The Problem Of Homeless Heroin Injectors For A 10 Year Period

The public rarely pays close attention to homeless people on the streets. There is one kind of homelessness that have dedicated their lives to heroin; these people call themselves â€Å"righteous dopefiends†. Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg became part of the daily lives of these homeless heroin injectors for a 10-year period in Edgewater Boulevard. Through various interviews with the addicts, we came to find out their shocking personal histories that led to their addiction and homelessness. These Edgewater homeless came from different ethnic backgrounds, however, they shared two common things; all of them were homeless and were addicted to heroin. They lived in dead-end alleyways, storage lots, vacant factories, defective cars, and highway embankments (4). The reason they labelled themselves as righteous dopefiends was because believed they were worthy in society, despite their actions. Going through ceaseless pain and anxiety of hunger, exposure, infectious diseases was reasonable to them because of their commitment to heroin (5). Throughout my paper, it will show that medication has an important implication in the lives of the homeless heroin injectors. Moral expectations in the Edgewater drug community is based on sharing, fairness, and justice (6). This type of economy is perfect for small communal societies, where their motto is to get mutual aid in order to avoid the free rider problem. Members of the community pool their money together to purchase heroin, andShow MoreRelatedThe Social Impact of Drug Abuse24406 Words   |  98 PagesSummit for Social Development (Copenhagen, 6-12 March 1995) Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter Part one: background I. The drug problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 A. B. C. D. E. The global context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Growing plants to produce