Smack: Heroin and the American City (Politics and Culture in Modern America) [Hardcover]

Eric C. Schneider (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 24, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0812241169 | ISBN-13: 978-0812241167

Why do the vast majority of heroin users live in cities? In his provocative history of heroin in the United States, Eric C. Schneider explains what is distinctively urban about this undisputed king of underworld drugs.

During the twentieth century, New York City was the nation's heroin capital—over half of all known addicts lived there, and underworld bosses like Vito Genovese, Nicky Barnes, and Frank Lucas used their international networks to import and distribute the drug to cities throughout the country, generating vast sums of capital in return. Schneider uncovers how New York, as the principal distribution hub, organized the global trade in heroin and sustained the subcultures that supported its use.

Through interviews with former junkies and clinic workers and in-depth archival research, Schneider also chronicles the dramatically shifting demographic profile of heroin users. Originally popular among working-class whites in the 1920s, heroin became associated with jazz musicians and Beat writers in the 1940s. Musician Red Rodney called heroin the trademark of the bebop generation. "It was the thing that gave us membership in a unique club," he proclaimed. Smack takes readers through the typical haunts of heroin users—52nd Street jazz clubs, Times Square cafeterias, Chicago's South Side street corners—to explain how young people were initiated into the drug culture.

Smack recounts the explosion of heroin use among middle-class young people in the 1960s and 1970s. It became the drug of choice among a wide swath of youth, from hippies in Haight-Ashbury and soldiers in Vietnam to punks on the Lower East Side. Panics over the drug led to the passage of increasingly severe legislation that entrapped heroin users in the criminal justice system without addressing the issues that led to its use in the first place. The book ends with a meditation on the evolution of the war on drugs and addresses why efforts to solve the drug problem must go beyond eliminating supply.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Schneider's absorbing history of heroin's proliferation in America draws a parallel between the evolution and decline of American cities and the rise of heroin use. Rather than treating the city as a "backdrop," Schneider interprets cities as "the organizers of the world opium market," and meticulously traces heroin's ascendancy from early 20th century opium dens to the 1920s jazz milieu and into the suburbs of the late 20th century suburbs when heroin finally attracted the attention of mainstream media. He identifies cities, most notably New York, as hubs of heroin distribution, where residents often futilely attempted to save their neighborhoods from further loss of capital investment and migration to the suburbs. But as people migrated, so did the drug, and Schneider expertly shows that the fusion of the counterculture and increasing urban blight helped drive heroin into white middle class neighborhoods. Interviews with former addicts and social workers resonate amid Schneider's efficient research. At the same time he remains true to his unsentimental analysis of heroin's presence in American society, revealing the extent to which American cities are financially and socially weakened hosts to a parasitic element.
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Review

"A sympathetic, engaging, and highly readable antidote to the war-ondrugs-style morality tale. At times the book reads like the award-winning and controversial HBO television series The Wire. . . . Schneider draws his audience into a colorful narrative complete with larger-than-life characters, heart-tugging tragedies, and triumphant victories that complicate a more simplistic rendering of what constitutes right and wrong, legal and illegal, or mainstream and black market. He effectively humanizes the issue with testimony from users, dealers, traffickers, police, politicians, and educators to show how all parties in this conflict have struggled to bring justice and security to their communities."—American Historical Review

"Schneider has produced that rarest of academic commodities—a page-turner. The book is exceedingly well written, and its fascinating research and analysis are sure to make it a central text in the field."—Journal of American History

"Deeply researched and briskly written, with rare photographs and biographical vignettes to keep the narrative moving along, Smack . . . is a triumph of imaginative historical scholarship, though a bittersweet one, written by someone in obvious mourning for the drug-accelerated decline of America's great cities."—Addiction

"Schneider's absorbing history of heroin's proliferation in America draws a parallel between the evolution and decline of American cities and the rise of heroin use. Rather than treating the city as a "backdrop," Schneider interprets cities as 'the organizers of the world opium market,' and meticulously traces heroin's ascendancy from early 20th century opium dens to the 1920s jazz milieu and into the suburbs of the late 20th century when heroin finally attracted the attention of the mainstream media."—Publisher's Weekly

"Since the end of World War II, American cities have been home to illicit drug markets where heroin has been among the most widely-sold products. Smack is Eric Schneider's masterful explanation of how heroin entered America's cities, who used it, what happened as a result and how obtuse public policy and naked corruption not only failed to check its distribution but sometimes even contributed to its spread. Schneider exposes the deep misconceptions underlying the nation's futile war on drugs and offers sane and realistic alternatives that, historic experience suggests, could work, if only public authorities have the courage and will."—Michael Katz, The Price of Citizenship: Redefining the American Welfare State

"A thoughtful, measured, and eminently readable study of that illuminating place where urban and medical history meet the study of media and policymaking. Schneider's book will not only be relevant to academics, but to any general reader concerned with the challenging world of crime and social policy. The author's tone of lucid clarity is particularly welcome in an area marked by polemic and predictable advocacy."—Charles Rosenberg, The Care of Strangers: The Rise of America's Hospital System

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press (September 24, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812241169
• ISBN-13: 978-0812241167
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #926,898 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth the read, February 8, 2009

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Smack: Heroin and the American City (Politics and Culture in Modern America) (Hardcover)

"Smack: Heroin and the American City" tells the story of heroin in America and its influence in the world of underworld narcotics. Filled with personal research and interviews with experts as well as former users, "Smack" traces the drug's long history and tells the intriguing story of the city drug. To anyone intrigued by the history of heroin in America, "Smack" is worth the read.

5.0 out of 5 stars Heroin and the city, November 22, 2008

By 

Mark J. Stern - See all my reviews

This review is from: Smack: Heroin and the American City (Politics and Culture in Modern America) (Hardcover)

Schneider's book combines a wealth of insights into the history of drug use with a thoughtful analysis of its uniquely "urban" quality. I recommend this book for anyone interested in 20th (or 21st) century urban history.