I Don’t Know Where to Buy Drugs

And I’m Okay with That

I was reading an online forum and saw one of my fellow regulars there post about smoking some pot. Now, at the risk of sacrificing some of the extreme “cool dude” cred that I’ve no doubt built up with my witty tales and biting social commentary, I’m going to admit that I have never smoked pot, much less used anything harder. But I got to thinking – this fellow is a regular guy. He’s a mildly-successful entrepreneur with an online retail site, and I think his wife works in journalism or somesuch. But if he’s smoking weed, assuming he’s not getting it in some sort of medicinal capacity (which may or may not even be viable where he lives), he’s either got to grow it himself or he’s got a drug dealer. And that’s when I realized that I haven’t the vaguest idea where a typical middle-class guy would get a drug dealer. If I desperately needed to buy non-prescription narcotics, I’m not entirely certain I could manage it.

I mean, when I think of drug dealers, I confess that I pretty much think of the stereotypical dirty, greasy, armed felon covered in gang tats and prepared to gun down a potential customer who isn’t clued in to the mores and rituals of the drug culture. Oh, and in my imagination, they don’t really work in the best parts of town. So is that it – you drive down to the worst part of town and sort of drive around looking for somebody who looks like a drug dealer?

Or maybe you need to be introduced. Perhaps when chatting with the neighbor about the weather and the teenager whose car is too loud when he drives down the street at 10 PM, you casually inquire, “So where do you buy your marijuana?” Of course, if most of your neighbors are straight arrows like me, you’re going to have pretty well shot your reputation in the ass before you find somebody who can steer you in the right direction.

Are there different classes of drug dealer, just as retail stores cater to different economic and social demographics? Maybe the type I’m thinking of from TV is the “sleazy convenience store” of drug dealers, whereas middle-class folk like myself tend to shop either at the “Wal Mart” of drug dealers (if they’re especially price-conscious) or perhaps the “Target” of drug dealers (if they’re looking for a step up in quality). Perhaps there’s even a “Domino’s Pizza” of drug dealers, delivering your hash, crack or meth in a half hour or it’s free? The upper crust-types would naturally get their drugs from the “Bloomingdale’s” or “Lord & Taylor” of drug dealers, where it’s a lot more expensive but comes in old-fashioned paper dime-bags.

Since I don’t need to know how or where to buy drugs, the only point at which any of this would actually impact me would be if I needed to write about it. But if that day ever comes to pass, I expect that I’ll have to decide between cranking out the stereotypes or inventing a class of drug dealer that would potentially establish an entirely new series of marketing models for narcotics trafficking. To achieve karmic balance, I suppose I'll need to ensure that those characters suffer horribly. But heck, if I can revolutionize the retail model of drug trafficking, finding a new circle of hell for those fictional felons should be easy.