Lost on the Road to Prosperity: Trajectories to Drug Dealing of the Chinese Heroin Generation

The Chinese heroin generation is a unique yet less discussed group. Drawing upon life-history interviews with 18 former heroin drug dealers in an inland city in China, this article explores how the trajectories of the Chinese heroin generation were deeply embedded in and affected by macro social transitions, and how their collective trajectories configured the local illegal drug market. Influenced by the desire to break free from traditional constraints brought about by China’s reform and opening-up, informants voluntarily left their legitimate work to pursue self-realization but eventually became lost in the rapid changes and turned to drug trafficking. During their involvement with heroin, they adhered to mainstream Chinese cultural norms: they entered the heroin market because of “face” and “fashion,” and actively accumulated social, cultural, and criminal capital to operate their business. This article concludes that the heroin fad in China at the end of the last century is not so much a “moral crisis” as a reflection of the change in citizens' subjectivity and the unintended consequences of rapid economic development.