YAY FOR DRUG DEALERS

I know this rant initially seems purely contrarian, but I’m dead serious. Drug dealers are America’s most unsung heroes. Imagine this scene. I’m in a bathroom at a filthy, fourth rate casino. I’m handing a guy a significant amount of money, and all he’s giving me in return is a little plastic bag of white stuff. Later, I’ll smash the stuff up and snort it so it can hit my bloodstream as quickly as possible. Think about all the levels of trust involved here. In whom do you show more faith than your dealer? Your Doctor? He has to go through ten years of school to prove that he can be trusted, plus he’s subject to constant oversight and the threat of malpractice suits. Try taking a guy who sells you a bag of oregano to court. Your pharmacist? Same story, and there’s zero chance of him cutting your Propecia with Ajax. Your baby sitter? What are the odds that she’s an undercover cop? Not to mention the fact that dealers navigate the dangerous world of the illicit drug trade, risking their lives to deliver those little baggies that make life nearly endurable. Perhaps the only more noble souls are those little Peruvian children, who give their lives so that their corpses can be filled with cocaine and shipped to the US.
MMMMMM.. child corpse cocaine.

(Aside: Do true coke connoisseurs note and savor the kind of child corpse that was used to transport their yay to the states? “Sniff… oh yes, this is a wonderful Bolivian cocaine and it was obviously transported in the murdered body of a girl who must have been about eleven. Really, that’s about two or three years past the ideal… sniff… but this is a fine product nonetheless. There’s a certain richness, which… sniff… tells me that this girl was a bit overweight when the cartel killed her. That’s not so common in Bolivia, and it really adds something. All in all, a delightful drug. 91 pts, Dope Spectator magazine.)

Are dealers in it for the money? Of course. But I’ve known plenty of police, firemen and doctors. When asked about their career paths, they never site altruistic concerns unless there’s a gullible chit about. While it’s a shame that drugs are illegal, a positive side effect is that the black market affords the opportunity for cashflow and upward mobility for the poor, college kids and immigrants. Personally, I find that purchasing drugs from a native Spanish speaker is just that much more satisfying. Maybe it’s the influence of Scarface, but should drugs ever be legalized, each time the clerk at Rite Aid said, “thank you, have a nice day,” I would wistfully think back to my current dealer saying things like, “Any time ju wan to go to a party, jus let me know. Iz like a walk
in the park.”

(Aside: it’s a bit silly how people discuss drugs in mixed company. Like, some forty year old Mexican dude is talking to a 29 year old white guy and they’re looking in opposite directions and saying shit that doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t matter how much you jumble shit up—“So, ju wan to play some monopoly?”

Yeah, yeah.”

“Ju wanna be the cannon, the car or the hat?”

“The cannon man.”

“OK wha’ will you roll on you firs throw?”

“About an eight. Is
that cool?”

“No problem cabron.”

It would probably be less conspicuous if you were just like, “Can I get an ounce of cocaine?”)

And how does America thank these brave men and women? By throwing them in jail, for giving us what we want. The justification is supposed to be—I guess—that they sell drugs to kids. Nonsense. Kids don’t have any money. You know who sells a fourteen year old dime bags? A fifteen year
old. And fuck, do you remember how fucking terrible it was to be fourteen or fifteen? If you’re not enduring the agonizing drudgery of being a high
school underclassman, you’re cringing with sexual anxiety or having to ask your parents for basics like transportation and a few bucks. If I could travel back in time to meet my fourteen year old self, the Delorian’s muffler would be scraping the ground, so loaded would it be with booze and drugs. And also porn, so I could save myself from the indignity of masturbating to scrambled signals from the Spice Channel. So how can I vilify a drug dealer for doing the same thing for other kids? If serious dealers actually did distribute to kids, my only criticism would be their failure to deliver porn as well. In a rational world, freshman
orientation would include a ten pack of Red Light District DVDs and a sampler of drugs. Unless you’re the type who uses vice to escape responsibility, then blames the vice that you chose to avoid responsibility for your choice, you’re far more likely to look back at
your youth and which you had experimented more than less. I know that I do. And why? Because I never ran into some kindly dealer who said, “the first one’s free.”