Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (drugs) addicted to a narcotic drug, usu. opium or heroin; pertaining to that addiction.

1901		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 46: Hophead Hank has a dream.
1914		Amer. Mag. 77 June 31–5: In the underworld there is a species of foresight termed ‘hop-head hunches.’ They are regarded with superstitious awe the country over.
1916		J. Lait ‘Charlie the Wolf’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 36: [He] knew just how Hophead Hank must have felt when he saw fields of poppies.
1922		B. Hecht A Thousand and One Afternoons [ebook] Put on the red ball gown and come out and crack jokes with the hop-headed-looking juvenile lead.
1927		D. Hammett ‘The Big Knockover’ Story Omnibus (1966) 277: Beno, a hophead newsie who had given me a tip now and then.
1931		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 28 Dec. 9/5: What the Americans would call a hop-head idea — an opium smoker’s pipe dream.
1946		Drake & Cayton Black Metropolis 567: With a hophead daddy and a booze houn’ mammy. How he ever gonna be a doctah?
1963		B. Hecht Gaily, Gaily 86: Jim put twenty-two affiliated whorehouses into action, all stocked with evening-gowned lassies, hop-headed pimps, and pale piano players.
1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 108: ‘Three goddam rooming houses! Two bars on Third Avener! And this hopheaded bitch signs them all away on me’.
1996		(con. 1949) G. Pelecanos Big Blowdown (1999) 162: The kid was down from some steeltown, looking for his hophead sister.
1999		J. Ridley Everybody Smokes in Hell 4: He moved in a hophead/dope fiend slow dance.
2009		(con. 1960s) J. Ellroy Blood’s a Rover 21: You make your hophead pal keep buying our hotels.
2018		(con. 1963) L. Berney November Road 72: [A] hophead doctor in the Mexican part of town.

2. as a general insult, implying mental deficiency.

1949

(con. 1943–5) A. Murphy To Hell and Back (1950) 134: Don’t talk like that to me, you hop-headed goon.’.