When I started Eric Schneider's Smack, I expected a jolting diatribe against one of the scariest and sexiest drugs our country has ever dealt with, a rush just as close to a high as a nonfiction book could get me. That's what I was hoping for. That's what was going to make me understand heroin in the American city.
But no. Schneider avoids the sensationalistic language that a writer might easily employ with such a sexy subject and he tells a pretty tame tale of the history of heroin in the USA. That, coupled with the fact that on almost every page he mentions the importance of setting, Schneider proves his thesis: that the American city and the opiate can't be separated and, moreover, that heroin has been shaped by and has shaped the American city, most notably New York (a city that housed "48 percent" of the nation's addicts in 1963). These qualities make the book a success.
Schneider deals with his hard subject with a surprisingly soft touch. Without even trying, you can link the subject -- heroin -- to some of the catchiest words in headline history. Jazz, drugs, bebop, sex, violence, hipsters, punk, revolution, Viet Nam, speakeasies, segregation, ghettos, racism, dirty cops, politicians, murder, money, health care, AIDS... just to name a dozen. So, in order to make a specific point and not get lost in the craziness, Schneider adopts a very matter-of-fact tone. For example, he writes. "In 1974, Mexican heroin, which had accounted for no more than 20 percent of the national market at the beginning of the decade, furnished over 70 percent (some say as much as 90 percent) of the nation's heroin supply." Now, take that sentence and swap "Nebraskan" for "Mexican" and "corn" for "heroin" and you pretty much have a line from a 500-page history of the American farm industry, which no matter how you say it, just isn't sexy. While avoiding the sensationalism, Schneider doesn't completely dehumanize the problem. For example, he tells the story of fifteen-year-old Tommy Gordon who overdosed, despite caring parents, close friends, and access to detox facilities.
But for the most part, Schneider stays removed. His intention in telling Tommy's story doesn't seem to be to make you cry or inspire a made-for-TV movie, but rather to make you understand how Tommy was able to use the drug. And through this, he teaches the reader a lot. The book offers an interesting and fairly comprehensive history of heroin use in the country, from its introduction when opium was first outlawed in 1909 to its resurgence through the jazz scene in the 1930s, after each of the great world wars, then finally with the punk scene in the 1980s as one of the most widely used illegal drugs. Also, Schneider focuses on the logistical reasons that heroin use grew as other drugs were outlawed or use dropped. For example, heroin "has distinct advantages over both opium and morphine," because it's "more powerful" and even more importantly, "smugglers found it was the easiest and most efficient to smuggle...with the highest value and lowest volume." (Opium, which is smelly and bulky, can be converted to heroin powder through a tricky chemical process. This is often done right before it's exported to the States, then the pure product can be cut with fillers by the drug sellers to effectively expand the product.) He also dispels some common societal myths. For example, peer pressure, not the evil, middle-aged drug dealers in back alleys preying on innocent school children with bobby socks and pigtails, is what helped heroin use to spread.
Ultimately, Schneider proves his point, bringing every chapter back to the connection between the drug and the city. From its concentration of pharmaceutical companies, to its dense neighborhoodsand underground music scene, Schneider connects everything that makes New York unique to everything that allows heroin to spread. And New York pays its price. East Harlem and the South Bronx saw "disinvestment, the disinterest of public authorities" slowly take over and, by as early as the 1960s, "local junkies...universally vilified for preying on the neighborhood" had made everyday life a challenge. For New York, "A drug subculture is rooted in physical spaces that sustain it and allow it to flourish."
And it's crucial that Schneider prove that point. By doing so, he offers the reader every reason to believe that "the social setting of the inner city was the most important determinant of who used heroin." He then takes this notion to the next level. "The real problem is not in legislation regarding a specific drug but in the overall direction of American drug policy, which is targeted against the users themselves rather than the social setting that produces drug use," he writes. Despite the war on drugs, people haven't stopped using heroin, and they haven't given up on New York. But Schneider's tactics bring logic to a seemingly illogical problem. And if we can understand it, then maybe we can solve it.