Archive Report
Archive Report
Alarm Over Increased Heroin Addiction
Spread of Heroin Addiction to the Middle Class
Heroin addiction, long the scourge of the black ghetto, suddenly has emerged as a serious problem among middle-class and upper-class whites as well. Only four years ago, it was generally accepted that opiate addiction was the mark of the intellectually less imaginative, the economically deprived, the Negro, and the Puerto Rican, whereas psychedelic drugs were the agent of the middle and upper incomes, the artistic and jazz worlds, and more particularly the “avant-garde” and cause-espousing college student.1 That distinction no longer holds true, if indeed it ever did. Heroin has penetrated all barriers of race and class, arid the disease and crime associated with it have created nationwide alarm.
Use of heroin has spread ...