Word: heroines
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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THERE IS a curious ambivalence about our present-day view of the heroin addict: although we often give lip service to the notion that he is a sick or psychologically disturbed person who needs understanding and treatment rather than punishment, our more basic and emotional response of revulsion, fear and hatred is reflected in our implicit acceptance of the fact that the use of heroin and other opiates continues to be dealt with primarily through prohibition and the imposition of criminal penalties. This means that addicts--with the exception of a few like physicians and pharmacists--have little choice...
Those who argue against a predominantly medical approach to the problem of heroin addiction, such as exists in Britain today, assert that it would lead to an explosive increase in the number of addicts. They erroneously point to the British experience for supporting evidence. The fact of the matter is that since 1969, when proper controls for dispensing heroin were instituted, there has been no such increase in the number of addicts in England...
...British experiment with heroin maintenance is not the first. When the Japanese took over Formosa in 1895, there were 200,000 opium addicts and a flourishing black market with all its attendant crime. The Japanese registered the addicts, and made opium available under controlled conditions. By the time they left in 1938, not only was there very little, if any, crime connected with opium, but the number of addicts had dwindled from 200,000 to 20,000, most of whom were over...
...major enterprises are already flourishing. One is a moving company headed by Pete Diaz, 29, who grew up in Manhattan's Spanish Harlem and began mainlining heroin at eleven. He learned to drive a tractor-trailer rig when he was twelve, and served five years for armed robbery before he turned 21. At first, Diaz says, "four of us rented trucks from Hertz and moved our friends. Now we've built up to twelve people, the family owns a van, and we cover any job within 100 miles." An equally succcessful member is Andy Nikolatos, 23, who comes...
...them near the end of the line when it comes to jobs. The least fortunate are the hard-drug addicts, who have returned home to a country that is not prepared to take care of them. According to the VA, there may be as many as 100,000 such heroin users...