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By Megan Riesz
Brooklyn Daily
A brand of heroin found in the Manhattan apartment of the late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman is pretty darn potent, according to a Brooklyn heroin review blog.
Hoffman was found dead in his home on Sunday morning with a syringe in his arm and more than 70 heroin envelopes labeled “Ace of Spades” and “Ace of Hearts” strewn around the place, the New York Post reported. The latter could be copped in Williamsburg for $10 per gram — or $100 per bundle — as recently as last month, and it is some prime stuff, according to a Jan. 20 posting on the pseudonymous blog Jynxie’s Natural Habitat.
“Best product I have come across in the neighborhood in a while!” wrote a reviewer going by the name Avon. “This connect was formerly slingin’ something called ‘Public Enemy #1’ for some time, which wasn’t terrible, but this is far superior.”
“Ace of Hearts” scored a 7 out of 10 for “count,” or the amount in each baggie, a 6.5 for “legs,” the length of the high, and a 7.5 for overall quality. The author of the posting wrote that she or he sniffs the drug and therefore could not rate the initial rush, which is experienced by users who shoot up.
The eye-opening website is run by a female junkie who uses the handle DeQuincey Jynxie. Its stated purpose is to keep dope fiends safe by sharing information about drug quality and potency, a mission that is made possible in large part by the branding of heroin envelopes with stamped logos, which is unique to New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, according to a 2012 interview Jynxie gave to Vice Magazine.
The same punch reported by Avon may have done Hoffman in, but other accounts of caustic dope varieties that cause headaches and nausea give users more direct indications to steer clear of certain strains.
Heroin brand names, it turns out, can be topical, as in “Breaking Bad,” (“Awesome graphic but mediocre [heroin].”) confusing, i.e. “NY Times” (“The worst dope I’ve ever bought.”) and aspirational, like “Bugatti” (a Paterson, N.J. resident’s “all-time, long-term favorite bag”).
“My background is in fine art, and I worked as a mass market designer for a while, so I was always amused and excited by the branding,” Jynxie told Vice. “I also wanted to keep tabs on the quality of the product, especially if something was particularly good, bad, or just dangerous, so the site could work as a form of harm reduction.”
A Prospect Heights drug counselor, who emphasized that the goal for her patients is complete abstinence, argued that the idea of harm reduction is dangerous without the proper supervision.
“I have no objection to harm reduction, except that it needs to be closely monitored,” said Carol Morrison, agency director of the New Directions Alcohol and Substance Abuse Treatment Program on Flatbush Avenue. “People talk about it without knowing what it is.”