17 ms·

Your Friendly Neighborhood Drug Dealer

211 points by pyduan 12y ago

JPKab 12y ago
This is a nice take on the reality of the middle to upper middle class drug economy. It's not all episodes of the Wire. If you're picking up ecstasy or high-grade cannabis, chances are you're doing it like this. I have to admit that I miss MDMA. I haven't touched the stuff in over 10 years, but it was awesome to use once a year or so. I'm pretty thoroughly convinced that I overcame some issues with trusting people and forming human connections as an accidental side effect of wanting to have a good time.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
  Was it the war on drugs what kept you from using it more than once a year or so, or something else?
  - JPKab 12y ago
    It was health concerns. I had read and heard that the huge amounts of serotonin released in the brain had no bad effects provided it wasn't too often.
  - JamesArgo 12y ago
    The metabolites of MDMA are thought to be neurotoxic. Though it's known the chemical itself is not. In a sane world, we would use drug discovery to find drugs with similar effects but without the toxic metabolites. But we love to punish people for their vices, so there is no research on creating safer alternatives to existent drugs.
    - atom-morgan 12y ago
      > But we love to punish people for their vices, so there is no research on creating safer alternatives to existent drugs. And even in the areas where people are creating safer alternatives (e-cigarettes), there are politicians nearby ready to use their banhammers.
      - chimeracoder 12y ago
        > And even in the areas where people are creating safer alternatives (e-cigarettes), there are politicians nearby ready to use their banhammers. I don't think this ("banhammers") is a fair comparison. To my knowledge, most if not all of the major regulation regarding e-cigarettes is around restricting the sale to minors or restricting the areas in which they can be used, as opposed to a blanket ban on the sale or possession of e-cigarettes. All of that is analogous to existing regulation regarding cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana[0]. The only difference from marijuana is that we're starting from the other end of the spectrum (zero regulation) instead of starting from a blanket ban, but the theoretical convergence point is the same: use of marijuana and e-cigarettes are permitted, but regulated in some way around the age of purchaser and location (setting) of use. You can make the argument that restricting the use of e-cigarettes indoors (or by minors) is incorrect, but people have been arguing that 18-year-olds should be able to drink (like in the rest of the world)[1] or use marijuana, so the details of the regulation regarding those aren't necessarily perfect or justified either. A better example of "banhammers" would be Salvia divinorum, which was legal in every (or almost every) state ten years ago, and is now prohibited in 8 states (and there were attempts to prohibit it outright, like marijuana, in several more)[2]. [0] in (e.g.) Colorado, where recreational sale and use is permitted. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_divinorum#US_legality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_divinorum#US_legality
        elohesra 12y ago
        > All of that is analogous to existing regulation regarding cigarettes But this is why e-cigarette campaigners say that politicians are just meddling out of personal distaste, rather than any scientific backing. The two core reasons why cigarettes cannot be smoked indoors are: 1) Doing so (potentially) causes deleterious effects to people who inhale the second-hand smoke. At the very least, it can be agreed that it's not preferable to breathe smoke. 2) It makes it likelier that the smoker will give up their dangerous addiction. Neither case can be particularly easily applied to e-cigarettes, which emit harmless water vapour, and are to many smokers a means of giving up their dangerous smoking addiction. I must say I agree with the e-cigarette campaigners that attempts to apply the same laws to e-cigarettes as cigarettes is just yet another example of politicians wanting to control something absent of any scientific proof that they need to do so.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      And worse people cycle through novel compounds to avoid drugs laws to create "legal highs" which have bery little data to show how safe or not they are. It's weird just how sub optimal current laws are.
    - pantalaimon 12y ago
      > so there is no research on creating safer alternatives to existent drugs That's not entirely true, MDAI was created as a safer alternative to MDMA, however reports say it's somewhat lacking in the experience.
    - Alex3917 12y ago
      We already have a non-neurotoxic version, it's called MDAI.
  - collyw 12y ago
    It doesn't work if you use it too much.
- cnp 12y ago
  I've personally seen MDMA fix two marriages, with one session each. Its divine stuff. I'm very happy that new studies have been completed or are being planned to further explore the psychotherapeutical side of the drug. But aside from that, I agree. It's the best. No hangover (if it's pure), short duration, music sounds amazing, an amplified sense of intellectual focus and compassion, and good times with friends. You can't ask for anything more from an intoxicant. Its the best.
  - kittycow 12y ago
    agreed. I take one whenever i go to a job interview. Without it I'm a stuttering idiot during an interview. where as with ecstasy I turn in to the dos equis beer guy.
    - thathonkey 12y ago
      you probably feel like dos equis beer guy but to the interviewer you just have pupils the size of saucers and can't stop feeling the fabric of your clothes really earnestly
    - CocaKoala 12y ago
      How often to you go to job interviews? If you have lots of them and take MDMA before each one, I think it might not be as helpful as you feel it is.
