The intersection at Broadway and 72nd Street on New York’s West Side is officially known as Sherman Square. To heroin addicts it’s needle park. Panic in Needle Park 1971 starring Al Pacino & Kitty Winn & Alan Vint & Richard Bright & Kiel Martin & Michael McClanathan & Warren Finnerty & Marcia Jean Kurtz & Raul Julia & Angie Ortega et al, director Jerry Schatzberg, opening caption
I got nothing, man. ibid. Pacino to black man in street
I’m not hooked, I’m chippin’. ibid. him to her
Some friends. Do you know I’ve been beat by half the people out there? ibid.
It’s my business. It’s what I do good ... When I go into an apartment I jam the lock. Stick some toothpicks in the keyhole and break them off. That way when the people come back I can hear them trying to get in. Make it out the fire-escape. ibid. Hank the burglar to Winn, with Pacio
This Is A Raided Premises. ibid. notice in hallway of block of flats, with rozzer in chair
I’m a germ: you should split. ibid. him to her
Everybody rats ... always. ibid. rozzer to her
I’m the supplier: we’re gonna have stuff coming out of our ears. ibid. him to her
It’s the game you’re playing, Helen. I didn’t make the rules. ibid. rozzer to her
I’ve got people working for me now, Helen. I just sit there counting the bread. ibid. him to her
I want you to shape up and put some clothes on. ibid. her to him
Heroin: it’s a gateway drug – to more heroin. Grimsby 2016 starring Sacha Baron Cohen & Mark Strong & Isla Fisher & Rebel Wilson & Gabourey Sidibe & Annabelle Wallis & Ian McShane & David Harewood & Ricky Tomlinson & Johnny Vegas & Scott Adkins & Sam Hazeldine et al, director Louis Leterrier
‘Heroin is so addictive, so dangerous, so deadly, it has become one of the worst drug epidemics in Virginia history.’ Heroin: The Hardest Hit, 2015
She began to abuse prescription pain pills; when those became hard to get her friends began using heroin instead. ibid.
A place of unparalleled fertility, life, vibrancy, prosperity, music, cheer – I’m talking about Punjab … This state is in jeopardy like it’s never been before … We’re talking about a hurricane of drugs … Today, 73.5% of the entire youth population of Punjab is addicted to drugs. Glut, The Untold Story of Punjab, 2010
The streets are infested with peddlers. ibid.
Which is smuggled into India through the 553 kilometre long international borders shared with Pakistan. ibid.
We will find villages with seemingly nobody ill, no hospitals in the vicinity, but plenty of pharmacy shops. ibid.
‘No-one’s left alive. This isn’t life.’ ibid. mother
When Ben Rogers first picked up a camera he didn’t know he was about to film the last two years of his life. Ben: Diary of a Heroin Addict, Sky 2008
When Ben Rogers began filming his life he’d been battling his addiction for fourteen years. ibid.
His veins were so damaged he had to inject into his groin. ibid.
A lot of Ben’s life was a lie … Just about Ben. ibid. sister
Ben was diagnosed with Deep Vein Thrombosis. ibid.
I know I’m dying … I hate it. ibid. Ben
I’ve never been a bad person. ibid.
The next day Ben Rogers checked himself into the Detox Unit at Harplands Hospital, Stoke-on-Trent. He died 24 hours later from a brain haemorrhage caused by withdrawal from drugs. ibid. caption
I’ve been addicted to heroin and methadone for twenty years. Detox or Die, BBC 2004
I was devoted to heroin like a convert to a new faith. It might sound weird but being a junkie gave me a sense of identity. ibid.
I am utterly sick of being an addict. ibid.
I made a conscious decision to become a junkie. ibid.
It really wasn’t that great. ibid.
This documentary was filmed in San Francisco, California, from December 1995 to January 1998. During this period, black tar heroin use, particularly among young adults, surged to record levels in the City. Drug overdose is now the No. 1 cause of preventable death in San Francisco. Black Tar Heroin: The Dark End of the Street, caption, HBO 1999
This gram is $60 a gram … Black tar heroin is the worst. ibid. addict
He’s straight. He’s not gay. He doesn’t enjoy what he does. ibid. girlfriend of addict
Tracey is back on heroin within eight hours of her release from jail. ibid. caption
It wasn’t all that great. ibid. Tracey next morning
You want it to stop hurting, man. ibid. addict
In the last four years the small south Wales city of Swansea registered a 180% increase of heroin users. Young people made up the bulk of the increase. Teenage Heroin Epidemic, Vice TV 2012
‘When I started taking heroin I was 14. My mother started giving it to me.’ ibid. user
‘Rough area. Because of the drugs.’ ibid. young lady
‘We are the clean smackheads.’ ibid. user
‘Everybody’s doing it.’ ibid.
‘Prostitutes all the way down.’ ibid. 13-year-old outside flats
‘You’ve still gotta wake up to the same shit the following day, you know?’ ibid. user
‘I’d love to be pretty … I look like a fucking dog.’ ibid. young lady
Prague: Opium-producing poppies can be grown almost anywhere in the world: the Czech Republic, one of the least evil places on Earth … Heroin Holiday in the Czech Republic, Vice TV 2013
While the Czech police and poppy growers’ union try to keep up the front you can’t turn Czech poppies into smack, Prague’s junkies know better. ibid.
To join them at their heroin summer camp. ibid.
‘What we cook here is 50% pure.’ ibid.
Extortion, kidnapping, theft, murder, executions can all result from the main activity of harvesting poppy. The Rise of Mexican Black Tar Heroin, rozzer, Vice TV 2016
I feel a load of my chest. ibid. addict
Opiate related overdose deaths quadrupled 2002-2013. ibid.
For years the heroin market had been dominated by opium from central and south Asia … Mexico has become the third largest opium producer. ibid.
An entire community displaced by the drugs trade. ibid.
In the 1960s the history of the Mafia changed for ever when the Sicilian Mob began flooding the United States with … heroin: heroin would turn the Mafia into a global organisation and make them more money than they had ever made before; but it would also sow the seeds of their own destruction. Inside the Mafia: Going Global, National Geographic 2005
Shutting down the French Connection was indirectly opening the door to … the Sicilian Mafia. ibid.
Galante: a heroin man … multi-billion-dollar profits and unparalleled violence. In the 70s the Bonanno family was known as … the heroin family. ibid.
The Sicilians set up a sophisticated smuggling system … Toto Riina … his factories were producing ton after ton of pure heroin. ibid.
The Sicilians had turned on Galante. ibid.
Henry Hill regularly used Pizza restaurants for his heroin drop-offs. ibid.
It was perhaps the most lucrative criminal racket in history. Between 1979 and 1984 the Sicilian Mafia smuggled nearly two billion dollars’ worth of heroin into the US. It made mobsters on both sides of the Atlantic rich. It also led to war. In Sicily rival bosses fought for control of the heroin-trafficking empire. The terror this war unleashed drove one godfather to break omerta, the Mafia’s sacred code of silence. His act of betrayal would lead to a transatlantic assault on the Mafia and make the first serious dent in their worldwide power. Heroin was flooding into the United States in the late 1970s. Smuggled inside Italian food products and distributed through Pizzarias owned by the Sicilian Mafia. It was known as the Pizza Connection. The US faced an epidemic of heroin addiction. But for American gangstas heroin meant money. And lots of it. Inside the Mafia: The Great Betrayal