Poison amidst beauty

Here is another attempt at beautifying our neighborhood - a hollyhock in a hollowed out tree stump the other side of Whitelock. While on litter patrol yesterday, I came across five glass vials in the stump. They contained suspicious white crystalline substance. They were probably hastily dumped there by one of our local crack dealers upon sighting the cops. (It seems that we are seeing cops busting dealers and harassing customers weekly.) Until yesterday, I had never seen crack cocaine. I have often found glass vials and the plastic tabs on the streets and sidewalks but I had mistakenly thought the tabs were from from syringes. I flushed them down the toilet where they belong. Thus continues my education about the harsh realities of life in Baltimore. I have since learned that crack is the poor man's drug with each vial probably going for $10-$20. Inexpensive as it is to buy, crack nevertheless exacts a heavy price on the addict's life.