English 280: The Journalistic Essay

By Barry Kane

Joe has promised self change after each of his three arrests to no avail.  What was once an occasional habit has quickly transformed into an abundance of money, power, lawyer fee’s and other problems.  It has been five months since his last arrest, and he is back to his old antics with no end in sight.

Joe attended high school in Waltham.  This is where he satisfied his curiosity and began what he likes to call his empire.  “I always said I wanna try it, get high once, and then stop.  It took a few times but once I got high I loved it.  I guess you could say I loved it too much.”  Joe quickly realized that by buying bigger amounts and selling some to his friends, he could get his for free.  Soon after this he realized he could buy even more and make himself some money.

Joe is currently a 21 year old student at Bridgewater State College.  Joe is awaiting trial for his drug charges, and DUI; two separate arrests.  Joe also works 30 hours a week for his Grandfather at his oyster farm.  This is common.  A New York Times article states that two thirds of people who consider themselves drug dealers also held legitimate jobs while doing so.  He has made enough money to cover his lawyer fees, but his money might not be enough to keep him out of trouble this time.

Joe started at the bottom and worked up the trickle down system of drug dealing.  Although Joe dabbled in dealing cocaine for a couple of months, he started with and continues to sell only marijuana and hallucigenic mushrooms.  He claims that things only started to go poorly for him during his time selling cocaine.  He feels that selling marijuana is safe, and should not be viewed as the same as dealing hard drugs which has a lot more emphasis on gangsters and violence.

Joe smoked weed for the first time when he was 15 years old.

“I was a good kid in high school.  I played sports, and got good grades” Joe said.  “A lot of kids smoked weed, it wasn’t really thought of as a big deal.”

After a few random occasions smoking with friends at parties, it became more common.  What began as a need to satisfy a curiosity became a daily ritual within a couple of years.  “I eventually got to know a lot of the dealers pretty well, and became pretty good friends with a lot of them.  What they were doing seemed so easy; I figured that I could do the same.”

When he first started selling, his intentions were not to get rich, or gain power, but simply to save money.  Depending on the quality of the weed the prices were generally 15 dollars for a gram, 40 dollars for 1/8 of an ounce, 120 for 1/2, 210 for an ounce, and 750 for a quarter pound.  “By the time my senior year started I was smoking every day, and it just did not make sense to buy 1/8 every other day and spend 150 a week.”  It works just like every other business; you buy in bulk to save money, sell it in small quantities, and turn a profit.  The only difference is most marijuana dealers, like Joe, use the product themselves, so instead of smoking his own money away, he is only smoking his potential profit away.  According to a survey performed by druglibrary.org, 92% of daily marijuana smokers have sold at one point.

Another important point about marijuana is that it is used socially.  Most people smoke in groups of friends.  62% of daily smokers claim that more than half of their good friends also smoke, where only 4% claim that less than 30% of their friends smoke.  “I had what I needed to deal.  I had a car, a cell phone, and some start up money.  I was buying a couple of ounces a week, only selling to my friends, and I didn’t really make any money, just free weed.”

Although his initial intentions were just free weed, as his network began to grow, he saw an opportunity to make a significant profit.  As school ended for the summer the demand grew.  Joe had to meet the demand, so he had to pick up larger quantities.  Once this happened he started making money.  “I didn’t plan on it, it just kind of happened.  More people started smoking on a regular basis; more people just started smoking period.”  Joe was also working full time for his Grandfather at an oyster farm in Duxbury that summer, so he was starting to make some money.  “I never really had more than like 500 bucks to my name, and now it was starting to come in real heavy.  I really like that feeling.”

Joe was leaving home to go to college.  Joe’s life at home was warm and comforting, but there was a void in it whether he would admit it or not.  Joe has never met his real father, and always refers to his stepfather as his real father.  His real father tried to contact Joe when he was 16, but to no avail.  “My mother walked in and handed me a letter, she told me it was from my real father.  I ripped it up and threw it away; I didn’t want anything to do with him.  Sometimes I wonder what the letter said, but I never regret what I did.”  Joe claims that he very rarely thinks about his father, and this was one of the first times he has ever talked about him since he got the letter from him.  “If anything it made me want to make myself a better person, to prove to him that I don’t need him.”

