"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.”<p>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.<p>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.
This is a nice take on the reality of the middle to upper middle class drug economy.<p>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.<p>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.
I found this sentence interesting -<p><pre><code> 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.
</code></pre>
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?<p>Small-to-medium sized business owners, Wall Street traders, quants and very good engineers make that much money with none of the associated risk.
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.<p>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.<p>We might even get there soon.
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.
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.<p>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.<p>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 <i>lot</i> 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.<p>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).<p>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.
"Customers in Colorado and Washington State no longer need to pay a premium for black-market marijuana."<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.)
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.
"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"<p>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.
> In many circles, drugs are nearly as easy to find as liquor.<p>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".