      - kittycow 12y ago
        good point!
  - WarDekar 12y ago
    No hangover? Except for, let's see, a short list: Severely depleted serotonin levels, causing irritability and possibly depression Loss of focus, concentration, and attention (good luck programming competently the day after) Bruxism (jaw clenching/grinding)
    - 12y ago
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  > This is a nice take on the reality of the middle to upper middle class drug economy. It's not all episodes of the Wire. It may still be there, just slightly beyond the frame of this picture. The article doesn't go into how the drugs actually get across the Canadian border, for example. The show Weeds was unrealistic in some ways, but one thing that the first couple of seasons did reasonably well was to depict Nancy's descent into progressively more dangerous situations and the beginning of her relationship with organized crime. At any appreciable scale, the drug trade[0] gets messy very quickly - not always to the end user, but certainly one or two degrees removed. If it looks clean, either it's because it's a very small scale and vertically integrated (eg, the marijuana equivalent of "microbrew"), or you're just not looking far enough down the supply chain. [0] Of course, this is not a comment on the inherent nature of the drug trade, but on the inherent nature of any illicit trade; legal (or "less illegal") supply and distribution channels will have far less crime associated with them.
mabbo 12y ago
It's become obvious that laws can't stop drugs. Imagine a world where the level of convenience described here was normal, but without the bullshit. No more money wasted on police trying to stop it. No sales to minors (at least, no more than cigarettes and alcohol have now). Taxes on income by drugs dealers (Colorado is showing a hell of a windfall). Reliability and safety in quality, so that you get exactly what you expect. We might even get there soon.
- jlgaddis 12y ago
  > We might even get there soon. I don't think the country, as a whole, will, but I do believe the more liberal areas will get there much quicker (as we're already seeing). I live in Indiana, the only state where one cannot buy alcohol on a Sunday. I don't think marijuana is gonna be legal here anytime in the near future.
  - blhack 12y ago
    Marijuana is probably going to be federally legal very soon. What's currently happening in Washington and Colorado is a good example to the rest of the world that marijuana is not the devil-drug that they thought it was. The best thing that will come out of all of this, imho, is that people will stop looking at marijuana and methamphetamine like they're the same thing. We might actually get sane drug policies, and we might end up getting people who need help (drug addicts) the help that they need, instead of just locking them in prison.
    - adamfeldman 12y ago
      The U.S. was responsible for marijuana being internationally portrayed as the "devil-drug" in the first place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs#Rescheduling_proposals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_...
    - psykovsky 12y ago
      > What's currently happening in Washington and Colorado is a good example to the rest of the world that marijuana is not the devil-drug that they thought it was. The Netherlands have been showing it to the world for the last 30 or 40 years.
throwaway13qf85 12y ago
I found this sentence interesting - I surmised that Viktor serves a large segment of the East Coast and personally takes in $24,000 to $32,000 per month after all his other costs are covered. Let's say he takes in an average of $30,000 per month. Does $360,000 annually sound like quite a small amount of money for running a highly illegal business that serves a large chunk of the East Coast? Small-to-medium sized business owners, Wall Street traders, quants and very good engineers make that much money with none of the associated risk.
- JonnieCache 12y ago
  My economically ignorant analysis: Every link in the chain demands a large danger premium. The cellular nature of the black market prevents him from sucking up all the profits himself: he has no way to influence the business models of those between him and the eventual user. Except by starting his own distribution chain, which is more risk than any sensible person would take on, even by drug dealing standards. Ever seen breaking bad?
- yebyen 12y ago
  Do you pay taxes on that money, or have an expense to launder it somehow (and then pay taxes?) If not, then no. There are still plenty of small towns here East of the Mississippi River where working to retirement age and cashing out with $1 million and a generous continuing (for now) return from a lifetime of working, paying taxes, hiring and firing, and making various contributions into Social Security, is enough to set up a trust fund for your family and go on living the dream in a house worth about $100k. Reality is you would probably end up paying taxes on that money somehow or other, and if you ever want to get out of the game, then it's probably not worth it.
- gedrap 12y ago
  >>> Small-to-medium sized business owners, Wall Street traders, quants and very good engineers make that much money with none of the associated risk. Of course it's not a lot. The corner boys are earning less than McDonald's burger flippers. But you comment makes it sounds as if a dealer one day can say "screw it, I will be a quant". It's not a lot but it's the best he can get.
badman_ting 12y ago
See, I've always wanted someone like this, but never found it. I've always found people that sell one thing only (cannabis), or maybe a couple, but not the "drug supermarket". I mean, it makes sense as the article points out, if you're going to take on a big risk you might as well not do it halfway. I probably travel in the wrong circles, to put it lightly.
- tomp 12y ago
