Oral history interview with Jim, 1981

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Name: Jim (Interviewee); Joseph, Herman, 1931- (Interviewer)
Title: Oral history interview with Jim, 1981
Other Titles: Reminiscences of Jim, 1981; Oral history of Jim, 1981
Abstract: In this interview, Jim discusses his life in New York City and Chicago with a special focus on his drug use. He describes the environment of his ubringing, and how he was exposed to drugs through the many sex workers and performace artists who would intermittently stay in his family's apartment. He compares the quality and price of heroin in New York and Chicago. He explains the transition from pac kaging heroin in caps to bags in the 1950s. Jim thoroughly describes his experiences detoxing from heroin at Lexington, Kentucky in 1950, 1957, and 1961. He mentions the various ways he earned a living, through both legal and illegal means. He discusses his experience at multiple jails, including Manhattan House of Detention (Tombs), Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Rikers Island, Coxsackie Correctional Facility, Dannemora (Clinton Correctional Facility), Mid-Orange Correctional Facility (Warwick), and Elmira Correctional Facility. Jim describes his observations of how the methadone program has changed and evolved over the course of his time there. He discusses his observations of addicts in the 1940s and 1950s versus addicts in the 1980s, focusing specifically on the amount of violence he perceives to be transpiring in the drug trade in both eras
Collection Name: Addicts Who Survived oral history collection
Subjects: Drug addicts--United States; Drug dealers--United States; Imprisonment--United States; Drug traffic--History--20th century.--United States; Drug control--History--20th century.--United States; Heroin abuse--History--20th century.--United States; Methadone maintenance--History--20th century.--United States; Jim; Narcotic Farm
Format: oral histories
Genre: Interviews
Date: 1981

Physical Description: 100 pages
Note (Biographical): Jim was born on July 12, 1925 in Spring Valley, Illinois. He was raised by his aunt and her husband in Chicago. In 1933, the family moved to New York City. Jim attended school through the fifth grade. When he was twelve years old, he was arrested for fare evasion on the subway and sent to the Children's Society on 155th Street in Manhattan. At thirteen years of age, Jim ran away from home, and when he returned his aunt enrolled him in reform school from 1938 to 1942. When he was seventeen, he got arrested for a probation violation and went to Coxsackie Correctional Facility. In 1945, Jim moved back to Chicago, and lived there until 1960 when he moved back to New York. He first tried heroin in 1948, and began dealing it in 1957. Jim detoxed from heroin at Lexington, Kentucky in 1950, 1957, and 1961. Jim served around twenty years in various prisons throughout his lifetime, including in Manhattan House of Detention (Tombs), Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Rikers Island, Dannemora (Clinton Correctional Facility), Mid-Orange Correctional Facility, and Elmira Correctional Facility. In 1969, Jim got a job as an elevator man at the Salvation Army Hotel. He joined the methadone program in the summer of 1972. Jim was interviewed for the project that led to the book Addicts Who Survived. The name is likely a pseudonym for the project
Note: Interviewed by Herman Joseph on April 10, 1981
Note (Provenance): David Courtwright, Herman Joseph, and Don Des Jarlais, Gift, 1988
Language: English
Library Location: Columbia Center for Oral History, Columbia University
Catalog Record: 11868557
Persistent URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.7916/d8-tm08-rd38
Related URLs: Available digital content for this interview.