For most of the previous century, opioid addiction was mainly relegated to big northeastern cities, where heroin had long been smuggled in through illicit channels, infiltrating the Harlem jazz scene of the 1940s and the beatnik subculture of the 1950s. The term “hipster,” in fact, drew from the Chinese opium smoker of the 1800s, who’d spent much of his time smoking while reclining on one hip. The hipster counterculture took inspiration from heroin-addicted jazz greats like Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.
