Tag: art imitating life

Hey Hollywood Thats NOT How You Do Heroin

Preface: Let me cut the questions of how the Sam Hell I know what I’m talking about or what kind of authority on the subject I am off at the knees.  Between the ages of 72 and 91 I indulged in bad decisions and seriously self destructive behavior up to and including (spending a couple of dire years) Shooting as much Heroin as I could daily. I’m one of a small handful of lucky ones as I’m clean, still alive ,healthy, and not in Prison or  a State run Mental Institution. So that explains that.

First off I will give credit where credit where credit is do. The following is a short list of the Heroin Addiction properly portrayed in Hollywood Films.

  1. The color is correct. Heroin comes in two primary colors those being White and the other being Tan.
  2. The wax bags that Heroin is packaged in.
  3. Stamps: Dealers stamp their bags with some insignia like a Horse’s Head or believe it or not even a coffin (theres foreshadowing for you) as a form of Advertising so if Junkies like it they know how to get the dope they want. If there is a Blue Fox stamp on the bags Junkies will refer to it as (The) Blue Fox so they not only can identify it by sight but can also request it by name.
  4. The Cooking/Preparation of the Heroin with the token spoon,water,heating, the piece of cotton (part of a cigarette filter torn in two is quite common.), drawing the Heroin up into the syringe ,and even tieing off which is the part where the Junkie uses a belt,cord or other such thing to use as a pre injection tourniquet .

But thats as far as the accurate pretrial of the Heroin injecting process goes in Hollywood. Its rather funny that Hollywood knows all the intricacies of the process YET they still fuck it up right at the very end.

Once a Junkie purchases, prepares and draws the Dope into the syringe THIS is how its done. With that I give you the Junkie Reality List or How Dopers Do It:

Note to Reader: I think its pertinent to mention WHERE Junkies get their syringes. Most people think Junkies buy needles off dealers (which is a very slight possibility) ,buy them off other Junkies or perhaps off  of Junkie Diabetics (yes they exist BUT these such Diabetics usually sell their extra syringes to supplement their almost non existent incomes POINT BEING these people are poor or have a vice of their own that needs funding (ironically 9 out of 10 times its Alcohol) NOW THE REAL DEAL IS anyone can go into any pharmacy and buy Insulin Syringes WITHOUT A DOCTOR’S PRESCRIPTION. The reason for this (especially in an age where you have to show a photo id to get cold medicine) as far as anyone can deduct is an UNOFFICIAL policy that UNOFFICIALLY ENDORSES Clean Needles (allowing the selling of Insulin Syringes without a doctor script) to prevent HIV,AIDES,BLOOD INFECTIONS,COLLAPSED VEINS AND HEPATITIS C.

With that said here is the for mentioned Junkie Injection List:

  1. The type of syringe (as I mentioned above) Junkies use are Insulin Syringes because You don’t need a doctors script to purchase and are the needles one would find being sold on the street. IN HOLLYWOOD for some ridiculous reason have their movie Junkies using a standard 3cc syringe. 3cc syringes are the syringes your doctor uses to administer vaccinations, flu shots, tetanus shot etc. It is also the syringe (If your a pet owner) used by veterinarians to administer vaccinations, antibiotic shots, pain medication among other things. THE EASIEST EXAMPLE IS THIS A Phlebotomist (a person who draws blood) uses a 3cc syringe to draw human blood ,and veterinarians also use 3cc syringes to draw blood for testing.
  2. The actual injection is the exact opposite of what is seen in Hollywood films. In films the actor Junkies inject themselves at absurdly WRONG ANGLES anything from 45-90 degrees which would make it medically IMPOSSIBLE to use for an intravenous injection. The reason that such wildly wrong degrees are medically incorrect is simple at those specified angles the syringe needle would PUNCTURE RIGHT THROUGH THE VEIN ITSELF ,and would come out the other side thus negating the desired injection. The degree that is correct (and is taught to medical students) is 15 degrees because you want to run along side the vein and then puncture it, any other angle your essential just stabbing through the vein (like Norman in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho ) and wasting the dope.
  3. THE DRAW BACK, while there a small handful of films that actually do portray this part at all an example being in Quentin Tarantino’s movie Pulp Fiction when John Travolta’s character shoots up. The draw back is when the Junkie injects and once they believe they have hit and are in the desired vein the PULL THE SYRINGE PLUNGER BACK slightly to see if a bit of blood enters into the syringe. Once there is blood mixed in the syringe the Junkie knows that THEIR IN THE VEIN.

Afterward: I wrote this because over hundreds of decades since I kicked  dope I have had the pleasure of meeting a few other ex-Junkies and just like me they all found it irritating as a mad ass motherfucker that Hollywood couldn’t get the last part of the process correct. Thusly I dedicate this to all of my fellow ex-Junkies around the world, its just one ex-Junkie’s attempt to set the record strait.