A smokable drug derived from the cannabis plant that is much more pervasive, but much less dangerous and addictive, than cocaine, crack, or heroin. Although it is now legal and regulated in much of the United States, it was uniformly illegal at the time of Bourgois’s research, and marijuana arrests imperiled many people in El Barrio. The author notes that many drug dealers and users switched from marijuana to cocaine, crack, and heroin in the mid-1980s because the United States Drug Enforcement Administration stepped up its search for traffickers, and those three drugs are much stronger and more valuable per unit of weight than marijuana.
Marijuana Quotes in In Search of Respect
The In Search of Respect quotes below are all either spoken by Marijuana or refer to Marijuana. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Introduction
Quotes
Cocaine and crack, in particular during the mid-1980s and through the early 1990s, followed by heroin in the mid-1990s, have been the fastest growing—if not the only—equal opportunity employers of men in Harlem. Retail drug sales easily outcompete other income-generating opportunities, whether legal or illegal.
The street in front of my tenement was not atypical, and within a two block radius I could—and still can, as of this final draft—obtain heroin, crack, powder cocaine, hypodermic needles, methadone, Valium, angel dust, marijuana, mescaline, bootleg alcohol, and tobacco. Within one hundred yards of my stoop there were three competing crackhouses selling vials at two, three, and five dollars.
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Marijuana Term Timeline in In Search of Respect
The timeline below shows where the term Marijuana appears in In Search of Respect. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Preface to the 2003 Second Edition
...the socially marginal” under the guise of “the war on drugs,” and the turn toward marijuana and away from crack, which was decreasingly available on the street and noted less and...
(full context)
...low-paying jobs by 2002, and the few who were still dealing had largely switched to marijuana. But three were in jail, and many young people in neighborhoods like East Harlem remained...
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Introduction
...the most lucrative of all. “Heroin, crack, powder cocaine, hypodermic needles, methadone, Valium, angel dust, marijuana, mescaline, bootleg alcohol, and tobacco” are all available within two blocks of Bourgois’s apartment, on...
(full context)
Chapter 2: A Street History of El Barrio
...government shifting its focus to targeting drug traffickers (and cocaine is easier to transport than marijuana). In turn, crack emerges—a smokable mix of cocaine and baking soda, which is stronger and...
(full context)
Epilogue 2003
A “marijuana-selling, wannabe boxer” shows up to chat with Esperanza’s reclusive daughter, and Bourgois learns that this...
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...which are not worth the state’s effort to substantiate, and Bourgois watches a series of marijuana cases get dismissed because “it’s too expensive to have marijuana tested.” After a few hours,...
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