  > if you're going to take on a big risk It's not only the risk, it's also finding the right whole-sale provider, which I imagine is not the easiest thing to find.
  - Consultant32452 12y ago
    The guy in the article mentioned his supplier of MDMA explicitly. I assume he has a different supplier for his different drugs.
- pantalaimon 12y ago
  http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetmarkets http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetmarkets
- ddoolin 12y ago
  Yep. I may stumble upon shrooms or acid/LSD every once in awhile but for the most part, it's unknown-strained marijuana. I don't really have the type of friends to make those kinds of connections, has always been my take on why.
- josefresco 12y ago
  Sometimes your "weed guy" will actually sell much more but simply not tell you. If you ask (the right way) they might reveal this, or connect you with another guy but I would suspect a lot don't want you (or anyone) to know they deal in the "harder stuff".
  - badman_ting 12y ago
jschmitz28 12y ago
> In many circles, drugs are nearly as easy to find as liquor. I can't figure out if this is a mistake, deception (liquor is not a drug, it just contains one), or implying that "drugs" means "illegal drugs".
- ryanobjc 12y ago
  I think the reason why you are getting downvoted is because, especially from the context, its very common to know that 'drugs' means 'drugs taken for fun' (not all of them are illegal either). See, this is why I'm not sure I like computer people anymore - overly pedantic, not advancing the conversation. I call that 'smart-stupid' -- so smart, yet dumb at the same time.
  - morgante 12y ago
    > See, this is why I'm not sure I like computer people anymore - overly pedantic, not advancing the conversation. I call that 'smart-stupid' -- so smart, yet dumb at the same time. I'm pretty sure most computer people don't like "smart-stupidity" either (hence the downvotes). If anything, I think engineers are more annoyed by bullshit/irrelevant pedantry than others.
  - jschmitz28 12y ago
    I wasn't trying to be pedantic. I probably should've been more direct but what I mean is that it's a disservice to the article to distinguish alcohol from all other recreational drugs like that. The way it's worded makes it sound like alcohol is not a drug at all, which opens up people's minds into treating the two differently even though one literally IS the other.
    - CocaKoala 12y ago
      The article talks about drug dealers. Unless you call the cashier at the local liquor store your dealer (and you're super weird if you do that; don't do that), it seems exceedingly clear from context that they're referring to illegal drugs. Blatantly ignoring contextual clues like that is obnoxious at best.
peterwwillis 12y ago
It's funny that they didn't interview any actual neighborhood-dealers. The people sitting on the corner slinging dope have a much more dangerous job than people with clientele who are discreet and wealthy. I suppose it's because they're perceived as so dangerous that reporters never talk to them. But ask a corner man his life story and he'll tell you about serving time, getting shot, and paying off cops to stay alive. Stories like this one really gives you a romantic - and unrealistic - idea of dealing.
- ryanobjc 12y ago
  Part of the point of the article is exactly that - what is your "neighborhood dealer" now-a-days? The people sitting on the corner slinging dope is itself an image, and may not be reflected in reality anymore. Especially with police wise to that kind of behavior, surely it makes sense to be able to blend in?
  - bluedino 12y ago
    >> The people sitting on the corner slinging dope is itself an image, and may not be reflected in reality anymore. Have you been in a bad part of town lately? The places to buy drugs are liquor stores and car washes in bad neighborhoods. Plenty of people standing around willing to sell you $20 worth of your drug of choice. Why do you think so much gun violence occurs in those areas?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- spada 12y ago
  it's because the angle you mention has been covered plenty of times. watch a few episodes of Drugs Inc. and you'll see. this covers the end we rarely hear about and is far more interesting as it's far removed from the street.
- marssaxman 12y ago
  This story is neither romantic nor unrealistic; this is just a different kind of drug dealing. If anything, those exotic "street" stories full of violence and danger seem awfully romanticized to me; they certainly have nothing to do with any experience of drug culture I have ever had.
beat 12y ago
"If you get jammed up, you can become a convicted felon and that damns you to do it for the rest of your life, because you won’t get anything but a $7.50 an hour job—if that. You give somebody a felony record for life, what did you accomplish? You’ve just created a lower-class idiot that has to commit more crimes to survive.” That's the problem right there. We can spend tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars incarcerating a simple marijuana dealer, and then remove most of them from the chance of ever having a productive life. There are exceptions. I have an old friend who spent a few years in prison for LSD traffic back in college. He's one of the smartest people I ever met. Eventually he got out, finished his PhD in chemistry, and now is the co-founder of a startup doing new chemotherapy drugs. But like I said, one of the smartest people I've ever met.
- Symmetry 12y ago
  And the same conviction that means regular employers not trust the person mean that potential partners in crime know he's actually a criminal and therefore more trustworthy for their purposes.
  - collyw 12y ago
    "Criminal" as in the label. Was there not a statistic recently that the average American commits 3 felonies every day? Being a criminal just means you got caught.
    - jrockway 12y ago
