Catching a ride back home with a slightly inner beltway suburban friend (sibsf) one late Thursday night I noticed two neighborhood drug dealers out in the drizzling rain. One was sitting in the usual hangout spot, the other was on the other side of the street standing out in the elements.
Me: And there are our friendly neighborhood drug dealers, working hard, weathering the cold, damp and dark to get their customers the products they desire.
SIBSF: (without missing a beat)And bringing hard currency to the area.
Dudes. It is such a shame that they can’t direct that willingness to be cold wet and miserable into a real job that doesn’t involve crack. Unfortunately, the problem (as pointed out by one local official) is drug dealers don’t interview well. Apparently, they can’t stop smoking the weed (failing drug tests) and they dress poorly (pants should not hang off your butt).
The worst thing for these guys is that they really don’t make any money at all. There’s a new book, Freakonomics, which documents what people make at the retail levels of the drug trade. For the guys braving the elements to unload crack and heroin to passersby, they’re making peanuts. Even the higher-up guys with the Jags, etc. aren’t making 100K, which is why they still live at home. All in all, makes you want to scream at these guys and ask them why they’re risking jail and blighting their own neighborhood for basically nothing.
Hilarious, I clicked “post comment” to point readers to Freakonomics only to see someone beat me to it. It is a great book and the chapter on the economics of crack dealing (called, “Why Crack Dealers Live with Their Mothers”) is really fascinating and a must-read for us gentrifiers.
Yeah, I’ve heard of Freakonomics, it’s on that list of stuff to read on the metro to work.
I do believe that drug dealers live with their mom or some other female (maybe their babymommas) and are not self-supporting.
babymommas! did you hear npr this morning?
Its probably pretty flexible hours right? Don’t feel like slinging, just tell the king pin 5.0 was out or there was a lack of fiends. I would also think its pretty high status too, to be 19 and carry a gat to work. Every rapper raps about your job. It’s like working at Pets.com in the middle of the dot com boom. Sure your making nothing packing chew toys, but you work at Pets.com, when those options come in your gonna make millions!
Yeah, Babymommas was on the brain today. Now I can’t get that song out of my head.
I can’t carry a gat to work. Stupid metal detectors and security.
Yes, just like Pets.com. Good analogy.
Christ.