In the fall of 2006 Joe attended Bridgewater State College.  He knew that his market was going to be much bigger, and now away from his mother and stepfather he didn’t have to hide his business.  He was skeptical about living with a stranger, but within minutes of meeting Steve, he knew he would help, not hurt his dealing.

Steve is from Vermont, and is a daily marijuana user.  “When we first met my Dad was still there helping me move in, but once he left literally one of the first things Joe asked me about was smoking weed.  Once I found out he was planning on dealing here I was pumped.”  Steve is a very outgoing guy, and knew he would make a lot of friends fast.  With Joes experience in the business and Steve’s outgoing personality there was no question that they would be a powerful team.  “I had never really dealt before.  I had thought about it a lot, but never really had the money.  I knew this was going to work out great though.”

Joe suggested they wait.  He had heard that a lot of kids get busted the first couple of weeks and didn’t want to take any risks. “I figured this way we get to know some kids, spread the word, wait for the heat to drop and then just bang it out, full force.”  After two weeks and two arrests in the freshman dorms, Joe decided to begin.  “We knew who the smokers were, and who we could trust.  I picked up a quarter pound and it was gone within two days, I couldn’t believe it.  We were selling to a lot of people in small amounts, so we made a ton of money.”

The entire dorm knew of Joe and Steve’s operation.  This was good for making money, but a risky way to live.  Steve came up with a plan.  “So at this point we had a lot of friends who knew the deal.  So we convinced these three kids to let us keep the stash in their rooms.  We gave each of them lock boxes, but only one of the boxes had it in it.  Nobody, including me sometimes, ever really knew where it was.  We threw the kids some weed and they were down.”  Joe and Steve’s room was searched by the cops two weeks after they had come up with this plan, but they found nothing.  “I guess some kid got arrested and gave our names, so they basically barged in and looked around.  It was bullshit, but I knew there was nothing so I let them waste their time.”

Either a strong friendship or a weak understanding of the law made three people they had barely known take a huge risk by holding the stash in return for something Joe held an abundance of.  Joe started to pick up pounds for $2200.  If sold in only 1/8 amounts for $40 he could turn his $2200 into $5120.  Of course this never happened due to his smoking habits, and selling ounces, but the point is what was worth $40 to others was worth much less to him.  “I loved it, I had girls doing my laundry and cleaning my room, and I’d just throw them a couple of grams.  I was making so much money that it didn’t really faze me.”

There were other dealers at Bridgewater State College, but Joe did not consider them competition.  They felt that they were all in this together.  Instead of buying a quarter pound for $750, he could buy a pound for $2200, split it four ways and really only spend $550.  “It was like we were in a union or something.  If some of us knew about better prices from different people we would all just go in on it together.  We were getting better prices, better weed, and more connections.  Some people would stop dealing, or slow down, but others would be interested.  It was a huge network.  They weren’t my competition; they were my partners, and my friends.”

In February of 2007 Joe got arrested by Bridgewater police.  He was with his friend, and now roommate, Brian.  Brian was driving them home from a party and got pulled over with Joe sitting in the passenger seat.

“Well I was shit faced, and Brian convinced me he was fine to drive.”

“Dude I wasn’t even drunk, that cop was a dick,” Brian stated trying to defend his case.  “If you weren’t all trashed and mouthing off to the cops nothing would have happened.”

“Ha-ha, yeah I basically told him I didn’t know pigs could drive that fast, he got pretty pissed.”  Joe got searched and 5 grams were found in his pocket.  “I thought I was fucked, but my Dad’s best friend is a sick lawyer, so he defended me and it basically made me think I had a permanent got out of jail free card.”

