Oral history interview with Tim, 1980

Biographical Note

Tim was born to two Chinese American immigrants on July 14, 1907 in California. His family returned to China when he was a young boy, and he remained there for seventeen years before moving to Japan. He worked as a house painter in Japan for around ten years and began to experiment with opium. After that, Tim moved to Brooklyn, New York and worked unloading trucks for a laundry service. He began to smoke opium more regularly and developed an addiction. He began using heroin in the 1940s. Around this time, Tim began working as a waiter at his cousin's restaurant. He was arrested many times for opium-related incidents and spent time incarcerated on Rikers Island. He detoxed from drugs at Bellevue Hospital in the late 1960s and went exclusively on methadone for twelve years. Tim was interviewed for the project that led to the book Addicts Who Survived. The name is likely a pseudonym for the project

Scope and Contents

In this interview, Tim discusses his life in China, Japan, and New York, with a special focus on his drug use. He compares his usage of opium, heroin, and methadone, his methods of intake, and the relative prices of the drugs. He also discusses his various jobs, his experience selling drugs, and how he funded his drug addiction. He describes his transition from taking opium and heroin to taking methadone, and how his lifestyle changed as a result. Tim also remarks on the scarcity of opium in New York in the 1980s and the drug's rising price at the time of the interview

Subjects

• Chinese Americans.
• Courtwright, David T., 1952- interviewer.
• Drug addicts--United States.
• Drug dealers--United States.
• Heroin abuse--United States--History--20th century.
• Interviews.
• Joseph, Herman, 1931- interviewer.
• Methadone maintenance--United States--History--20th century.
• Opium abuse--United States--History--20th century.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Tim--Interviews.

Access Conditions

Copyright by David Courtwright