tracks, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

tracks n.

also track, track marks, marks

(drugs) punctures and scar tissue that accumulate along the veins of a regular drug addict.

1960		C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 138: ‘Tracks’ ‘That’s the spot on an addict’s arm where he keeps shoving the needle in.’.
1965		C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 406: He didn’t have his spike track any more.
1966		(con. 1958) R. Farina Been Down So Long (1972) 88: You watch and see, you’ll be mainlining, man, in a year and a half you’re gonna have trackmarks right down into your fingertips.
1975		Sepe & Telano Cop Team 146: Innumerable ‘tracks,’ the all-revealing scars of ulcerated veins that had been pierced reperatedly by hypodermic needles.
1989		(con. 1950s) Courtwright & Des Jarlais Addicts Who Survived 116: When I started shooting speedballs I began getting very noticeable tracks.
1991		D. Widgery Some Lives! 105: Baby-faced heroin addict [...] arm full of tracks.
1997		E. Little Another Day in Paradise 20: I’m tracked up and they see it – my marks – and cuff me.
1999		J. Ridley Love Is a Racket 78: The veins of his arm ballooned, highlighting his track marks like a topographic map of his abuse.
2000		P. Temple Dead Point (2008) [ebook] ‘So Robbie went into his garage [...] shot up. that’s it?’ He nodded. ‘The fit’s there?’ A nod. ‘Tracks?’ ‘Yeah. User’.
2002		(con. 1998–2000) J. Lerner You Got Nothing Coming 88: He has impeccable wood credentials: unemployed short-order cook, needle tracks on his arms hidden by tattoos.
c.2003		D. Vrij ‘Tying Off’ on Inter-zone.org 🌐 The California attitude, from Govenor Ronald Raygun down through to his piggy minions was ‘Fuck You Junkie, you can’t buy no stinking rigs and we’ll throw your ass in jail just for having one.’ Shit, they were known to bust people just for fucking tracks.
2015		T. Pluck ‘Big Snip’ in Life During Wartime (2018) 19: [I]t wasn’t Christina’s track marks that had bothered her.
2021		T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 20: [H]is birth mother, a track-marked night hag who pimped him to pay the man who killed her pain.

In phrases

tracked up (adj.) (also track-marked)

(drugs) of a narcotics addict, having one’s arms (and other parts of the body) covered in scars from injections.

1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 202: I shot up every day and I was pleased in a funny way that my arm wasn’t tracked up like a trolley-car run.
1969		R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970).
1972		O. Hawkins Ghetto Sketches 43: The weight of the portable T.V. straining the strength of their tracked up arms.
1981		J. Wambaugh Glitter Dome (1982) 41: Carrying a thirty-pound brass Buddha in her track-marked, tattooed little arms.
1997		E. Little Another Day in Paradise 4: They were tracked-up, shot-out female children who were my surrogate sisters and mothers. [Ibid.] 20: I’m tracked up and they see it – my marks – and cuff me.