-free. But she notes she could be deceived. "Cocaine never went away," she says. "That's what was shocking to me. I lived through the '80s. I never knew it was the thing again."

The former waiter at Mama Mia says Schroeder's crackdown failed to have much of an impact. He believes the culture of restaurant employment attracts drug users. "I chalk it up to the difference in hours worked, but I don't know if that's the only thing," he says. "It's generally a younger culture who have not necessarily embraced the status-quo lifestyle."

A recent post by WW on the blog site portlandfoodanddrink.com asked whether coke use is common among staff in Portland restaurants. Several agreed it was. "Very true about the posher the place, the bigger the problem," wrote one anonymous blogger who claimed to be an experienced Portland restaurant worker.

Use in clubs and restaurants may be common, but it's a scene cops and prosecutors say they have trouble infiltrating. Instead, they go after dealers, while users feel little heat.

"It's so secretive. Obviously it's harder to catch someone in a club. There's all that noise. You can't see across the room," says Portland Police Officer Brian Hubbard. "It's there. It's just not real flagrant."

Cocaine cases made up 44 percent of the Multnomah County district attorney's felony caseload last year—1,095 coke cases in all. But because the police focus on street crime, the vast majority of those cases are crack rather than powdered cocaine.

"They don't bring us those cases because they're not happening out in the open," says McDonnell, the senior deputy district attorney. "Those people tend to be more affluent, smarter—they're not as blatant about what they're doing."

Busting powder coke rings takes considerable manpower and money—resources McDonnell says simply don't exist. "It involves working long hours of the night, watching houses, getting warrants, applying for a phone tap," he says. "It is extremely difficult and extremely expensive."

Sgt. Walsh, the head of narcotics for the Portland police, says cops focus on supply rather than pursuing users in clubs and bars. "You're talking about a couple thousand kids in the metropolitan area," he says. "How do you find them? So we go after the people who are bringing drugs into this town."

Unlike marijuana and meth, which are made in Oregon, cocaine must be imported to the United States. That creates a complex hidden economy that stretches from vast plantations in the Andean highlands of Colombia, Bolivia and Peru, to whispered deals in local bathroom stalls.

According to law-enforcement officials, Mexico plays a key role in that economy. If Mexican-born dealers do most of the coke-selling in downtown clubs, as Ricardo says, it's Mexicans, too, who bring the drug into the country and do most of the large-scale distribution in Portland, according to law-enforcement officials.

Mexican nationals ship the drug from South America to the United States, says Kenneth Magee, assistant special agent in charge at the Portland office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. On the West Coast, he says, the drug stays in mainly Latino hands as it makes its way up I-5. Portland acts as both a transit point and an end destination for the drug.

On March 8, 2006, a Kings County (Calif.) sheriff's deputy pulled over a black Mercedes on I-5 near Fresno, Calif. Inside he found 12 pounds of cocaine, 90 tablets of OxyContin and more than $12,000 cash.

The driver was Benny Covarrubias, a Portlander the DEA had been tailing for weeks. Sources told DEA agents Covarrubias shipped about 10 kilos a week to Portland from family sources in Los Angeles.

Covarrubias was living large at the age of 24. He owned a $400,000 house in Tigard and had recently bought his mom a Lexus. Most notably, he told police he was 40 percent owner of Bliss Lounge, one of downtown Portland's most popular clubs until it closed last fall.

Covarrubias' downfall came April 23, when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine at U.S. District Court in Portland. He's scheduled for sentencing on July 23 and faces 10 years to life in prison.

Federal authorities boast of other high-level busts in recent years, and the amount of cocaine seized in Oregon has grown steadily the past three years, hitting 16.5 kilos last year. The biggest coke bust in state history came in 2003, when agents seized 80 kilos in a statewide investigation that saw 28 people convicted.

Bigger stashes are also turning up in everyday busts, says Portland Police Sgt. Mike Krantz, supervisor of the Regional Organized Crime and Narcotics Task Force. "Before, it was a big deal if you got an ounce," Krantz says. "Now an ounce is not a big deal for a traffic stop."

Cops believe part of the reason for the upswing in seizures is a drop in local meth production. "We're hearing that cocaine is more readily available and is being marketed in place of meth," says John Deits, head of the drugs division at the U.S. attorney's office in Portland.

Because cartels deal in multiple drugs like cocaine, meth and heroin, they can adjust when the market shifts. Mid-level dealers take the same approach. In one case, Jose Antonio Vazquez-Vallejo, busted Aug. 8 when he sold meth to a police informant, had a half-pound of cocaine as well as heroin in his Southeast Portland home.

Vazquez told police he came from Tijuana and had been in the United States only one month. According to a police report, he told the officers who busted him that the money from dealing was good—up to $8,000 a week—but that "he knew what he was getting into when he started doing this."

Magee, the DEA agent, worries users may not be as aware of the dangers they face. "It's a rare person that can casually use cocaine for a sustained length of time," he says. "Ultimately, people start to use it a little bit more and a little bit more. It's a dangerously addictive drug."

COKE AND A FROWN

The latest research shows that cocaine hijacks and damages the brain's reward systems, making it more difficult to experience pleasure in other ways.

Cocaine delivers its high by activating a primitive part of the brain that makes us feel good when we relieve hunger, quench thirst or procreate (i.e., have sex)—actions that tend to promote survival.

But researchers at the University of Michigan found in a 2003 study that users' brains try to adapt to their new drug-soaked environment by lowering the level of dopamine, a pleasure-inducing chemical boosted by cocaine.

The postmortem study of brain tissue from 35 people—the first-ever direct finding of cocaine damage to brain cells—suggests addicts may continue taking the drug not to get high, but to avoid bad moods from lowered dopamine levels.

Cocaine also hijacks the brain's craving machinery, which evolved to ensure available food gets eaten.

Last year, scientists at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Bethesda, Md., identified a brain chemical that made addicts hunger for the drug when shown films of a white powder resembling coke.

Cocaine also interferes with the ability to perceive rewards, doctors at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory found last year. Some users had trouble registering a value difference between $10 and $1,000, explaining why some addicts commit crimes for petty cash.

Researchers have begun drawing a line between drugs like Ecstasy—which release more serotonin in the brain and result in greater empathy—and so-called "selfish drugs" like cocaine and methamphetamine, which release more dopamine. —JP