Dopesick

by

Beth Macy

Ronnie “D.C.” Jones Character Analysis

Ronnie Jones is a Black man in his 30s who is the head dealer in a heroin ring that runs drugs along Interstate 81, from Harlem to Woodstock, Virginia. Jones is the one who sells the heroin that kills Kristi Fernandez’s son Jesse Bolstridge (although later in prison, he doesn’t specifically remember Jesse). Author Beth Macy interviews Jones in prison, hoping that his story will help tie up loose ends about the opioid epidemic in western Virginia. While Jones can’t provide closure for Fernandez’s story, his experiences do help Macy explore the role of race in the opioid crisis. Jones was in and out of prison starting at an early age. His lack of support after he got out of prison, particularly his difficulties with finding well-paying work, is a large part of what motivated him to start dealing heroin. His brother, Thomas, who grew up with Ronnie, goes on to be an internationally famous rapper, suggesting that maybe Jones too could have had a bright future in different circumstances. When Jones starts dealing, he predicts that he’ll last three to six months, and his prediction ends up being exactly right. After Jones is caught, he doesn’t snitch or offer much in the way of remorse, suggesting that he always knew the potential consequences of his dealing and is willing to face them. Jones’ arrest does little to cut off the supply of heroin in western Virginia—in fact, soon after, fentanyl comes to the region, bringing even more overdoses. Ultimately, while Jones is a flawed person, Macy realizes that he bears much less personal responsibility for the opioid epidemic than people in the pharmaceutical industry, like the Sackler family.

Ronnie “D.C.” Jones Quotes in Dopesick

The Dopesick quotes below are all either spoken by Ronnie “D.C.” Jones or refer to Ronnie “D.C.” Jones. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Poverty as an Obstacle to Recovery  Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7 Quotes

In the picturesque Shenandoah Valley town of Woodstock, more than two hours north of Roanoke, bulk heroin cut in a Harlem lab had just made its way down I-81. It was the last thing Shenandoah County sergeant Brent Lutz, a Woodstock native, would have expected to find himself doing: stalking a major heroin dealer. But here he was, at all hours of the day and night, clutching a pair of binoculars while crouched in the upstairs bedroom of his cousin’s house a few miles outside of town. He’d spent so much time there in recent days that the mile-wide stench of chicken entrails coming from George’s Chicken across the road no longer bothered him.

Related Characters: Ronnie “D.C.” Jones, Brent Lutz
Related Symbols: Interstate 81
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

Later that day, when Metcalf finally got his first close-up look at Ronnie Jones in a county jail interviewing room in Front Royal, he found him to be “very smug, very arrogant.”

The feeling was mutual. “He was very aggressive; he harassed people,” Jones said of Metcalf. Jones hated him for delivering a subpoena to the mother of his oldest child—at work, embarrassing and intimidating her, he said—and for interviewing Jones’s mom.

Related Characters: Ronnie “D.C.” Jones (speaker), Bill Metcalf (speaker)
Related Symbols: Interstate 81
Page Number: 166
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

By 2014, the suburban heroin-dealing scene had become entrenched in Roanoke’s McMansion subdivisions and poor neighborhoods alike. But the largest dealers weren’t twice-convicted felons like Ronnie Jones with elaborate dope-cutting schemes, multiple cars, and hired mules. They were local users, many of them female, dispatched to buy the heroin from a bulk dealer out of state, in exchange for a cut. And they were as elusive as hell to catch.

Related Characters: Ronnie “D.C.” Jones, Ashlyn Keikilani Kessler
Related Symbols: Interstate 81
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

I hoped the stories of Ronnie Jones and his victims would illuminate the ruts in both a criminal justice system that pursues a punishment-fits-all plan when the truth is much more complicated and a strained medical system that overtreats people with painkillers until the moment addiction sets in—and health care scarcity becomes the rule.

I hoped, too, that my interview with Jones would help answer Kristi Fernandez’s questions about what led to her son Jesse’s premature death. Was Ronnie Jones really the monster that law enforcement officials made him out to be? Had the statewide corrections behemoth that returns two thousand ex-offenders a year to Virginia’s cities, counties, and towns played a role in his revolving door of failures?

Related Characters: Beth Macy (speaker), Ronnie “D.C.” Jones, Kristi Fernandez, Jesse Bolstridge
Page Number: 252
Explanation and Analysis:
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Dopesick PDF

Ronnie “D.C.” Jones Quotes in Dopesick

The Dopesick quotes below are all either spoken by Ronnie “D.C.” Jones or refer to Ronnie “D.C.” Jones. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Poverty as an Obstacle to Recovery  Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7 Quotes

In the picturesque Shenandoah Valley town of Woodstock, more than two hours north of Roanoke, bulk heroin cut in a Harlem lab had just made its way down I-81. It was the last thing Shenandoah County sergeant Brent Lutz, a Woodstock native, would have expected to find himself doing: stalking a major heroin dealer. But here he was, at all hours of the day and night, clutching a pair of binoculars while crouched in the upstairs bedroom of his cousin’s house a few miles outside of town. He’d spent so much time there in recent days that the mile-wide stench of chicken entrails coming from George’s Chicken across the road no longer bothered him.

Related Characters: Ronnie “D.C.” Jones, Brent Lutz
Related Symbols: Interstate 81
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

Later that day, when Metcalf finally got his first close-up look at Ronnie Jones in a county jail interviewing room in Front Royal, he found him to be “very smug, very arrogant.”

The feeling was mutual. “He was very aggressive; he harassed people,” Jones said of Metcalf. Jones hated him for delivering a subpoena to the mother of his oldest child—at work, embarrassing and intimidating her, he said—and for interviewing Jones’s mom.

Related Characters: Ronnie “D.C.” Jones (speaker), Bill Metcalf (speaker)
Related Symbols: Interstate 81
Page Number: 166
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

By 2014, the suburban heroin-dealing scene had become entrenched in Roanoke’s McMansion subdivisions and poor neighborhoods alike. But the largest dealers weren’t twice-convicted felons like Ronnie Jones with elaborate dope-cutting schemes, multiple cars, and hired mules. They were local users, many of them female, dispatched to buy the heroin from a bulk dealer out of state, in exchange for a cut. And they were as elusive as hell to catch.

Related Characters: Ronnie “D.C.” Jones, Ashlyn Keikilani Kessler
Related Symbols: Interstate 81
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

I hoped the stories of Ronnie Jones and his victims would illuminate the ruts in both a criminal justice system that pursues a punishment-fits-all plan when the truth is much more complicated and a strained medical system that overtreats people with painkillers until the moment addiction sets in—and health care scarcity becomes the rule.

I hoped, too, that my interview with Jones would help answer Kristi Fernandez’s questions about what led to her son Jesse’s premature death. Was Ronnie Jones really the monster that law enforcement officials made him out to be? Had the statewide corrections behemoth that returns two thousand ex-offenders a year to Virginia’s cities, counties, and towns played a role in his revolving door of failures?

Related Characters: Beth Macy (speaker), Ronnie “D.C.” Jones, Kristi Fernandez, Jesse Bolstridge
Page Number: 252
Explanation and Analysis: