I agree with the (apparently unpopular) notion and I avoid describing things as "x crack" and wince a bit when people use it as it seems a bit tone-deaf and childish, like referring to something you don't like that there's too much of as "programmer AIDS" or a bad design as a "UI Holocaust" or a failed project as an "abortion" or a bad sports defeat as being "raped", all of which make a similar kind of allegorical sense but are more obviously tacky.
For whatever reason crack allusions are a bad taste joke that people (unlike most of the above) don't seem to realise is bad taste, possibly because they consider crack addicts as either other or lesser to them, rather than unfortunate victims with a shared humanity.
I think that kind of word use is inevitable and actually a sign of something good. It for me shows that people know about these things but they are percieved to be so unbelievably horrible that they feel unreal and as such can serve as metaphors.
I know these things happened, happen and most likely will happen and such metaphors are unpleasant for people affected, but I think it's natural language evolution.
People still get murdered occasionally and families of murder victims might be uneasy when they hear about someone that "he killed her with this joke!" but it won't prevent people from using that phrase because murders are so rare for most people that the word gradually loses its literal meaning.
I was always kind of unsure why it made me feel weird until someone pointed out how weird it would be to say "OMG these fries are like meth". I think for many people there is a racial component to it as well.
For whatever reason crack allusions are a bad taste joke that people (unlike most of the above) don't seem to realise is bad taste, possibly because they consider crack addicts as either other or lesser to them, rather than unfortunate victims with a shared humanity.