Gentlemen, Name Your Poison (II)

Dabblers, Inhalers & Other Substance-Abusing Eyes

“Most of the time, sleuthing is not the most rewarding work. However, being a drug addict has its charms.”
— New York eye Dick Shamus muses on his life

Of course, substance abuse, particularly of the illegal variety, is nothing new for private detectives who, after all, came of age during Prohibition.

Think of the seven-percent solution coursing through the veins of the godfather of all private eyes, Sherlock Holmes right through to the perenially drug and booze-addled eyes of the king of substance abuse, James Crumley. Obviously, this is just a preliminary list (boozers have their own page), but any help here would be greatly appreciated….

DON’T BOGART THAT JOINT, MY FRIEND (POT SMOKERS)

Given its wide availability and popularity, it’s actually a wonder more P.I.’s don’t smoke dope. Just statistically, it would seem to me that more of them would. And some of them definitely should. Tightly wound eyes like Mike Hammer and V.I. Warshawski could all benefit from something to take the edge off, if you ask me. Sure, there have been a few notable partakers of the demon weed, but pot and hash smokers seem almost criminally under-represented in P.I. fiction. And now, with it being legalized in most sane jurisdictions, the lack of inhalers is particularly noticeable. Maybe it’s time we got the affirmative action people to work on this glaringly-obvious case of discrimination, before a class-action suit is launched that could cost the publishing industry millions.

• Moses Wine by Roger L. Simon
  Smokin’ pot, playin Clue spo-dee-do… was he the first to inhale?
• Jake Spanner by L.A. Morse
  “Kids today think they invented this stuff?” Coincidentally, Jake was played in a TV movie by Robert Mitchum, who once went to jail for inhaling.
• Milo Milodragovitch and C.W. Sughrue by James Crumley
• Leo Waterman by G.M. Ford
• Matt Jacob by Zachary Klein
  Besides smoking pounds of dope, Matt pops mountains of pills, snorts yards of cocaine, drinks like a fish, and generally spends most of his time under the influence. But dope seems to be his poison of choice.
• Kinky Friedman by Kinky Friedman
• Dan Kruger by Michael Cormany
  Dan, although he’s more partial to pills, has been known to partake, and even shares a joint with a young runaway he was hired to find in one instance.
• John Denson by Richard Hoyt
• Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski by Joel & Ethan Coen
  He abides…
• Nick Stefanos by George Pelecanos
  “What is it? I’ll take it!”
• Claire Dewitt by Sara Gran
• Burke by Andrew Vaachs
  Known to reminisce, upon occasion, while smoking some “throat-searing marijuana.”
• Don Strachey by Richard Stevenson
  Strachey lights up now and then–it ain’t no thang — it just seems part of the whole 70s culture that these books were created in…
• Fred Crockett by Brad Lang
• Derek Strange & Terry Quinn by George Pelecanos
  In Right as Rain (2001) the investigative team and their respective “twists” top off a double-date with a shared joint.
• Doc Sportello (Inherent Vice) by Thomas Pynchon
• Jonathan Ames (Bored to Death) by Jonathan Ames
  For potheads, by potheads.

THE BIG H (HEROIN)

• Mark Mallen by Robert K. Lewis
• Bridgett Logan by Greg Rucka
• Josephine “Joe” Flannigan by Sara Gran

COKE ADDS LIFE (COCAINE)

• Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
  A seven percent solution, if you don’t mind.
• Milo Milodragovitch and C.W. Sughrue by James Crumley

SMOKE, SMOKE, SMOKE THAT CIGARETTE (TOBACCO)

At one point, it seemed every private jasper on the planet smoked like a chimney…

• Nameless by Bill Pronzini (at least, until a cancer scare)

CIGAR SMOKERS (TOBACCO)

PIPE SMOKERS(TOBACCO)

• Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
  The Great One even measured the difficulty of a case by how many pipes would need to be smoked before arriving at its solution.
• Philip Marlowe by Raymond Chandler

WAIT! WHERE’S THE METH GUYS?

EQUAL-OPPORTUNITY ABUSERS (“WHAT IS IT? OOOH, I’LL TAKE IT”)

• Milo Milodragovitch and C.W. Sughrue by James Crumley
• Dan Kruger by Michael Cormany
  Dan was always more partial to pills, but he was known to partake of many a varied substance.
• Nick Stefanos by George Pelecanos
• Cal McDonald by Steve Niles
  Booze, pills, heroin, morphine and some other pills he just found in his pocket.

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks to Ron DeSourdis, Bill Lucas and Roger Allen for their help with this one. Next round’s on me…