Junkie Business: the Evolution and Operation of a Heroin Dealing Network
1) Brief Overview of the Book Lee D. Hoffer’s “Junkie Business: The Evolution and Operation of a Heroin Dealing Network” is an ethnography that details the buying and dealing of the highly addictive drug, heroin, in the particularly homeless area of Denver, Colorado called “Larimer” from 1995 to the year 2000. The majority of the book focuses on the partnership of two heroin dealers, Kurt and Danny, and examines their daily lifestyles and the transitional periods they faced during their operations. On a much broader level, Hoffer wanted to characterize the heroin dealing occurring on the consumer-oriented side of the heroin dealing business, as well as understand the evolution of Kurt and Danny’s operations. Hoffer’s virtually unlimited access to Denver’s heroin operations and the friendships he formed with Kurt and Danny were unprecedented in the world of ethnographic research on illegal drug dealing. As a result, Hoffer was able to better understand the deep-rooted social aspects involved in the dealer-customer relationship. Hoffer sets the foundation of the remainder of the book in chapter one by first discussing the “War on Drugs” in the United States and goes as far as saying, “the United States has realistically lost this war … Current drug policies are unrealistic and even counterproductive” (Hoffer 2). These conclusions are developed throughout the book, but are the direct result of his personal understandings of Kurt and Danny’s heroin operations, which escalated dramatically during a time in which the police and community as a whole were cracking down on and cleaning up the rampant heroin usage in Larimer and the homeless that populated this area. He details the extremely different backgrounds of Kurt and Danny, but emphasizes how important this is to their eventual success as heroin dealers. Further, the motivations behind the decision to sell heroin and the fundamentals of such an operation are understood by Hoffer as he develops a personal