      That's a quip, not a statistic.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- dlsx 12y ago
  LSD and Marijuana increase IQ. I have smoked and dosed for 20+ years and only notice my mental abilities sharpen. Alcohol and cigarettes are the real issue, but they are legal of course :). Perhaps the title should be renamed socially marginalized friends have to break the law to help people get what they want. The government and police should be removed from the equation, and let the shock commence when violent crime actually dwindles. >2014 >still war on drugs SMFH
corin_ 12y ago
In the UK (at least in my anecdotal experience, I know people in London, Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire) it seems there's hardly any money to be made in selling weed any more. I'm sure further up the chain there is, but at actual dealer levels (I've never come across a "street corner" sort of person, just those who either sell from their home or travel to deliver) there's very little profit available. I don't know how long this has been the case (seems to have become so much more over the past couple of years I think), and having never been a dealer myself I don't know exactly how much can be made now, or in the past. But essentially, it seems there are very few weed dealers left, other than two types: pot-heads who sell to a circle of friends to subsidise their own smoking, or people who sell harder drugs (in my experiences: cocaine) and have a bit of weed on the side but don't focus on it. Cocaine on the other hand... I've had friends who sell it (not in a "I became friends with a dealer" way, but just people who I found out deal unrelated to how I knew them), and there is a lot of money to be made there, even selling fairly small quantities. It's been a few months since I've had a conversation on this topic, but afaik it's still the case, even with people who sell to a few dozen people, mostly small quantities, can make a hell of a living from it. All that said, it's possible my knowledge is from a fairly affluent middle class angle (hell, the last person I met who randomly turned out to be a coke dealer was somebody who held a decent job in the PC hardware industry, though he's stopped dealing now). Would love to know more about the economies involved (for example I've heard rough numbers of cost for cocaine from its origin in South America to UK consumers, but not in huge detail), but it's very hard to find out this sort of information without being directly involved yourself.
- librethrowaway 12y ago
  I disagree somewhat, dealing marijuana is still quite profitable, even in west coast USA where ubiquitous medical/legal marijuana has driven down prices a lot. As for east coast? From what I hear, the markup is still huge, with retail prices roughly double of west coast. The only people I know of making a living exclusively selling marijuana (on the west coast) are small-time growers, though. You're definitely right about crack/molly, the profit margins on those are ridiculous - because what's truly valuable there are the connections.
  - 12y ago
mikestew 12y ago
"Customers in Colorado and Washington State no longer need to pay a premium for black-market marijuana." Colorado, maybe. Since the retail operations are not open for business yet in WA, we still don't know if retail is going to be cheaper. That's the part that worries me. I look at the tax structure (25% on each of the three players involved: grower, processor, retailer) and wonder how they're going to keep it under $100/quarter ounce. It's happened already in WA: tax the hell out of something and then wonder why revenues dropped. A few years back WA jacked up the tobacco tax a ridiculous amount (I think a pack of smokes was like $8). Shortly after, the state complained that revenues took a dive. Duh, ya think? They raised taxes so much it was now practical to either order via the Internet (KY has smokes for $3, IIRC) or drive out of your way to the American Indian reservation. If a quarter ounce of legal weed comes out to $150 because of taxes, this grand experiment isn't going to end well. (If someone has some hard math on what the consumer-level price might be, I'd love to be corrected on this.)
- chenelson 12y ago
  Ha. I've seen $22/gram recreational with a max of 3 grams, and people are lining up in downtown Denver. Things aren't much better in Boulder, where the city is dragging their feet on recreational. You can get 1 gram of wax (concentrate) for $25 black market (the bicyclists love their sativas), or from $40 to $65 in one of the shops (lower price typically medical). I think the pie is probably growing. Good number of senior citizens are waiting patiently in line for 15 minutes; favorite line: "Sativa edible? I can't wait for bingo tonight."
- stronglikedan 12y ago
  I purchased a quarter on the street for $100. It was a medical strain that came in a jar labeled with all of the manufacturers information - somewhere out in California. I looked it up on the manufacturers web site, and they were charging $200 to customers with a card. If that is the standard, then they are going to have a hell of a time overriding the street market with retail.
Tloewald 12y ago
So, um legalize harmless recreational drugs already. While we're at it, how about adding "no victim: no crime" to the constitution.
D9u 12y ago
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/8/headlines/hilary_clinton_says_us_cant_legalize_drugs_because_there_is_too_much_money_in_it http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/8/headlines/hilary_clinto...
V-2 12y ago
"At one residence, a businessman in his 40s opened the door, still dressed for the office in a suit and silk tie, still, by phone, issuing stern instructions to one of his colleagues" Not very professional for a drug dealer, bringing a journalist to his customer's house (not to mention the customer accepting this fact without batting an eye). It reads like something Stephen Glass could have written.

