Junkie Business: the Evolution and Operation of a Heroin Dealing Network

This paper is intended to educate those who almost nothing about heroin and those who use it. Many people have been associated with friends or families who have used some kind of drug. There are many people who have not had any contact with heroin users or if they have, don’t understand much about it. Using various sources about heroin to explain where it came from, how it is used, who uses it and how a person starts on the path towards heroin, preventing addiction, and global issues surrounding this drug. Although the topic of heroin is inexhaustible, it is my hope to spark reader’s curiosity. Knowledge of this drug might just help the reader join in on discussions about heroin.

Chapter 3, “A Community of Addicted Bodies”, traces how physical and emotional dependence on heroin creates a social hierarchy within the

Crack users range from the Wall Street stockbroker to a homeless person living in Central Park, but by and large this evil drug called crack had its biggest impact on New York’s inner city minority population. A New York doctor, Dr. Mark Gold who is the person who set up and helps run the not for profit organization called 800-COCAINE, a hotline set up to help addicts and perspective users answer questions about the drug and also offers counseling and drug intervention services; suggested that his findings showed that, “occasional users of crack quickly increased, the amount and frequency of crack use until total dependency was achieved.” Men and women who were once law abiding citizens and honest people were now robbing and stealing to pay for the drug, and many who once enjoyed good health were now suffering from a variety of physical and mental aliments springing from their cocaine abuse. Crack brings along with its amazing high, some ominous dangers. Dr. Robert Maslansky is the director of New York City’s Bellevue Hospital

They even provide a constitutive power of it (p. 7). Garcia considers how addiction is a disease emerging from the need to numb invisible communal suffering produced by historical and ongoing trauma. “The word people often use for heroin in northern New Mexico is ‘medicinal,” Garcia explained in a recent interview. “They view heroin as just another medication that takes the pain away.” Garcia developed an intimate knowledge of heroin addiction in the valley by developing relationships with addicts while working at the only clinic in the region. As a consequence, The Pastoral Clinic shows the relationship between self-medicating and the regional geographic and cultural dispossessions that have led to displacement, marginalization, addiction, and communal pain.

Chasing heroin is a documentary giving us insight information on the rapidly growing pandemic of addictions to drugs, notably heroin. The heroin epidemic is rising at an alarming

The Players in the Cocaine Game: An investigative look at the dealers, suppliers, and enforcers

Addiction can be a very troubling experience for the addict and those involved in their life. However, each individual’s journey with drug addiction is a personal one. Angela Garcia studied a clinic in New Mexico to better understand drug addiction and the detoxification process. Her task in this study is evident when she states ” I understood my task as an anthropologist to conjure up the social life that produced these signs, to give it flesh and depth, that is why I went to New Mexico to study heroin- to try to give purpose and meaning to an aspect of American Life that had become dangerously ordinary, even cliché.”(5, Garcia) She is clearly there to learn and then interpret that which she finds. In observing she is doing what Roberta Edwards

Young, white, suburban kids began dying of overdoses. Out of shame, most parents didn’t want to talk about it, but one grieving mother who did break her silence compared Purdue Pharma, the makers of OxyContin, to a “large, corporate drug cartel.” It was into this grim scene that stepped the heroin-selling Xalisco Boys, an actual drug cartel. Hailing primarily from Xalisco, a small, agricultural town in Nayarit on Mexico’s west coast, they quickly set up shop across the United States. But these entrepreneurs did things differently. By avoiding big cities, they went unseen by sophisticated police departments. Law enforcement officials gradually grew wise, but shutting down such a vast distribution network has proved daunting. What worked so well in this book was how Quinones emotionally illustrates the downfall of Dreamland, the beloved public pool that closed as a direct result of the heroin scourge. What was once a prominent multigenerational gathering place became a rundown relic of a once-thriving community. Dreamland may be gone for good, but the story ends on a high note: Many addicts are now moving back to Portsmouth to get clean. As Quinones says, the town may be “as scarred and beaten as an addict’s arm,” but the dreamers are hopeful they can heal and start anew.

