In a single word, being a drug dealer was exhilarating. Immense rewards, more than I realized at the time, but also unbelievable stress, unavoidable paranoia, and most difficult of all, an existence in a world that does not ‘exist’ by traditional standards.
I can’t speak to what it’s like peddling product on the street or life as a cartel kingpin. But I can tell you what my experience of being a mid level trafficker was like. My entry into trafficking came about suddenly and ended just as quickly, turning those years into blazing memories, grandiose and traumatic. It's not easy to put into words and probably best said through experience.
Towards the end of my freshman year at a California college, I found out that you could successfully ship weed. But that was only part of the puzzle. What made this all possible was a friend at a prestigious Ivy League school on the East Coast.
We eventually scraped together enough money to buy a quarter pound before the end of the school year. Roughly 1200 dollars at the time and I sent it to my counterpart. It was enjoyed by a small group of friends and that was it. While the profit margin on selling a QP wasn’t bad, several hundred dollars, it wasn’t enough to make clear that putting in the work to build the infrastructure could be more than worthwhile. It was one of the critical move that led to me and this best friend and partner spending the next few years of our lives fine-tuning our trafficking craft.
That summer, I spent in New York, where I was working for a prominent plaintiffs law firm. Already my third summer of working at a law firm, I was dedicated to going to law school and becoming an attorney. But another critical experience put me on the path towards trafficking. While out with my friends one night, we were hassled be police after a fight. Having weed on my person meant I would be spending the night in NY’s central lockup.
The only white person booked that night made for a lot of conversation. Mostly revolving around the unfortunate circumstances that led to our arrests. But more importantly, the discussions over weed prices in various states, sealed in my mind an opportunity too good to pass up.
Fast-forward two years; I had made enough connections that I was able to secure a ‘front’. For those who don’t know what that means; you give me a pound, I give you the money two weeks later. This is how most weed is sold, as small time distributers or beginning traffickers don’t usually have the cash to pay for product upfront.
While I now had the connection to get product without paying upfront, I still had to convince my friend that he could sell a pound. At that point, neither of us had any idea. And the idea of sending 3500 worth of weed, through the mail with no guarantee that it would get there or any guarantee that it would sell, was nerve-wracking to say the least. But I was young and foolish, eager to make money, and willing to take the risk.
With much relief, the pound arrived at our address back East and while it took twice as long to sell than we expected, the profit margin was some 35% of the investment. Giving us a taste of what was to come.
By junior year, my friend and I were basically supplying the entire school with our weed. We were selling three pounds a week minimum. But we were starting to exhaust our residential mailing addresses and struggling to return cash to California in a timely manner. Our sales were limited only by our trafficking infrastructure as opposed to our capital, because at this point, my connections were happy to supply the product.
Sometime around the end of the first semester junior year is when we started losing product. We lost our first package, a three pack worth roughly 12 grand which was a substantial hit and easily cut our cash on hand in half. Common sense might have told us to quit while ahead. But we (by this point) were still willing to take astronomical risks because how else can two unemployed colleges students make three grand a week? So after letting any heat die down, we went back to business.
Coming back to the second semester, we caught two fairly large breaks in both intelligence and connections. Not only did we find a way to pass commercial shipping security tests, we secured an ‘in’ at the Law School mailroom where we could send literally any amount of packages - and for the next several years, we never lost product to this location.
Towards the end of our Junior year, we had solved a lot of our risk issues and had been able to increase our shipments to 5 pounds a week (sometimes more). Saving up enough cash so that our prices in California allowed us to make some 2 grand on average per pound.
We were eager to make the rest of the school year count and knew that several major events were coming up. This is when cocaine came into the picture. Mostly through luck, we had stumbled upon an excellent cocaine connection. Not only was the product top notch, it was cheap as hell. It was however in Texas, not a convenient location but that didn’t stop us from packing our bags and driving overnight to Texas to buy our first kilo.
That first purchase made for a risky investment, having to spend 22 grand on a kilo of cocaine for only a few events we knew were prime for that product. Why risk didn’t factor into the investment, I’m not really sure. We were so determined to squeeze every ounce of profit out of this school, we lost sight of what reasonable risk, even by drug dealing standards, was. We were on a path and there was no turning back. Once you’re in the game, there are no easy exits.
Buying the cocaine turned out to be a huge mistake. One, we didn’t allow ourselves enough time to build a clientele or distribution. And on top of that, it tied up all our capital in product meaning that we went back on front for weed and our prices suffered. We had to discount our cocaine just to move it before the end of the semester, meaning our investment didn’t play out quite as we had expected. Caveat, Ivy leaguers buy a lot of coke before finals.
So while my friend, a finance major, for the investment, blinded by ‘potential’ returns, reality played out quite differently. We made a scant profit on a 20 thousand dollar investment. Hardly worth the time or risk.
By the end of junior year, we had done well but made some critical mistakes. We had established a viable trafficking system but lost considerable product. Not a deal breaker but substantial. Money packages had been replaced by expensive flights that were taking a toll on my health and academics.
We had built a distribution network and made our connections a lot of money. Having moved upwards of a million dollars worth of product over the school year. We calculated that over 100 thousand was spent cumulatively through living and business expenses mostly in the form of flights, shipping and prepaid cell phones. But we had lived lavishly that year and were able to split some 50+ grand going into the summer. I spent the first month of the summer working in a law firm, my last stint in the legal profession after some four summers. I spent the next two months in Bali.
When senior year rolled around I was feeling ambivalent but still very committed. But stress was starting to take a toll, my grades were shit, and while I wasn’t overly paranoid, the sight of a cop would make my heart skip a beat. I was 23 and my hair was starting to turn grey.
None of those signs caused me to slow down though; our business was flowing smoothly, selling the usual 5 pounds a week, sent to the mailroom of course. We were sending a few additional pounds to various residential locations and had invested in a safe house where we kept cash and product. We had finally established a distribution network for cocaine, and that quickly started to pay off. The business wasn’t booming but it was turning more than 50% profit margin. But the toll of operating this business was really starting to add up. What started as a profitably hobby was turning into a full time profession.
But our business wasn’t without problems. We were losing too many of our cash packages, at a tune of 10 grand apiece. Often times almost a week’s worth of work. But our weed was still getting there no problem so we moved more and more towards flights. My partner, who was a more serious student, was less willing to fly and more willing to lose cash, while I was the opposite. Consequently, I spent a lot of time in the air. I’d travel to a location, pick up cash, and fly back with 40 grand strapped to my chest. I had already written off school as a determinant for my future and was disillusioned with education through my experiences trafficking – convinced in part, that I had a future as drug dealer for life.