211 points by pyduan 12y ago

JPKab 12y ago

This is a nice take on the reality of the middle to upper middle class drug economy. It's not all episodes of the Wire. If you're picking up ecstasy or high-grade cannabis, chances are you're doing it like this. I have to admit that I miss MDMA. I haven't touched the stuff in over 10 years, but it was awesome to use once a year or so. I'm pretty thoroughly convinced that I overcame some issues with trusting people and forming human connections as an accidental side effect of wanting to have a good time.

0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
Was it the war on drugs what kept you from using it more than once a year or so, or something else?
- JPKab 12y ago
  It was health concerns. I had read and heard that the huge amounts of serotonin released in the brain had no bad effects provided it wasn't too often.
- JamesArgo 12y ago
  The metabolites of MDMA are thought to be neurotoxic. Though it's known the chemical itself is not. In a sane world, we would use drug discovery to find drugs with similar effects but without the toxic metabolites. But we love to punish people for their vices, so there is no research on creating safer alternatives to existent drugs.
  - atom-morgan 12y ago
    > But we love to punish people for their vices, so there is no research on creating safer alternatives to existent drugs. And even in the areas where people are creating safer alternatives (e-cigarettes), there are politicians nearby ready to use their banhammers.
    - chimeracoder 12y ago
      > And even in the areas where people are creating safer alternatives (e-cigarettes), there are politicians nearby ready to use their banhammers. I don't think this ("banhammers") is a fair comparison. To my knowledge, most if not all of the major regulation regarding e-cigarettes is around restricting the sale to minors or restricting the areas in which they can be used, as opposed to a blanket ban on the sale or possession of e-cigarettes. All of that is analogous to existing regulation regarding cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana[0]. The only difference from marijuana is that we're starting from the other end of the spectrum (zero regulation) instead of starting from a blanket ban, but the theoretical convergence point is the same: use of marijuana and e-cigarettes are permitted, but regulated in some way around the age of purchaser and location (setting) of use. You can make the argument that restricting the use of e-cigarettes indoors (or by minors) is incorrect, but people have been arguing that 18-year-olds should be able to drink (like in the rest of the world)[1] or use marijuana, so the details of the regulation regarding those aren't necessarily perfect or justified either. A better example of "banhammers" would be Salvia divinorum, which was legal in every (or almost every) state ten years ago, and is now prohibited in 8 states (and there were attempts to prohibit it outright, like marijuana, in several more)[2]. [0] in (e.g.) Colorado, where recreational sale and use is permitted. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_divinorum#US_legality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_divinorum#US_legality
      - elohesra 12y ago
        > All of that is analogous to existing regulation regarding cigarettes But this is why e-cigarette campaigners say that politicians are just meddling out of personal distaste, rather than any scientific backing. The two core reasons why cigarettes cannot be smoked indoors are: 1) Doing so (potentially) causes deleterious effects to people who inhale the second-hand smoke. At the very least, it can be agreed that it's not preferable to breathe smoke. 2) It makes it likelier that the smoker will give up their dangerous addiction. Neither case can be particularly easily applied to e-cigarettes, which emit harmless water vapour, and are to many smokers a means of giving up their dangerous smoking addiction. I must say I agree with the e-cigarette campaigners that attempts to apply the same laws to e-cigarettes as cigarettes is just yet another example of politicians wanting to control something absent of any scientific proof that they need to do so.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    And worse people cycle through novel compounds to avoid drugs laws to create "legal highs" which have bery little data to show how safe or not they are. It's weird just how sub optimal current laws are.
  - pantalaimon 12y ago
    > so there is no research on creating safer alternatives to existent drugs That's not entirely true, MDAI was created as a safer alternative to MDMA, however reports say it's somewhat lacking in the experience.
  - Alex3917 12y ago
    We already have a non-neurotoxic version, it's called MDAI.
- collyw 12y ago
  It doesn't work if you use it too much.
cnp 12y ago
I've personally seen MDMA fix two marriages, with one session each. Its divine stuff. I'm very happy that new studies have been completed or are being planned to further explore the psychotherapeutical side of the drug. But aside from that, I agree. It's the best. No hangover (if it's pure), short duration, music sounds amazing, an amplified sense of intellectual focus and compassion, and good times with friends. You can't ask for anything more from an intoxicant. Its the best.
- kittycow 12y ago
  agreed. I take one whenever i go to a job interview. Without it I'm a stuttering idiot during an interview. where as with ecstasy I turn in to the dos equis beer guy.
  - thathonkey 12y ago
    you probably feel like dos equis beer guy but to the interviewer you just have pupils the size of saucers and can't stop feeling the fabric of your clothes really earnestly
  - CocaKoala 12y ago
    How often to you go to job interviews? If you have lots of them and take MDMA before each one, I think it might not be as helpful as you feel it is.
    - kittycow 12y ago
      good point!
- WarDekar 12y ago
  No hangover? Except for, let's see, a short list: Severely depleted serotonin levels, causing irritability and possibly depression Loss of focus, concentration, and attention (good luck programming competently the day after) Bruxism (jaw clenching/grinding)
  - 12y ago
chimeracoder 12y ago
> This is a nice take on the reality of the middle to upper middle class drug economy. It's not all episodes of the Wire. It may still be there, just slightly beyond the frame of this picture. The article doesn't go into how the drugs actually get across the Canadian border, for example. The show Weeds was unrealistic in some ways, but one thing that the first couple of seasons did reasonably well was to depict Nancy's descent into progressively more dangerous situations and the beginning of her relationship with organized crime. At any appreciable scale, the drug trade[0] gets messy very quickly - not always to the end user, but certainly one or two degrees removed. If it looks clean, either it's because it's a very small scale and vertically integrated (eg, the marijuana equivalent of "microbrew"), or you're just not looking far enough down the supply chain. [0] Of course, this is not a comment on the inherent nature of the drug trade, but on the inherent nature of any illicit trade; legal (or "less illegal") supply and distribution channels will have far less crime associated with them.

