#Drunk men work here dopewars statistics series#

But he actually started to feel an emotional involvement with some of these people. You either go to prison, somebody kills you or rips you off, etc. And if you loose a half step, you go under. BOWDEN: Whatever you think of drug dealers, it's a full-time job. The only people who really did, Charles Bowden says, were the bad guys. But it began to bother Joey that many agents there didn't keep his long, dangerous hours. He was calm, patient, so good that eventually the city force he worked for lent him to a federal drug agency for other investigations. He could.ĬHADWICK: Starting in the early '80s, he spent three years infiltrating a motorcycle gang dealing methamphetamines. They just burned out-not 'cause there was something wrong with them or they were wimps, but because most people can't stand living this way. Most of Joey O'Shay's partners couldn't last. And I think he's, you know, brilliant at it. BOWDEN: He drifted into police work as just a beat cop and discovers drugs and invents this role for himself. This new work is more narrowly focused on the life of a single narcotics investigator whose undercover name was Joey O'Shay in a city that Chuck Bowden does not name. He earlier wrote 'Down by the River,' an acclaimed account of the illegal drug trade across our border with Mexico. This story is told fully in his new book 'A Shadow in the City,' published tomorrow. CHARLES BOWDEN (Author, 'A Shadow in the City'): This isn't a book about the drug problem or something like that this is a book about the human heart.ĬHADWICK: That is writer Charles Bowden.

#Drunk men work here dopewars statistics series#

I'm Alex Chadwick.īeginning a series of conversations about a cop who spent more than 20 years under cover and whose re-examined life finally led him to question almost everything he had done and become.