The Heroin Addict On the Bus

Last night, Friday October 10th, we decided to go to Katana-Ya near Union Square for some ramen as we have heard good things about it. Since I had a monthly Muni pass, we decided to take a bus instead of the BART. At the bus stop, while looking at the map, a Hispanic man started giving us directions, soon joined by a Caucasian man named Jeremy. Eventually, we decided to take the Muni 14 up to Fifth and Market and walk the rest of the way. We followed Jeremy on the bus as he seemed very helpful (even though he told us he was from Philadelphia and so he was not too familiar with the area).

On the bus, he pulled out some black canisters from his bag and started organizing it. I looked at the canisters, which had large warning letters on it. As I was glancing at his canisters, I heard him say "I'm a heroin addict." This led to a very long and heated conversation. The sketchiness of the Mission district and the old rickety trolley bus filled with graffiti didn't help us in trusting him, so Ben and I were very cautious with him but became more comfortable around him as we talked.

He told us that he had been clean for six years before relapsing. He had scars on his hand, probably from injections or IVs. He told us that he believed that if a person had a drug problem, it was his responsibility. He told us that he never stole from or robbed anyone, even during his worst times. I respected him very much for that. He then told us that although he did not steal from individuals or small independent shops, he did steal from corporations. He made it sound as such a natural, everyday activity to do.

This led to a discussion on New World Order which got him extremely excited. He wrote a note to us with some websites, names of books and movies we need to see, and names of people we should look up online. He even got off with us from the bus and walked with us as he said getting other people to hear him about this was more important than getting to where he was going to. We were quite nervous as we were afraid he was going to mug us, but he seemed very passionate about telling us about the New World Order.

At one point, he even told us to pull out our drivers licenses to take a look at it. He even offered to stand aside while we did it so we didn't have to worry about him snatching our wallets. He was going on a long spiel about how we were commodities owned by the government, and how even if we requested it, our names always appeared in all capital letters on drivers licenses. We thought this was pretty hilarious since we're pretty sure it's just a printing standard, but he seemed very passionate and we didn't want to offend him by laughing. We didn't take out our wallets since I always feel uncomfortable to show my wallet in public, but he seemed to understand. He also said he could not show us his license because his wallet had jut been stolen, but at one point he did pull out a wad of cash to show us some hidden conspiracies on the dollar bill.

Although we thought he was somewhat crazy, we were curious about what he said about the New World Order since I have heard this being mentioned before but never really looked into it. I assume New World Order is just another conspiracy theory, which I don't think holds any water after applying Occam's Razor, but hey, it will be interesting to see what they say. After all, some conspiracy theories might just be true. In any case, this is what drugs will do to someone, it will cloud their judgement. I thought this was too bad since Jeremy seemed like a genuinely nice guy interested in helping others and making sure he does not harm anyone else, even when it is so tempting due to his drug problem. I really hope he can cope and sincerely wish the best future for him. After walking us to Union Square, he departed, and exchanging good wishes, we saw him walk down a dark, relatively empty street, stop and started to organize his bag again.

What I found is that there are many good people in this world that somehow get influenced by drugs into a very depressing life. I have met other people who have been influenced by hard drugs before such as cocaine and heroin. What I have found is that although society paints them as scary, dangerous, and immoral people, I have found most of them are just like everyone else. But because of the drugs, their judgement become clouded and when they become desperate, it becomes easy to be convinced into doing crimes to get their fix. Because of this, I really respect what he said about not robbing individuals and independent stores. I find it very sad that drugs have such power over people and I can emphasize with these drug addicts. I wish there was a better way to help them. I really hope Jeremy's future improves and he can defeat his drug problem again. I did not get to ask him how he relapsed after six years of staying clean. But maybe I will see him again one day as I pass by that bus stop quite often.