“Declared “the most heroin-plagued city in the U.S.” by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration in 2000, Baltimore has grappled with how to effectively address the problem of [heroin] drug addiction in the city for decades” (Tsui & Rukow, 2007, p. i). Baltimore has more people addicted to heroin, per captia, than any other U.S. city. It is estimated the heroin that is bought and sold in Baltimore on an annual basis yields as much as $1 billion in the underground drug market. Heroin addiction is an epidemic in Baltimore that dates back to the 1950s and is now a deep-rooted part of the city’s culture (Yang, 2000).

big cities just to get heroin. Suburban teens’ desire for a more powerful high has allowed

The sale of drugs on the streets of New York City will cause several problems in the community. A public marketplace where merchandise, such as drugs are sold is commonly referred to as an Open-air drug market. These drug markets generally operate in geographically modern areas at specific times so buyers and sellers can locate one another easily. An assortment of different drugs can be sold at these markets, such as heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and crack. The use of illegal drugs is often associated with murder, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, and many other serious crimes. The most common of these drugs to be sold and used by buyers is Heroin. Heroin is a highly addictive drug that can disrupt the nervous system and can have many harmful effects, such as damage to the heart, brain, liver or lungs, and even death. The abundance of heroin importing and exporting New York City has risen to the highest levels in

The usage of heroin in the Oswego area is visible to law enforcement, but not noticed as much by ordinary residents. Due to the unseen interactions between buyers and sellers, it is easy to believe drug use is non-existent in a community such as Oswego. The truth of the matter is, this is not true. In retrospect, many of the residents use drugs in part because the neighborhood they reside in is expected to be free of such activity. The people who recognized drug use was a problem became advocates to stop the issue. For instance, there is Tim and Shannon Ryan, who are the parents of a son who overdosed from heroin. Tim Ryan, introduced his son Ryan to the world of heroin, would spend $400-$500 a day on his addiction, causing his family to lose their Oswego home and forcing his wife to file for divorce. Hoping to save her family, Shannon Ryan videotapes her husband and son while under the influence believing if they viewed the tape while sober it would cause them to quit the drug. Unfortunately, this was not what happened. The Ryan’s lost their son Nick to heroin usage. Consequently, Tim and his now ex-wife publicly speak out against heroin usage. Tim who is now clean runs a non-profit organization called A Man in Recovery.

In a small town, everyone is affected by the heroin epidemic. Close-knit families and communities are torn apart by the heroin. The drug affects individuals across every

The city of Plano, Texas, recently earned a spot at the top of Forbes‘s list of “safest places” to live in the United States. Its early efforts at chasing the top prize, however, were part of a cocktail of ignorance and poor judgment that had deadly consequences for Plano’s teenagers. Plano only earned its long-sought distinction after overcoming the fallout from highly publicized episodes of teen drug overdose and suicide in the 1980s and 90s. During the 1990s, scientists at the National Institute of Health detected a nationwide rise in heroin use (Biederman). The spike was seen not only in large, urban environments, where it was perhaps not unprecedented, but also in small towns and more affluent suburbs. Plano, an affluent, newer suburb twenty miles north of Dallas, was not immune. It witnessed heroin’s devastating impact firsthand in Plano’s children, particularly those in high school. Between 1996 and 1998, heroin overdoses were the cause of 18 deaths in Plano’s young residents. But because Plano was one of the richest cities in Texas and was still recovering from the cultural backlash of cluster suicides in the 1980s, its civic and business leaders and to some extent the police tried to obfuscate the city’s heroin problem rather than confront it directly. It paid a high price for these tactics, and it took Plano decades to rebound from the fallout.

Heroin the most addictive flower that hooks users for life that brings the destruction of life. The poppy flower that grasp human mentality by the knees holding them enslave to the euphoria state that the mind has a craving wanting more. This poppy flower has addicts wanting more to have another fix of the poppy flower juice that gives another dose of heroin high. Heroin is easy to search for when looking in the direction for a euphoria journey. As Anthony Brooks (NPR) said “Heroin is the number one dope that could be sold at a cheaper price.” The people that can’t afford their medications through doctor’s orders or a single over-the-medication they look toward the cheapest price of a drug that may take away the pain for a few three hours of pain free. The hook of heroin’s’ grip never lets one go making the mind crave for more like chocolate the sweetness that gives the careless feeling of becoming less than human but a junkie and a dope fiend. The documentation of the Heroin Crisis documentary that America is the dope fiend paradise where addicts can get a fix anywhere without being notice of heroin use and heroin being transported from Mexico, South America, Asia, Laos, Vietnam and Afghanistan the number one supplier. The dope that brings current users wanting more for the craving of heroin and creating new users to make a profit through the heroin addiction that leaves victims overdosed to