Everyone shot up in those days, and we would get off on the curb by a hydrant or HIV, almost all of us with Hep C. And as the government prepared to flood the neighbourhood with police in one of the first salvos of the new war, they told us there were about 250,000 dopefiends in the metro area, most of us poor, Black or Latin.

I don't recognise the Alphabet City I knew in the East Village of today. The burned out shells where we copped are now $1500/month studios, and the cops will leap from their cars to arrest the owners of unleashed dogs. There are no lines of sick junkies waiting to cop "Bad Boy" or "Poison". The dope's still here though. True, the area is no longer the heroin distribution centre for the all the states around - no, that business has spread out across the city. You can cop anywhere these days if you know what's what, except that now you don't have to put up with cane swinging line enforcers and rules about which way to hold your money. No, the market's consumer driven these days - you can cop a few bags from the corner store with the right code word, they'll deliver to your home if you want, give you real discounts for quantity and brand loyalty, even let you return a bad batch now and then.

If you believe the stats, the dope averages 60% now, most people sniff, and fewer of us are infected with HIV. There are still reportedly about 250,000 dopefiends in the metro area - an increasing number of us middle-class and Caucasian.
If all this is the result of the War on Drugs, perhaps it's time we enlisted…


NYC Glossary

It's hard to believe it's been 15 years since Ron and Nancy Reagan cranked up the heat on the War on [Some] Drugs and sold folks on the idea that invasion of ones home by a SWAT team was something that all Americans had a right to expect. Not that this was the first time our fearless leaders had declared war on a molecule. We've been through plenty of chemical warfare in this country, from turn of the century campaigns against cocaine-crazed Black men visually raping Southern belles with their dilated pupils, to drives in the 70s to save pot-head teenage boys from the shame of Dolly Parton-esque breast growth. All along though, it's been us dopefiends who've made up most of the casualties. Hell, we started the century able to buy pure heroin via mail order and now we end it unable to buy dried decorative poppies in the florist's.

Still, the last two decades have been rougher yet. The powers that be seem to have decided that the solution to unemployment in our post-industrial economy is to imprison half the population and hire the other half to guard them. At the rate we're going, we'll meet that goal soon - as it is, nearly 1% of our adult male population is currently behind bars. No other Western democracy comes close, and when you factor in the effects of spiralling
mandatory drug testing, increased police powers, and ever decreasing privacy, you can bet that lead will remain unchallenged - even if our right to call ourselves a "democracy" does not.

Here in my hometown of New York City, the dogs have really been loosed on us. The tanks* are filled with public beer drinkers and subway fare-beaters, and you can catch a six month bit* just for looking cross-eyed at a cop. Yet when it comes down to copping* and getting off, the War on hasn't made much headway.
We'd line up to cop in queues stretching around the corner, kept in place by enforcers with golf-clubs in their fists or pistols in their waistbands ordering us to have our money ready and fanned out just so .. reminding us not to linger post-purchase .

Drugs
brand names of different bags: "Red Tape!... Seven-Up...ET!!" We'd line up to cop in que When I first got turned on to heroin, New York was still the dope capital of the world, and "Alphabet City" was still the capital of New York dope neighbourhoods. In the days before the real estate interests moved in and the area was declarewith the cries of the steerers touting the d an extension of the "East Village" suitable for yuppie inhabitation, the streets belonged to us. Block after block of abandoned buildings and vacant lots were commandeered by major dealing organisations. The streets echoed ues stretching around the corner, kept in place by enforcers with golf-clubs in their fists or pistols in their
believed the stats, the dope averaged maybe 10% pure. Most of us would become infected with money ready and fanned out just so -- rewaistbands who'd order us to have our minding us not to linger post-purpay a couple of bucks to a shooting gallery, renting works stored in a bloody glass of water if we weren't too picky. If you chase with chants of "Cop and bop!"* The police, when they rode through at all, would rarely even stop, much less get out of their cars, and business would continue without a pause.