Dr. Alim Muhammed is a physician in Washington, DC, and also national spokesman for the Nation of Islam, headed by the controversial Louis Farrakhan. In the following interview, conducted at Dr. Muhammed’s clinic in northeast Washington’s Paradise Manor public housing project, we talked about the ‘dopebuster” program and the voluntary, self-reliant Muslim effort to culturally revitalize their community M / Why has there suddenly been an explosion of concern over drugs in Washington, DC? Is the level of violence new? Is it because of crack? How is the current situation different from 10 years ago? Dr. Alim Muhammed/ The difference is that the tremendous problem of drugs has come to the notice of white America. The Nation of Islam has long recognized drugs as a severe problem in our communities. For nearly 30 years, we have had a very successful rehabilitation program for individuals caught in the clutches of drugs. Additionally, however, I think that the introduction of crack cocaine has made a qualitative difference in drug abuse and drug addiction. Because it is cheap, 100 percent addictive, and causes \ profound paranoia, depression and bouts of violent behavior in the individuals who use it, crack has amplified the crime and violence that accompanies the use of all drugs. Crack is also very alarming from a medical point of view. I would argue that crack is incompatible with life. The crack user is not only likely to be involved in violence and homicide, but the drug itself is lethal. As a physician, I have come in contact with heroin addicts and alcoholics who can describe a twenty- and thirty-year history of addiction. But with crack, it is clear that the user will be dead in two, three or fouf years—if not from the devastating physiological affects, then from the violence associated with the crack trade. In the Washington, DC area we have seen an evolution over the past few years. There has been a significant decrease in the heroin using population, and, while the drug of choice six years ago was PCP, it is now crack. Crack is all that’s out there today. Q / What is the difference between the Nation of Islam’s drug rehabilitation and education program and Nancy Reagan’s Just Say No campaign or Drug Czar William Bennett’s proposal for more prisons and boot camp? Muhammed/ Our approach works. And it works because we realize that drug abuse is rooted in a spiritual hunger. Millions of people are missing something in their lives. The churches and the schools have failed to fill this void. And, in many cases, the families have failed to provide a spiritual foundation on which an individual can begin to build a healthy life. So, those who hunger seek an artificial high jn drugs—a respite from a life drained of meaning. Furthermore, for the black community, this lack of a spiritual foundation is compounded by the lack of economic opportunity. In some inner-city areas, unemployment among black youth is as high as 60 percent. These young men have the same aspirations for living the good life as everybody else, but they just don’t have the career options or the , education. So, the drug trade is their upward mobility path. Q / Do you see drugs as the nexus between racial discrimination, crime and violence? Muhammed/ If we will not pay to educate, train and provide jobs for our troubled black youth, then we will pay another way. The drug-related crime and violence, and even the spread of AIDS by addicts, is America’s reckoning for its past: It is this country's day of judgment for the neglect of black America. But all these things are now beginning to plague the society in general, making the civilized life we all desire impossible. Q / Nearly two decades ago, black nationalists argued for cultural integrity, but against integration. They argued that integration would break up the wholeness of the black community by allowing those who could get out of the ghetto—small-businessmen, the educated, the employed—to escape, leaving behind a concentration of poor blacks that didn’t have the wherewithal to make it. Haven’t the nationalists’ fears come to pass? Muhammed/ I think that their fears about integration have proven to be true. In some respects, the doors of opportunity were opened, but only those who were qualified to go through those doors actually did so. In fact, those who became middle class left the inner-city areas to 8 Clinton St. Quarterly
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