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Heroin


 

:For a female hero, see Heroine

Cultural influences

Heroin began to appear as a cultural artefact within a few years of its discovery, although in that relatively short period it has come to occupy a paradoxical cultural position, being both demonised and glamorised, often in the same text. There are clear precursors to heroin's present cultural role in the late 18th and 19th centuries, notably in works like Thomas de Quincy's Confessions of an English Opium Eater. But, due to its high cost, its powerful narcotic and addictive characteristics and the dramatic effects of the drug on users' lives, over the last century there have been frequent and often highly sensational depictions of heroin use amongst artists, musicians and the like.

Related Topics:
Thomas de Quincy - Confessions of an English Opium Eater

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The rigorously negative portrayal of heroin use became a precept for American law and drug enforcement agencies, and the U.S. exerted considerable pressure on other nations to follow suit, as part of its anti-drug policy. But although governments have also striven both to portray heroin as totally destructive, and to apprise the public of the very real dangers, heroin has acquired a powerful illicit mystique.

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One of the first popular portrayals of heroin use was (probably) in the Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Although the references are not precise, and it is widely considered that the references in the Holmes stories suggest that Holmes had become addicted to another recently discovered "wonder drug", cocaine, many believe that Doyle may have been in fact referring to heroin. Although the drug references were deleted in earlier filmed versions, they re-appeared in later dramatisations, such as the Nicholas Meyer feature film The Seven Percent Solution and in the popular 1980s British TV adaptations of the Homes stories, starring Jeremy Brett.

Related Topics:
Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Cocaine - The Seven Percent Solution - Jeremy Brett

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Heroin has long been closely linked with music and the music industry. It first emerged as a major social problem after World War II when it began to cut a swathe through the jazz world. Many leading musicians -- particularly those identified as belonging to the bebop school -- became addicts, and the image of the junkie jazz musician was soon elevated to the level of archetype by newspaper reports and movies like The Man With The Golden Arm -- which was, ironically, one of the first Hollywood films to deal with the subject of drug addiction in a relatively non-sensational and non-propagandist style.

Related Topics:
World War II - Jazz - Bebop - The Man With The Golden Arm

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Marijuana had been a popular recreational drug with jazz musicians for some decades, and it is possible that this cannabis subculture predisposed users to trying heroin, but the most likely explanation is one relating to milieu -- it was arguably the emergence of Mafia-run drug rings, which appeared cocurrently with the infiltration of organised crime into the music industry, that placed heroin within reach of vulnerable performers, and there is little doubt that dealers and mobsters actively exploited the plight of these musicians in order to glamorise the drug.

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Saxophonist Charlie Parker, pianist Thelonious Monk and singer Billie Holiday were all the subjects of highly publicised drug busts, with Holiday spending eight months in goal at the height of her career. Holiday and Parker (or at least the cult that grew up around them) have been blamed for glamorising the drug, and Bird disciples Miles Davis and John Coltrane both became celebrity addicts, as did many of their contemporaries, including singer Anita O'Day. Jast around the start of the rock era in the mid-Sixties, the overdose death of iconoclastic satirist Lenny Bruce generated lurid headlines around the world.

Related Topics:
Charlie Parker - Thelonious Monk - Billie Holiday - Miles Davis - John Coltrane - Anita O'Day - Lenny Bruce

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Due to their close connections with the jazz scene, many writers of the so-called Beat Movement also experimented with or used heroin. The most notable was undoubtedly William S. Burroughs, who wrote extensively about the drug in his books as well as being a regular user himself for many years.

Related Topics:
Beat Movement - William S. Burroughs

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Thanks to its strong foothold in jazz, heroin quickly penetrated the emerging rock music scene in the late 1960s. Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones is probably the best-known rock junkie, and he was an addict for most of the 1970s. He was probably introduced to the drug by the band's friend and associate, art dealer Robert Fraser, who was using heroin regularly by the mid-Sixties. Richards, who somehow managed to avoid death and eventually kick the drug, arguably inherited the heroin glamour that had surrounded Charlie Parker, and his addiction was heavily romanticized by the rock press.

Related Topics:
The Rolling Stones - Robert Fraser

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The Lou Reed song "Heroin", first recorded and performed by The Velvet Underground in 1967, marked one of the first attempts to explore heroin use in the rock idiom, and heroin and the culture surrounding its use featured in many of Reed's songs. However, performers in the folk genre had already been writing and singing about it for several years by the time it emerged as subject matter in the rock genre.

Related Topics:
Lou Reed - The Velvet Underground - Folk

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Although it was less publicly influential than their use of cannabis and LSD, heroin also featured in the story of The Beatles. The name "Henry the horse" in the song "Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite" (1967) is reputed to refer to heroin, and the song "Happiness is a warm gun" is also thought to contain coded references to it. In 1970 John Lennon admitted that he and Yoko Ono had used heroin during the latter days of the group's career, around the time of their drug busts and Ono's subsequent miscarriage.

Related Topics:
LSD - The Beatles - Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite - John Lennon - Yoko Ono

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At the turn of the 70s, heroin brought aboubt the deaths of two of the major rock stars of the day -- singer Janis Joplin and (allegedly) Doors frontman Jim Morrison -- and guitar legend Jimi Hendrix was also charged with possession not long before his death. The history of rock culture in the 1970s and beyond has been littered with celebrity junkies and OD victims, including Free guitarist Paul Kossoff, Dr John (a longtime addict) and singer-songwriters Tim Hardin and Tim Buckley, both of whom also died of overdoses. The drug has continued to exert a hold over the entertainment world, with recent celebrity addicts including singer Boy George and actor Robert Downey Jr. Overdose fatalities sadly also continue, such as the the widely reported death of actor River Phoenix, and the addiction of musician Kurt Cobain, who took his own life, was also the subject of extensive media coverage.

Related Topics:
Janis Joplin - Jim Morrison - Jimi Hendrix - Free - Paul Kossoff - Dr John - Tim Hardin - Tim Buckley - Boy George - Robert Downey Jr - River Phoenix - Kurt Cobain

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Heroin consumption and addiction has been featured in numerous works of art, ranging from songs and films to novels.

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Amongst these are:

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Novels

Factual accounts

Films

Songs

◄ Heroin: Drug interactions
Heroin: See also ►

~ Table of Content ~

►Introduction
►History
►Usage and effects
►Production and trafficking
►Risks of non-medical abuse of heroin
►Withdrawal symptoms
►Drug interactions
►Cultural influences
►See also
►External links
►Books

 

 

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