After reading the novel would you be more likely or less likely to use morphine or heroin?

Burroughs suggests in the novel that junk is something more than an inert drug—that it is alive and somehow sentient, with an individual existence lurking in the cells of old users. Do you think these statements were intended as literary devices only, or does the author really believe that junk is something mystically special?

In the author's original introduction (refer to Appendix 2) ten myths about drug use are enumerated. For example, "Addiction ruins the health and leads to early death" (p. 141). How many of these statements have you heard? Do you consider them to be myths or essentially factually correct?

Is the novel about a junky who happens to be homosexual, or about a homosexual who happens to be a junky? Discuss.

The book's original...