Meth-its market now usurped from bikers by Mexican manufacturers-produces more criminal cases than a decade ago and is a “huge burden for the community because of its widespread use and the fact it often leads to violence and theft.” In Washoe County, meth “has the most detrimental impact of any drug,” says Assistant District Attorney John Helzer. Department of Health and Human Services survey. More than 5 percent of Americans use meth at some time, including 4 percent of high-schoolers, according to a U.S. One is the shared experience most readers will have with crank, directly or through family, friends, neighbors-or the enraged driver in the next lane. When a children’s picture-book author in Hopkins’ circle heard the title, Crank, she asked, “Oh, it’s about a kid who gets cranky?” Hopkins said, “You better read the book.”Ĭrank‘s power stems from three factors. Hopkins, 49, has written 20 children’s titles for an educational publisher, Perfection Learning. And I think she wants other kids to understand, as I do, where even playing around with the drug can take you.” Cristal “was good with the story getting out. Now 26, she is raising one of four children, each from a different father.Ĭrank, with a first run of 100,000 copies, “is a work of fiction, with composites of characters, but it’s really our story,” Hopkins says. Cristal, with a high IQ, model-level beauty and art-school scholarship, went gray at 18, did jail time for trafficking and two years in prison for bad checks. The monster crunched Hopkins’ oldest daughter, Cristal, in high school. “Crank is, indeed, a monster-one that is tough to leave behind once you invite it into your life,” Hopkins writes in the author’s note to her book (in bookstores in October). But Hopkins has her own moniker for the cheap upper that has gripped millions in a costly jones: The Simon & Schuster cover artist lettered the word in chalky, embossed lines that look fit to snort. Washoe Valley resident Ellen Hopkins’ young-adult novel is titled Crank, the most apt of the argot terms.

A baker’s dozen: boo-yah, chizel, drano, fizz wiz, geep, go, jab, Satan dust, speed, spoosh, spinney boo, twiz, zoiks.

There’s a slew of slang for methamphetxamine. from “A Couple of Toots,” in Ellen Hopkins’ verse novel, Crank Skeletal lines, jaundice yellow, evil little breezes up the nose

Ellen hopkins crank series in order