Joe’s father was obviously not happy about this, but he loves his son and would do everything in his power to help him.  Joe’s lawyer, whose name he did not want to reveal, let Joe know that he would help him whenever he wanted basically for free.  He let him know that if he got in trouble he did not have to call his parents, but he could call him directly and his parents didn’t always have to find out.  “I knew him since I was a little kid; he was like an Uncle or something to me.  I always felt really comfortable telling him the absolute truth about what I was doing because I knew he was a good lawyer and would help me no matter what.”

Joe’s marijuana charge got dropped for illegal search and seizure.  That Summer Joe moved off campus with Brian and two other friends, one of whom enjoyed doing cocaine.  His name was Will.

“It was the same with the weed, I tried it, liked it, decided I didn’t wanna get ripped off, so I started dealing to a couple of kids.”

Cocaine is much different than marijuana in almost every aspect.  It is far less acceptable socially, far more addictive, and very expensive.  Depending on the quality a gram can go for 50, 1/8 of an ounce for 150, and an ounce for 750.

Joe’s time with cocaine was enjoyable for about a month until he had a very rude awakening.  As Joe was telling this tale he was sitting on his bed, with Brian next to him, passing a joint back and forth.  He took a hit and exhaled with a sigh.  It was the first time he seemed unsure, unconfident, and concerned while describing his life over the past few years.  “You tell the story Brian.”  Joe fell back onto his bed, staring at his ceiling.  His silence spoke much louder than any of his words in describing his time as a successful dealer.

Joe had met a young man through Will during a late night drinking and snorting cocaine.  He had dealt to him a handful of times and felt he could trust him.  “It was around 2AM, Joe was in bed, and I was up watching TV,” Brian described.  “I heard a knock at the door, and it was that kid.”

“Tim,” Joe intervened.

“Yeah Tim,” Brian continued.  “I told him not tonight because Joe didn’t have anything, but he was really just sleeping, so he opened his coat and he had a gun.  He forced himself in the house and made me get Joe.”

“Brian was banging on my door, telling me to open up, and I could just tell by his voice that something wasn’t right.”  He pauses to take another hit from the joint.  “So I opened up, Tim showed me his gun and said ‘sorry man, I don’t have a choice,’ I couldn’t believe it.”  Joe stares at the ground shaking his head as he exhales.  “So he took $1800, an ounce of coke, and two ounces of weed.  I was so tired because I had been drinking all night, but I just couldn’t fall back to sleep, it was awful.”  Still staring at the ground, he laughs to himself and looks up, “And I’ve never done coke since.”

Although Joe was visibly shaken up by this, he somehow kept on dealing.  It was as if he didn’t have a choice.  Like he had gone through a bad week at work, it was awful, but he had to continue.  As if things couldn’t get any worse, the Bridgewater cops showed up to a party at Joe’s house due to a noise complaint.  They saw a bag of weed on his table and searched his whole room finding a quarter pound of weed, half an ounce of coke, and a quarter pound of hallucigenic mushrooms.  “My bail was originally $5000.  They said they would drop it if I told them where I got it from so I just gave them Tim’s name.”  Joe had some serious charges against him, but for some reason still felt invincible.

Two weeks after Joe’s arrest he was drinking at his house with his roommates when he decided he absolutely needed some Pringles.  Joe got in his car with Brian riding next to him and headed to a gas station to satisfy his need for the munchies.  On the drive home he hit a parked car, totaled his own car, and got arrested for DUI, again in Bridgewater.  “I could potentially go to jail for this.  I hadn’t even been to court yet for my other shit,” he chuckles.  Except for his recollection about being at gunpoint Joe has always had a smile on his face when describing his hectic life, the good times, and the bad.

Joe hasn’t been to court yet, but is still living his life on the edge, only now without a license.  “I still deal weed, but only big transactions where I just have to be a middle man and turn a small profit.  I never want to even look at coke ever again though.”  With potential prison time around the corner Joe still smokes weed throughout the day, and makes some major deals.  If jail time doesn’t scare him straight, it’s hard to say what will.