''Crackheads Gone Wild'' is a 2006
documentary
A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
produced by Daryl Smith about
cocaine
Cocaine is a tropane alkaloid and central nervous system stimulant, derived primarily from the leaves of two South American coca plants, ''Erythroxylum coca'' and ''Erythroxylum novogranatense, E. novogranatense'', which are cultivated a ...
users in
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...
.
Post release
In an interview with ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' newspaper, Smith said he knew some of the people he filmed over a period of years and watched them slowly deteriorate. 'Many of these people are highly intelligent. I have footage of a lady who has a master's degree in education and used to work on
Capitol Hill
Capitol Hill is a neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., neighborhood in Washington, D.C., located in both the Northeast, Washington, D.C., Northeast and Southeast, Washington, D.C., Southeast quadrants. It is bounded by 14th Street SE & NE, F S ...
. She got hooked on drugs and now she's
homeless
Homelessness, also known as houselessness or being unhoused or unsheltered, is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and functional housing. It includes living on the streets, moving between temporary accommodation with family or friends, liv ...
. The point of the movie is: do not even try
crack or this is what it will reduce you to. You will not have any control over your life and you will live and die for the drug.'
Smith later produced a sequel, ''Scared Straight''.
By June 2006, over 400,000
bootleg copies of "Crackheads Gone Wild" were estimated to have been sold, at least partly due to viewers considering the film to be a comedy.
See also
*
Crack epidemic
The crack epidemic was a surge of crack cocaine use in major cities across the United States throughout the entirety of the 1980s and the early 1990s. This resulted in several social consequences, such as increasing crime and violence in Americ ...
References
External links
''Crackheads Gone Wild''at
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...
American documentary films
Documentary films about drug addiction
Documentary films about African Americans
Cocaine in the United States
Films about cocaine
2006 films
2006 documentary films
Films shot in Atlanta
Documentary films about Georgia (U.S. state)
2000s American films
Films set in Atlanta
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