mabbo 12y ago

It's become obvious that laws can't stop drugs. Imagine a world where the level of convenience described here was normal, but without the bullshit. No more money wasted on police trying to stop it. No sales to minors (at least, no more than cigarettes and alcohol have now). Taxes on income by drugs dealers (Colorado is showing a hell of a windfall). Reliability and safety in quality, so that you get exactly what you expect. We might even get there soon.

jlgaddis 12y ago
> We might even get there soon. I don't think the country, as a whole, will, but I do believe the more liberal areas will get there much quicker (as we're already seeing). I live in Indiana, the only state where one cannot buy alcohol on a Sunday. I don't think marijuana is gonna be legal here anytime in the near future.
- blhack 12y ago
  Marijuana is probably going to be federally legal very soon. What's currently happening in Washington and Colorado is a good example to the rest of the world that marijuana is not the devil-drug that they thought it was. The best thing that will come out of all of this, imho, is that people will stop looking at marijuana and methamphetamine like they're the same thing. We might actually get sane drug policies, and we might end up getting people who need help (drug addicts) the help that they need, instead of just locking them in prison.
  - adamfeldman 12y ago
    The U.S. was responsible for marijuana being internationally portrayed as the "devil-drug" in the first place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs#Rescheduling_proposals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_...
  - psykovsky 12y ago
    > What's currently happening in Washington and Colorado is a good example to the rest of the world that marijuana is not the devil-drug that they thought it was. The Netherlands have been showing it to the world for the last 30 or 40 years.

throwaway13qf85 12y ago

I found this sentence interesting - I surmised that Viktor serves a large segment of the East Coast and personally takes in $24,000 to $32,000 per month after all his other costs are covered. Let's say he takes in an average of $30,000 per month. Does $360,000 annually sound like quite a small amount of money for running a highly illegal business that serves a large chunk of the East Coast? Small-to-medium sized business owners, Wall Street traders, quants and very good engineers make that much money with none of the associated risk.

JonnieCache 12y ago
My economically ignorant analysis: Every link in the chain demands a large danger premium. The cellular nature of the black market prevents him from sucking up all the profits himself: he has no way to influence the business models of those between him and the eventual user. Except by starting his own distribution chain, which is more risk than any sensible person would take on, even by drug dealing standards. Ever seen breaking bad?
yebyen 12y ago
Do you pay taxes on that money, or have an expense to launder it somehow (and then pay taxes?) If not, then no. There are still plenty of small towns here East of the Mississippi River where working to retirement age and cashing out with $1 million and a generous continuing (for now) return from a lifetime of working, paying taxes, hiring and firing, and making various contributions into Social Security, is enough to set up a trust fund for your family and go on living the dream in a house worth about $100k. Reality is you would probably end up paying taxes on that money somehow or other, and if you ever want to get out of the game, then it's probably not worth it.
gedrap 12y ago
>>> Small-to-medium sized business owners, Wall Street traders, quants and very good engineers make that much money with none of the associated risk. Of course it's not a lot. The corner boys are earning less than McDonald's burger flippers. But you comment makes it sounds as if a dealer one day can say "screw it, I will be a quant". It's not a lot but it's the best he can get.

badman_ting 12y ago

See, I've always wanted someone like this, but never found it. I've always found people that sell one thing only (cannabis), or maybe a couple, but not the "drug supermarket". I mean, it makes sense as the article points out, if you're going to take on a big risk you might as well not do it halfway. I probably travel in the wrong circles, to put it lightly.

