My writing partner Ed Burns said it best: “When the economy shrugs, it throws more people onto the corners.” It’s simple as that. Addiction is a growth industry in America. Not just in black America, but all across the country. Look at methamphetamine. Ultimately, because the drug trade is in part an economic imperative, meaning it’s the only factory still working in parts of America and therefore it is a viable employer where no other viable employer exists, it’s going to have its own fundamental lure. But it actually goes beyond money in this sense. People are defined by what they do in this culture. I think it’s the human condition. I don’t think it’s any different from any other time in history. You are what you do. You are your profession. You are your trade.
When you no longer have a trade, then you ache for meaning in a way that strikes to the very core of your being. It’s something that I think a lot of people don’t understand about people in the drug trade or people in the throes of addiction, which is that the choice not only offers them money. From the point of view of people getting high, it offers them purpose.
When you no longer have a trade, then you ache for meaning in a way that strikes to the very core of your being. It’s something that I think a lot of people don’t understand about people in the drug trade or people in the throes of addiction, which is that the choice not only offers them money. From the point of view of people getting high, it offers them purpose.
