What is the main theme in the novel, Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack?

Despite its deliberately misleading title, Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack belies classification as a trendy and sensational novel of the 1970s, a decade when public outcry against drug use among youth began to surface in strength. The primary subject of the novel is not drug use, but rather the problems in human relationships that adolescents seek to escape, sometimes through selfdestructive behavior. As such, the novel ranges far beyond a simplistic morality tale about the danger of drugs.