tomp 12y ago
> if you're going to take on a big risk It's not only the risk, it's also finding the right whole-sale provider, which I imagine is not the easiest thing to find.
- Consultant32452 12y ago
  The guy in the article mentioned his supplier of MDMA explicitly. I assume he has a different supplier for his different drugs.
pantalaimon 12y ago
http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetmarkets http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetmarkets
ddoolin 12y ago
Yep. I may stumble upon shrooms or acid/LSD every once in awhile but for the most part, it's unknown-strained marijuana. I don't really have the type of friends to make those kinds of connections, has always been my take on why.
josefresco 12y ago
Sometimes your "weed guy" will actually sell much more but simply not tell you. If you ask (the right way) they might reveal this, or connect you with another guy but I would suspect a lot don't want you (or anyone) to know they deal in the "harder stuff".
- badman_ting 12y ago

jschmitz28 12y ago

> In many circles, drugs are nearly as easy to find as liquor. I can't figure out if this is a mistake, deception (liquor is not a drug, it just contains one), or implying that "drugs" means "illegal drugs".

ryanobjc 12y ago
I think the reason why you are getting downvoted is because, especially from the context, its very common to know that 'drugs' means 'drugs taken for fun' (not all of them are illegal either). See, this is why I'm not sure I like computer people anymore - overly pedantic, not advancing the conversation. I call that 'smart-stupid' -- so smart, yet dumb at the same time.
- morgante 12y ago
  > See, this is why I'm not sure I like computer people anymore - overly pedantic, not advancing the conversation. I call that 'smart-stupid' -- so smart, yet dumb at the same time. I'm pretty sure most computer people don't like "smart-stupidity" either (hence the downvotes). If anything, I think engineers are more annoyed by bullshit/irrelevant pedantry than others.
- jschmitz28 12y ago
  I wasn't trying to be pedantic. I probably should've been more direct but what I mean is that it's a disservice to the article to distinguish alcohol from all other recreational drugs like that. The way it's worded makes it sound like alcohol is not a drug at all, which opens up people's minds into treating the two differently even though one literally IS the other.
  - CocaKoala 12y ago
    The article talks about drug dealers. Unless you call the cashier at the local liquor store your dealer (and you're super weird if you do that; don't do that), it seems exceedingly clear from context that they're referring to illegal drugs. Blatantly ignoring contextual clues like that is obnoxious at best.

peterwwillis 12y ago

It's funny that they didn't interview any actual neighborhood-dealers. The people sitting on the corner slinging dope have a much more dangerous job than people with clientele who are discreet and wealthy. I suppose it's because they're perceived as so dangerous that reporters never talk to them. But ask a corner man his life story and he'll tell you about serving time, getting shot, and paying off cops to stay alive. Stories like this one really gives you a romantic - and unrealistic - idea of dealing.

ryanobjc 12y ago
Part of the point of the article is exactly that - what is your "neighborhood dealer" now-a-days? The people sitting on the corner slinging dope is itself an image, and may not be reflected in reality anymore. Especially with police wise to that kind of behavior, surely it makes sense to be able to blend in?
- bluedino 12y ago
  >> The people sitting on the corner slinging dope is itself an image, and may not be reflected in reality anymore. Have you been in a bad part of town lately? The places to buy drugs are liquor stores and car washes in bad neighborhoods. Plenty of people standing around willing to sell you $20 worth of your drug of choice. Why do you think so much gun violence occurs in those areas?
- deleted 12y ago
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spada 12y ago
it's because the angle you mention has been covered plenty of times. watch a few episodes of Drugs Inc. and you'll see. this covers the end we rarely hear about and is far more interesting as it's far removed from the street.
marssaxman 12y ago
This story is neither romantic nor unrealistic; this is just a different kind of drug dealing. If anything, those exotic "street" stories full of violence and danger seem awfully romanticized to me; they certainly have nothing to do with any experience of drug culture I have ever had.

beat 12y ago

"If you get jammed up, you can become a convicted felon and that damns you to do it for the rest of your life, because you won’t get anything but a $7.50 an hour job—if that. You give somebody a felony record for life, what did you accomplish? You’ve just created a lower-class idiot that has to commit more crimes to survive.” That's the problem right there. We can spend tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars incarcerating a simple marijuana dealer, and then remove most of them from the chance of ever having a productive life. There are exceptions. I have an old friend who spent a few years in prison for LSD traffic back in college. He's one of the smartest people I ever met. Eventually he got out, finished his PhD in chemistry, and now is the co-founder of a startup doing new chemotherapy drugs. But like I said, one of the smartest people I've ever met.

