People think it’s all about misery and desperation and death and all that shite, which is not to be ignored. But what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn’t do it. After all, we’re not fucking stupid. At least, we’re not that fucking stupid. Take the best orgasm you ever had, multiply it by a thousand and you’re still nowhere near it. When you’re on junk you have only one worry: scoring. When you’re off it you are suddenly obliged to worry about all sorts of other shite. Got no money: can’t get pissed. Got money: drinking too much. Can’t get a bird: no chance of a ride. Got a bird: too much hassle. You have to worry about bills, about food, about some football team that never fucking wins, about human relationships and all the things that really don’t matter when you’ve got a sincere and truthful junk habit. ibid.
The heroin makes you constipated. ibid.
[explaining the gaps in his employment history] Yes, I can. The truth – well, the truth is that I’ve had a long-standing problem with heroin addiction. I’ve been known to sniff it, smoke it, swallow it, stick it up my arse and inject it into my veins. I’ve been trying to combat this addiction, but unless you count social security scams and shoplifting, I haven’t had a regular job in years. I feel it’s important to mention this. ibid.
The downside of coming off junk was I knew I would need to mix with my friends again in a state of full consciousness. It was awful. They reminded me so much of myself, I could hardly bear to look at them. Take Sick Boy, for instance. He came off junk at the same time as me – not because he wanted to, you understand, but just to annoy me. Just to show me how easily he could do it, thereby downgrading my own struggle. Sneaky fucker, don’t you think? ibid.
At or around the time Spud, Sickboy and I made a healthy, informed, democratic decision to get back on heroin as soon as possible. It took about twelve hours. ibid.
The good times couldn’t last for ever. ibid.
To take the pain away. So I cooked up. And she got a hit. ibid.
I don’t feel the sickness yet, but it’s in the post, that’s for sure. I’m in the junky limbo at the moment. Too ill to sleep, too tired to stay awake. But the sickness is on its way. Sweat, chills, nausea, pain and craving. ibid.
I need one more fucking hit! ibid.
It seems, however, that I really am the luckiest guy in the world. Several years of addiction right in the middle of an epidemic, surrounded by the living dead. But not me. I’m negative. It’s official. And once the pain goes away that’s when the real battle starts. Depression. Boredom. You feel so low you want to top yourself. ibid.
This was to be my final hit. But let’s be clear about this. There are final hits and there are final hits. What kind was this to be? ibid.
He’s got more than two hundred kilos of heroin coming in from Singapore shipped out of Tokyo. Hell Up in Harlem 1973 starring Fred Williamson & Julius W Harris & Gloria Hendry & Margaret Avery & Tony Kind & Gerald Gordon, director Larry Cohen
We got our own people in the government. Why else d’ya think we’d be fighting this war in the middle of nowhere? We set it up ... They’re all working for us and they don’t even know it. And d’ya know why? Heroin ... We got a ready-made market ... The whole thing’s set up ... We’re making a killing. Dirty Deeds 2002 starring Bryan Brown & Toni Collette & John Goodman & Sam Neill & Sam Worthington et al, director David Caesar, Sal
Heroin, Mr Tibbs. Scag. Smack. About four million dollars’ worth wholesale. The Organization 1971 starring Sidney Poitier & Barbara McNair & Gerald S O’Loughlin & Sheree North & Fred Beir & Raul Julia & James A Watson junior et al, director Don Medford, gangsta
A simple matter of just heroin smugglers. Live and Let Die 1973 starring Roger Moore & Yaphet Kotto & Jane Seymour & Clifton James & Julius Harris & Geoffrey Holder & Bernard Lee & David Hedison & Gloria Hendry & Louis Maxwell et al, director Guy Hamilton, Bond
Alfred McCoy: The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States X: Bush & Obama: Age of Terror, Showtime 2012
90% of the heroin on Britain’s streets is Afghan. Angus MacQueen, Our Drugs War: Birth of a Narco-State, Channel 4 2010
Instead, General Aminullah was sacked for accusing government officials of involvement. ibid.
In many places the drugs trade is the only source of income. ibid.
The Big Fish are often in the government or in the parliament and have real power. And these are the people and the system that we have troops in Afghanistan fighting and dying for. ibid.
President Karzai had pardoned them [five drugs traffickers] and they were released from jail. ibid.
He was only a guard: the Judge said so, the Prosecutor said so, I say so. Yet they sentence him like a smuggler. But those who smuggle by the lorry-load with convoys of opium and heroin, none of them get arrested. Or when they are, they don’t stay arrested; it can’t be done. In this country power is in the hands of a few. The government is theirs. The drugs mafia controls government. Everyone knows the mafia rules; the government belongs to the mafia. I want you to know this. Afghan defence lawyer, reacting angrily to sentence of penniless client for sixteen years plus fine
The Afghan war resulted in a continuation of the dope trafficking – heroin out of Afghanistan. For certain, the Central Intelligence Agency, which was once headed by George Bush Senior, was trafficking in heroin to finance their operations. They were trafficking in heroin out of South East Asia. Anthony J Hilder
We all need something to help us unwind at the end of the day. You might have a glass of wine, or a joint, or a big delicious blob of heroin to silence your silly brainbox of its witterings but there has to be some form of punctuation, or life just seems utterly relentless. Russell Brand, My Booky Wook
Dope never helped anybody sing better or play music better or do anything better. All dope can do for you is kill you – and kill you the long, slow, hard way. Billie Holiday
In this country, don’t forget, a habit is no damn private hell. There’s no solitary confinement outside of jail. A habit is hell for those you love. Billie Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues, 1956
I knew I’d really licked it one morning when I couldn’t stand television any more. When I was high and wanted to stay that way, I could watch TV by the hour and loved it. Who can tell what detours are ahead? Another trial? Sure. Another jail? Maybe. But if you’ve beat the habit again and kicked TV no jail on earth can worry you too much. Billie Holiday, God Bless the Child
Someone who takes a drug that is very bad such as heroin is a crime against himself, not a crime against society. Mick Jagger, World in Action interview
I don’t want to be a junky for the rest of my life. I don’t want to be a junky at all. Sid Vicious
Heroin is more than six hundred times cheaper than it was before the War on Drugs. Penn & Teller, Bullshit! s2e4: The War on Drugs, Showtime 2004
Producers, traffickers, dealers, users: they are part of a $300 billion a year global industry. Drugs Inc s1e3: Heroin, National Geographic 2010
Nearly a quarter of all people who try the drug eventually become addicted. ibid.
Insight [Vancouver] – a government-run facility that provides users with clean needles and a safe place to shoot up. ibid.
Afghanistan ... Two million people across the country are involved in the cultivation of opium. More than 70% of the world’s heroin originates in Afghanistan. ibid.
Switzerland ... Free heroin for addicts who meet the criteria, prescribed by doctors care of the taxpayer. ibid.
20,000 people – almost 3% of Alaska’s population – are now addicted to opiates. Drugs Inc s3e2: Alaska Heroin Rush
Heroin withdrawal symptoms include muscle cramps, nausea and in extreme cases even death. ibid.
Heroin can be smoked, snorted or injected. ibid.
Heroin wraps the user in a blissful state of relaxation. ibid.
It’s made a long trip so it can get into my arm. Drugs Inc s3e4: Drugs Kings of New York, Peter
Heroin has been around New York since the early 1900s. ibid.
The evolution of premium drug delivery services. ibid.
Between 2004 and 2008 more than 1000 people on Long Island died after overdoses of either heroin or prescription opiates. ibid.
You’ll find a multi-layered drug industry that is continuously evolving to meet the city’s high demand. ibid.