Narrator "Space"(?): "Everybody has some kind of Jones in New York City." (0:00)
Junkie with needle in his arm:
”You know, you can stop.” (0:01)
Junkie: "Works, works, works, works, works, works, works, give me some works? Works, works, works, works, works,..." (0:03)
"You need a fix, captain?"
”Yo, man, you crazy?” (0:03)
A man tells a drug dealer he wants "Toke."
”Toke.” (0:04)
Junkie injecting his arm. (0:05)
Rolling Stone magazine: "The Young, the Rich & Heroin"
New York Magazine title: ”White-Collar Heroin”
”Actor Who Played an Addict Dies, Apparently of Overdose”
New York Post headline: ”Bobby Jr. pleads guilty to heroin charge”
Soho News headline: ”John Belushi’s Dead End: Take out the coke.” (0:05)
Man: "If you wouldn't be getting high, none of this shit would be happening."
”I'm talking about people that get high.” (0:09)
Drug dealer: "We got the punk rock special joints here."
Narrator: ”You don't have to hurt nobody to keep a drug habit in this city.”
Dealer: ”I got nickels.”
Narrator: ”... we all do something we wouldn't do to keep our habit together.”
Man: ”You got joints?”
Dealer: ”Yeah, I got joints... I got joints.” (0:11)
Narrator: "... they'll find somebody that's clean, that ain't got high yet that day, and they'll have them test the dope."
”I'm sure more than one dope tester has wound up on a rooftop with the rats eating at his balls because so-and-so didn't cut it right..” (0:12)
Drugs and paraphernalia on a table top in packaging operation
Junkie injecting himself
”In this one apartment there's $100,000 worth of drugs going down, and they got these chicks bagging up dope and running it up to the corners.”
Junkie: ”Dope taste pretty nice.”
Woman: ”... it can hold, you know, like a decent cut.” (0:13)
Space tells his girlfriend, "I already have the dope on me stashed in my pants... I'm scared of heights as you know anyway." (0:16)
Drug dealer: "Toke and dope" (0:19)
Man: "Sometimes you think, like, what would it be like if we didn't have dope?... The dope money has a lot to do with the economy of the city... So a guy will come along, offer them a dope job in a dope spot making $200, $300 a week."
Customer: ”Two coke.”
”30 coke.”
Woman: ”10 dope.”
Man: ”A lot of them get hooked... So they'll just resort to shooting drugs and shooting drugs and shooting drugs.” (0:20)
Narrator: "You know, the brand names are funny. They’re usually from hit movies at the time., like Black Sunday and ET and Mr. T, a dope brand... or... the head dope guy from such and such a label... and put a one and a half step on it, and that means that for like, every gram of heroin there’s a gram and a half per cut..." (0:23)
Drug dealer: "Yellow Mellow, Yellow Mellow, Yellow Mellow." (0:25)
Man: "The other day I came here, man. I bought some dope..." (0:27)
Man, referring to his brother: "... he was involved with drugs... if it's for drugs then we have the right to know... drugs lead you to your death." (0:29)
"Heroin is a cruel mistress, a brutal overseer, man... you just don't have time to worry about other things, things that maybe you should be worrying about." (0:30)
Woman drawing up a syringe. Woman injecting
”They'll come down and buy the guy some dope for themselves and some dope for them... and they'll sit there and they'll get high. You know, the guys will have the works and everything.”
”So the kids wind up using these shitty works, you know... who knows who’s used these things? And that's how these diseases get transmitted, you know?”
Woman: ”I was hooked for a couple of years, and now I just get high once or twice a week..”
Woman: ”A girlfriend of mine and her old man, they were arguing over drugs.”
Woman: ”It's crazy.”
Woman: ”But I feel this way about having my meth...”
Woman: ”... put a dope bag in my hand... All we've worried about is getting off, getting our fix, right? F*** the dope...”
Woman: ”You're never at the point where... you'd leave yourself short of cigarettes to go get some dope?” (0:30)
Man: "Let me get two dopes man."
Drug dealer: ”You got tracks?”
Man: ” Yeah, yeah I got tracks. You want to see my tracks?”
Dealer: ”Okay, don't OD now.” (0:35)
Drug dealer: "You got some tracks, man?"
Customer: ”I got tracks all over...”
Dealer: ”Don't OD now.”
Customer: ”Yeah, I cannot OD on this cheap... dope you copped...” (0:36)
Narrator: "Heroin is like... treasure hunt... Then it's finding the drugs and finding good drugs... the thrill of the hunt for the dope... Then there's the satisfaction and the relief of getting high." (0:36)
Man: "Everybody needs drugs. Everybody live on drugs... Everybody can't stop messing with drugs. I like drugs. I like to deal with drugs. I sell works to get my drugs, and mainly I love, I love drugs, mainly cocaine. Cocaine is a beautiful thing when you getting high off it, and mainly when you getting high off it and it's beautiful... It's always beautiful to deal with, deal with drugs. Cocaine is my main hobby. I would never deal with nothing but cocaine... I can never stop using it. Oh, and I will always keep using it as long as I can... I'm not sorry that I started messing with drugs... I would always will mess with drugs... Cocaine is a beautiful drug... I sell works for so many period of months to get my drugs, to build my habit up... my needs for that bag of coke..." (0:37)
Narrator: "When you're high on dope, it's like, I don't know... The only thing that matters is feeling good. The only time I feel good is when I'm really stoned..." (0:39)
Space prepares a syringe. He tells his friend Diane, "I have got to get some new works."
Diane, referring to her pet rats: ”Now see these guys are much more intelligent.”
Space injects himself. (0:42)
Space, while he is preparing to inject: "... This is about a year before... Hendrix and Joplin and all them people died... He got shot... behind this... speed freak’s house... We... got real drunk... He got blown away in a $5,000 heroin deal about five, six years ago... I was drunk... "
Injecting: ”The c********** say, well, he's too high. Oh, so they didn't give me any, uh, no anesthetic, nothing... Two layers of stitches, mind you, with no anesthetic...” (0:47)
Man: "Yeah, the man's getting uptight." (0:53)
Space: "If three or four guys, one of them was a drag queen... I said, I did not, you... drag queen..." (0:54)
Space, referring to Cindy: "... we decided to get married, which was at the time a good idea because I was drunk... I was a little worried oh, you know, because she was pregnant... Cindy had been run over by a logger truck while riding on the back of a motorcycle... Then I started shooting heroin, you know, because I had all these nightmares about the baby, about her..." (1:03)
Space prepares heroin for injection: “This is brown dope. in other words, they made it with Nestle Quik.”
He cooks it in a spoon, wraps a tourniquet around his arm and injects himself.
”I mean, if you can imagine a movie in your mind, that's what it's like when you're really high... you're so high right now that they're right next to you... ‘cause for some reason opium lets you create whatever you want in your mind.”
He injects repeatedly.
”I'm a bit nervous.”
He struggles to hit a vein. (1:05)
Space describes opioid withdrawal. “That's why it's better to quit gradually... not cold turkey. Cut back down to two bags a day than one bag a day, then do methadone for a few days....” (1:11)