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Your Friendly Neighborhood Drug Dealer

theatlantic.com

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Re: Your Friendly Neighborhood Drug Dealer

#51

Post by aidos »

throwaway13qf85 wrote: post #23
gedrap wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> 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.

We're not talking about the corner boys - I've read Freakonomics too, I know they are earning next to nothing. We're talking about someone running a large scale distribution operation supplying a huge metropolitan region in the US with goods that are in short supply and high demand. I guess I thought that the guys at the top would be earning more. It's a lot of money, but it's not private jets and weekends in Aspen k…

Just because he's serving a large segment of the coast, doesn't mean it's exclusive. I've known of people serving larger numbers than mentioned in the article, but they're one of 100s in the city. On any given weekend in London huge numbers of drugs are purchased and consumed. A single supplier is a small part of that.

Re: Your Friendly Neighborhood Drug Dealer

#52

Post by swalkergibson »

smacktoward wrote: post #38
mabbo wrote: post #3

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…

> We might even get there soon. For pot, sure. For cocaine? I seriously doubt it.

As someone whose sister just died of a heroin overdose, I hope that we will get to the point that all drugs are legal. My sister died alone in a locked bedroom because of the shame and stigma associated with her addiction and related mental illness. I have no doubt that if there was a safe place she could go to use pharmaceutical grade heroin with clean needles that she would be alive today.

Re: Your Friendly Neighborhood Drug Dealer

#53

Post by chimeracoder »

atom-morgan wrote: post #39
JamesArgo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

> 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

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_divinorum#US_legality

Re: Your Friendly Neighborhood Drug Dealer

#54

Post by pantalaimon »

JamesArgo wrote: post #19
0xdeadbeefbabe wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it the war on drugs what kept you from using it more than once a year or so, or something else?

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.

> 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.

Re: Your Friendly Neighborhood Drug Dealer

#55

Post by aidos »

smacktoward wrote: post #38
mabbo wrote: post #3

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…

> We might even get there soon. For pot, sure. For cocaine? I seriously doubt it.

It's worth taking a look at Portugal. You don't need to allow the sale of drugs, you just need to decriminalise them for recreational users. I'll link to the report (that was on HN a while back) once I'm not on a mobile.

Re: Your Friendly Neighborhood Drug Dealer

#56

Post by elohesra »

chimeracoder wrote: post #53
atom-morgan wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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 pos…

> 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.

Re: Your Friendly Neighborhood Drug Dealer

#57

Post by bashinator »

mikestew wrote: post #27
jlgaddis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> I live in Indiana, the only state where one cannot buy alcohol on a Sunday. I'll allow that it's been 14 years since I lived in the area, but NC and TN still had dry counties where you couldn't buy liquor at all, let alone Sundays. Born and raised in Indiana, where you could buy hard liquor in one of two places: the liquor store (duh) and the drug store. I'd love to know the origin of _that_ law. "What about the gr…

> I'd love to know the origin of _that_ law.

During prohibition, it was still possible to get alcohol with a doctor's prescription (does that sound familiar?). So pharmacies started carrying whiskey and such to fill those prescriptions. Once prohibition ended, they just started selling it over-the-counter.

Re: Your Friendly Neighborhood Drug Dealer

#58

Post by the_watcher »

throwaway13qf85 wrote: post #23
gedrap wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> 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.

We're not talking about the corner boys - I've read Freakonomics too, I know they are earning next to nothing. We're talking about someone running a large scale distribution operation supplying a huge metropolitan region in the US with goods that are in short supply and high demand. I guess I thought that the guys at the top would be earning more. It's a lot of money, but it's not private jets and weekends in Aspen k…

To be fair, the article mentioned that he uses his government relationships to limit his growth to a safe size. He seems to be actively limiting his upside to protect his downside, which in a high-risk, illegal industry, is probably the logical move to make.

Re: Your Friendly Neighborhood Drug Dealer

#59

Post by chimeracoder »

JPKab wrote: post #2

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 an…

> 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.

Re: Your Friendly Neighborhood Drug Dealer

#60

Post by jessaustin »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #22
Jun8 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No sales to minors" If law enforcement cannot stop drug sale en masse, how do you propose that sale to minors will be prevented? The analogy with cigarettes and alcohol is not very apt: a lot of chain stores sell these (although some are pulling out: http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2014/02/05/cvs-to-... ). It's clear that such outlets will not be open to drugs like heroin or MDMA.

The pattern that's emerging is for sales to happen at dedicated dispensaries. Morgan Spurlock had a good episode about them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gx4-wS1nrM#t=337 I'm sure the one they highlighted is among the more professional, but looking at how it's run and the stakes involved I'd imagine it's no more possible for a minor to make a purchase there than at a state liquor store.

Yeah the dispensaries I've been to have "bouncers" at the doors. There's no way a kid is going to make a purchase there. Of course a kid with money and an older friend can still buy...
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