Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a cocaine user.

1913		A.B. Reeve Constance Dunlap 301: They call it ‘snow,’ you know and the girls who use it ‘snowbirds’.
1923		N. Anderson Hobo 67: Not infrequently ‘coke heads’ or ‘snow-birds’ are found among the hobo workers.
c.1930		(ref. to late 19C) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 135: I knew a snowbird when I saw one.
1931		C.B. Yorke ‘Snowbound’ in Gangster Stories Oct. n.p.: ‘Caught this guy peddling dope — snowbird himself’.
1933		‘My Bonny Lies Over the Ocan’ in With the Diggers [online] My Father sells snow to the snowbirds, / My Mother sells synthetic gin.
1940		S. Longstreet Decade 82: Is he a snow-boid? Those cokies are cards when they get a load of nose-candy.
1953		W. Brown Run, Chico, Run (1959) 20: There were dark alleyways where snowbirds and stumblebums lurked in the shadows, cats that would swish you even for a dime.
1969		M. Puzo Godfather 299: If they use a real snowbird and he gets caught, we won’t lift a finger.
1971–2		C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 215: snowbird, n. – one who sniffs cocaine.
1984		J. Ellroy Because the Night 83: ‘[A] stone snowbird, really whacked out’.
1990		R. Campbell Sweet La-La Land (1999) 5: Now the snowbirds, pack rats, barn owls, and assorted freaks fed upon her bones.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 19: Snow bird — Cocaine user; cocaine.

2. (US Und.) a heroin or morphine addict.

1918		Jackson Dly News (MS) 1 Apr. 7/3: Crook Chatter [...] ‘One addicted to the use of drugs is either a “snowbird,” “cokomo” or “hop-head”’.
1922		(con. 1918–19) S.V. Benét Beginning of Wisdom 290: The tale of how he took to heroin, became a ‘snow-bird’ and finally broke the habit [...] was another saga.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 176: Snow-Bird.–A heroin addict.
1947		N. Algren Neon Wilderness (1986) 151: They [i.e. eyes] had the snowbird look in them sure enough.
1953		F. Paley Rumble on the Docks (1955) 131: You tell my friend Brindo, I got plenty of buckshot, but no snowbirds to shoot at.
1962		P. Crump Burn, Killer, Burn! 150: He was also a snowbird, all-around hustler and head dean of the pool room.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.

3. a woman involved in the cocaine trade [bird n.¹ (1b)].

1933		King’s Co. Chron. 5 Jan. 8: Snowbird — A woman cocaine seller.
1936		H. Corey Farewell, Mr Gangster! 280: Snowbird – woman coke-seller.
1946		S. Jackson Indiscreet Guide to Soho 121: ‘Snow birds,’ the women who introduce ‘friends’ on commission to dope-peddlers.
1950		P. Hoskins No Hiding Place! 192/1: Snowbird. Woman cocaine pedlar.