Heidi Hoefinger
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Book
  • Articles
  • Activism
  • Media
  • Events
  • Research

Dr Stephan Sifaneck, ‘The Professor’ of Cannabis, Leaves Us

6/4/2013

8 Comments

 
Picture
Wafts of sweet-smelling pine and skunk drift under my nostrils as he approaches.  A broad shouldered, tanned and blond-haired presence in surf shorts and mirrored sunglasses saunters over to the bar and introduces himself.  It’s 2003, just after the infamous ‘Blackout’ in NYC and we’re in the dank and dark Bar 169, a Lower Eastside institution on the corner of East Broadway and Essex that was second home to the enigma known in those parts as ‘the Professor’.  Looking like an incongruous mix between a California surfer dude and a cop, I would quickly learn that Dr Steve Sifaneck (or simply Dr Steve to many) was a renowned sociologist, drug researcher, and stealthy ethnographer with a literal PhD in cannabis consumption and sales. A decade after that first encounter, Dr Steve graced his local dive bar one last time the night before he left this earth on Sunday, May 19, 2013.

A shock to the academic community, and those friends and family closest to him, his premature departure at 46 has left a sudden hole in the lives of many. Students devoted to his ‘fun’, ‘interesting’ and ‘cool’ teaching style, and the way he ‘keeps it real’, were left with confusion and sadness when he didn’t show up to teach his criminology lecture at Berkeley College on Monday. His glowing reviews on ratemyprofessor.com reveal that he influenced a generation of young scholars in the fields of sociology, anthropology, criminology and drug research. 

And the regulars at Bar 169 surely felt the physical absence of ‘the Professor’ that Monday night.  Tucked away in the backroom of the bar, I, myself, mourned the loss of someone, who, a decade earlier, would undoubtedly alter the course of my life and career.      

Friends first, we spent many an afternoon riding bikes, eating out in Chinatown, or going to see free concerts in the park, such as George Clinton and Patti Smith. But Dr Steve would also go on to be an influential mentor and colleague over the years. In 2005, he was the second reader on my Master’s thesis in Anthropology at Hunter College, CUNY. And in 2006, he introduced me to the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP), an organization and annual conference that would see us present on similar panels in Montreal, NYC, Las Vegas and Denver.  He gave useful comments on my PhD dissertation, he graces the acknowledgements of my new book (Sex, Love and Money in Cambodia), and he invited me to guest lecture in his class at Berkeley College.  And it is also thanks to Steve that I was first introduced to the National Development and Research Institutes (NDRI) several years back—which is where I currently hold my own postdoctoral fellowship. 

Known for his PhD research at CUNY Graduate Center on cannabis use and sales in NYC and Rotterdam, Dr Steve also did extensive ethnographic research through NDRI on drug users, drug markets and subcultures, with a focus on global marijuana users and retailers, heroin-using lap dancers in NYC, and Mexican drug gangs and sex workers. At Berkeley, he was currently doing comparative work on global drug policy.

During his post at NDRI, he published several papers with Eloise Dunlap, Charles Kaplan, Sam Friedman, Andrew Golub, Ellen Benoit and the late Bruce Johnson, to name a few. And in 2009, Dr Steve and his co-authors (Johnson, Golub, and Dunlap) were winners of the Outstanding Paper Award from Jim Walther for the paper titled An Analysis of Alternatives to New York City’s Current Marijuana Arrest and Detention Policy, (Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 2008). The article was chosen by the editorial team as the journal’s most impressive piece of the year. In addition to his faculty post at Berkeley College, he lectured extensively within the CUNY system, at Hunter College, John Jay, and College of Staten Island. 

There will be a gap in the program at this year’s 63rd Annual SSSP Conference, taking place in August in New York City, where he was set to present at, and chair a panel titled ‘Global Innovations in Drug Policy’. It was during this same conference in NY in 2007 that Steve led informal tours of notorious historical drug spots in downtown NYC, which was yet another opportunity to flaunt his extensive subcultural drug knowledge.  This was the Steve those closest to him knew and loved, as he lived life like an ethnography--an ongoing project of life on the edge.

His passing far too soon and sudden, memories of Dr Steve and his important contributions will echo in the halls of sociology and criminology departments for decades to come. Scholar, teacher, mentor, friend…the Professor will be missed.  


8 Comments
Sheigla Murphy
6/4/2013 09:12:40 am

Well done Heidi. I will miss him.

Reply
Reiko Shiota
6/4/2013 03:01:00 pm

Thank you, Heidi. It was so sweet. I do miss him dearly.

Reply
Pete Matthews link
10/5/2013 05:40:38 pm

Hi Reiko,
I am so sorry to hear that Steve passed away.
Having lost contact with you both after your move from Houston Street and mine to Ireland (where I began my career as a photojournalist and travel writer), it's only this evening that I found a paper with Steve's full name in a box of course packs and notebooks from our CUNY Graduate School days; and, when I Googled his name I encountered this deeply saddening news.
Best to you,
Pete

Reply
Barbara
6/4/2013 03:09:54 pm

Lovely tribute to a special man.

Reply
James
7/9/2013 10:07:21 pm

I will mias him very much. I took him for Police and Society and his baby Drugs amd Drug Policy, a class he started at Berkeley College. He aleays motivated me and he left us right in the middle of class.

Reply
Christoffer link
4/10/2014 01:25:47 am

I just wrote Prof. Stephan an email, but it was returned. I thought maybe he had left Berkeley and that he had a new email address, so I started googling and was shocked when I found this memorial. It really hurt me to learn that he passed away. He was a great man and I often think back at his Berkeley classes. It was so much fun and he was always real and honest. One of the things I remember is what he said when we discussed what it means to succeed. He said "You might think I'm successful since I'm teaching this class and since I have a PHD. But this is all relative. I might not be successfull in other people's eyes. It's all relative to a person's point of view." It might sound trivial, but it stuck with me. I'm really sad we can't exchange any more emails.

Reply
Danny Morton
2/12/2015 05:18:24 pm

After losing my soulmate I decided to end a thirty year absence from high school reunions and see the group I grew up with. I was shocked and saddened to see him on a list by a lit candle as I entered the reunion. We never hung out since I was pretty anti social in those days, but I gravitated to him and his unique view of the world. Before I (Ahem! Lol) took a semester off from SUNY New Paltz twenty seven years ago I saw him briefly visiting a friend there. I always wondered what became of him; especially after learning of his passing last summer. Your blog paints a picture of the man I figured he had become and I thank you.

Reply
bryan elfers
6/16/2021 04:33:30 pm

wicked smart, funny as hell.
See you on the other side.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Heidi Hoefinger, PhD

    Thoughts, experiences, reviews.

    Picture
    photo courtesy of Cameron Hickey

    Archives

    October 2016
    July 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    November 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Abolitionism
    Anti-trafficking
    Asia
    Awards
    Bars
    Book Interviews
    Book Reviews
    Book Talk
    Cambodia
    Cambodian Americans
    Cambodian-Americans
    Cambodian Diaspora
    Cambo Western Relationships
    Cambo-western Relationships
    Cannabis
    Criminology
    Deportation
    Deported Refugees
    Drug Research
    Feminism
    Hysteria
    Khmer Exiled Americans
    Moral Panic
    Ndri
    Nyc
    Phd
    Professional Girlfriends
    Sea Globe Magazine
    Sex Work
    Social Science
    Somaly Mam
    Sssp
    Thinking Allowed Ethnography Award
    Transactional Sex
    Valentine's Day
    Voice Of America
    Youth Sexuality

Proudly powered by Weebly