Symmetry 12y ago
And the same conviction that means regular employers not trust the person mean that potential partners in crime know he's actually a criminal and therefore more trustworthy for their purposes.
- collyw 12y ago
  "Criminal" as in the label. Was there not a statistic recently that the average American commits 3 felonies every day? Being a criminal just means you got caught.
  - jrockway 12y ago
    That's a quip, not a statistic.
- deleted 12y ago
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dlsx 12y ago
LSD and Marijuana increase IQ. I have smoked and dosed for 20+ years and only notice my mental abilities sharpen. Alcohol and cigarettes are the real issue, but they are legal of course :). Perhaps the title should be renamed socially marginalized friends have to break the law to help people get what they want. The government and police should be removed from the equation, and let the shock commence when violent crime actually dwindles. >2014 >still war on drugs SMFH

corin_ 12y ago

In the UK (at least in my anecdotal experience, I know people in London, Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire) it seems there's hardly any money to be made in selling weed any more. I'm sure further up the chain there is, but at actual dealer levels (I've never come across a "street corner" sort of person, just those who either sell from their home or travel to deliver) there's very little profit available. I don't know how long this has been the case (seems to have become so much more over the past couple of years I think), and having never been a dealer myself I don't know exactly how much can be made now, or in the past. But essentially, it seems there are very few weed dealers left, other than two types: pot-heads who sell to a circle of friends to subsidise their own smoking, or people who sell harder drugs (in my experiences: cocaine) and have a bit of weed on the side but don't focus on it. Cocaine on the other hand... I've had friends who sell it (not in a "I became friends with a dealer" way, but just people who I found out deal unrelated to how I knew them), and there is a lot of money to be made there, even selling fairly small quantities. It's been a few months since I've had a conversation on this topic, but afaik it's still the case, even with people who sell to a few dozen people, mostly small quantities, can make a hell of a living from it. All that said, it's possible my knowledge is from a fairly affluent middle class angle (hell, the last person I met who randomly turned out to be a coke dealer was somebody who held a decent job in the PC hardware industry, though he's stopped dealing now). Would love to know more about the economies involved (for example I've heard rough numbers of cost for cocaine from its origin in South America to UK consumers, but not in huge detail), but it's very hard to find out this sort of information without being directly involved yourself.

librethrowaway 12y ago
I disagree somewhat, dealing marijuana is still quite profitable, even in west coast USA where ubiquitous medical/legal marijuana has driven down prices a lot. As for east coast? From what I hear, the markup is still huge, with retail prices roughly double of west coast. The only people I know of making a living exclusively selling marijuana (on the west coast) are small-time growers, though. You're definitely right about crack/molly, the profit margins on those are ridiculous - because what's truly valuable there are the connections.
- 12y ago

mikestew 12y ago

"Customers in Colorado and Washington State no longer need to pay a premium for black-market marijuana." Colorado, maybe. Since the retail operations are not open for business yet in WA, we still don't know if retail is going to be cheaper. That's the part that worries me. I look at the tax structure (25% on each of the three players involved: grower, processor, retailer) and wonder how they're going to keep it under $100/quarter ounce. It's happened already in WA: tax the hell out of something and then wonder why revenues dropped. A few years back WA jacked up the tobacco tax a ridiculous amount (I think a pack of smokes was like $8). Shortly after, the state complained that revenues took a dive. Duh, ya think? They raised taxes so much it was now practical to either order via the Internet (KY has smokes for $3, IIRC) or drive out of your way to the American Indian reservation. If a quarter ounce of legal weed comes out to $150 because of taxes, this grand experiment isn't going to end well. (If someone has some hard math on what the consumer-level price might be, I'd love to be corrected on this.)

chenelson 12y ago
Ha. I've seen $22/gram recreational with a max of 3 grams, and people are lining up in downtown Denver. Things aren't much better in Boulder, where the city is dragging their feet on recreational. You can get 1 gram of wax (concentrate) for $25 black market (the bicyclists love their sativas), or from $40 to $65 in one of the shops (lower price typically medical). I think the pie is probably growing. Good number of senior citizens are waiting patiently in line for 15 minutes; favorite line: "Sativa edible? I can't wait for bingo tonight."
stronglikedan 12y ago
I purchased a quarter on the street for $100. It was a medical strain that came in a jar labeled with all of the manufacturers information - somewhere out in California. I looked it up on the manufacturers web site, and they were charging $200 to customers with a card. If that is the standard, then they are going to have a hell of a time overriding the street market with retail.

Tloewald 12y ago

So, um legalize harmless recreational drugs already. While we're at it, how about adding "no victim: no crime" to the constitution.

D9u 12y ago

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/8/headlines/hilary_clinton_says_us_cant_legalize_drugs_because_there_is_too_much_money_in_it http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/8/headlines/hilary_clinto...

V-2 12y ago

"At one residence, a businessman in his 40s opened the door, still dressed for the office in a suit and silk tie, still, by phone, issuing stern instructions to one of his colleagues" Not very professional for a drug dealer, bringing a journalist to his customer's house (not to mention the customer accepting this fact without batting an eye). It reads like something Stephen Glass could have written.