northernlights@lemmy.today
on 20 Nov 19:06
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I mean, yeah only idiots think a life of crime is fun, but how do you even make that survey? “OK to start, you are a drug dealer, correct?” Starts taking notes
I was a weed dealer for a while… it’s shitty and annoying. I’m glad I’m out of this shit…
Only the big dealers and druglords enjoy it because the rest has to do the shitty job…
nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 20 Nov 19:33
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I knew someone who grew basically scientifically. He really loved the botanical aspect of it, but then he quit and sold alllll his gear. Lights, water systems, everything. He said the social aspect of it was always tiring for him but after dispensaries around him opened it got even worse. What a loss too considering dispos only focus on certian strains of flower that grows the quickest, his flower was high quality grow of high quality strains, and didn’t go through some of the overprocessing commercial grows use.
The risk calculation makes no sense. For like ~$10 profit for an 8th you send some guy away who has plenty of incentive to rat you out when he gets caught with it. Maybe one guy has 0.1% chance of getting caught. Multiply that by the hundreds of people you sell to and you’re probably fucked eventually. Depending on the state you could see a few years in prison.
gravitywell@sh.itjust.works
on 20 Nov 19:22
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I bet thats true of most jobs
bobs_monkey@lemmy.zip
on 20 Nov 19:22
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Its simple math: fed minimum wage is $7.25/hr. Even at a full 40/hrs a week (which doesn’t happen since they want to avoid providing healthcare), that’s $290/wk, or $1160/month, and that’s before taxes. Working your ass off, with a likely amount of physical labor, under a middle management chode on a power trip that probably has the IQ of a walnut but is good at kissing the asses of people above them while making your life miserable.
Now say you sell eighths of weed for $45, and you’re buying ounces at $200 a piece. There’s 8 eighths to an ounce, that’d $25 as a cost per eighth, leaving $20 in profit. To gross $2k/month, you’d have to sell 100 eighths, or roughly 3 eighths a day. Or, you can sell 10 eighths a day, 5 days a week, and gross $4k/month all profit. And this assumes you’re either driving around are sitting on your couch.
Yeah, no shit that math maths in favor of hanging out at home selling weed all day. And that’s just weed. There’s much higher profit in other substances. Now that said, there’s much more risk in selling weed, be it the law or getting robbed/assaulted/etc. But for some with few options, you can easily see how much more attractive that is than working a dead end retail job just to keep the lights on.
over_clox@lemmy.world
on 20 Nov 19:35
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I’ve got a coworker now and have had multiple others where this job was their first job in life. They just sold drugs before and, for some, after.
All of them didn’t want to sell drugs but it was easy money for their skill set and it paid for their use. From what they said it was a pretty annoying job.
All you wrote rings true for me.
determinist@kbin.earth
on 20 Nov 20:41
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When I was 19 - 21 I sold drugs in the club scene. Early 90s. I did it Thursday - Sunday.
I made £1k per week minimum.
It was not fun but ... I couldn't make surviving money with the shitty jobs I had (I'd been working since I was 15) and this was easy. It was 90s clubs, they practically sold themselves.
Decent money but lots of stress.
kindred@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 20 Nov 20:55
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One surprising thing I learned from an article is that many of them take drugs because they cut hunger. So it’s their way of coping with the reality of not being able to eat.
This shows that you really can’t judge.
tree_frog_and_rain@lemmy.world
on 20 Nov 19:58
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And the other 40% sell mushrooms and make no money either way.
Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
on 20 Nov 20:03
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Same goes for their clients. Most people turn to drugs as a way to escape something. Sometimes it’s trauma, sometimes it’s just boredom. But happy, fulfilled people don’t normally feel the need to do anything beyond very limited experimentation.
This goes for ALL drugs, from weed to horse. The only difference is in the intensity of “denying reality”-power of the chosen substance, which is why people who are even heavily addicted can sometimes still manage to function, at least outwardly.
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 20 Nov 20:58
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Idunno, probably some Purdue Pharma reps that would have preferred another source of income too 🤷🏻
bytesonbike@discuss.online
on 20 Nov 20:51
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Lots of criminals would quit if they had stability. Like food, a roof, a paycheck, purpose.
IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world
on 20 Nov 21:27
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the vast majority of crime comes from poverty, unless you consider wage theft, in which case thats the biggest crime $$ wise. then afterwards is poverty based crime.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
on 20 Nov 21:13
nextcollapse
So the top 120 men on the Black Disciples’ pyramid were paid very well. But the pyramid they sat atop was gigantic. Using J. T.’s franchise as a yardstick – three officers and roughly 50 foot soldiers – there were about 5,300 other men working for those 120 bosses. Then there were the 20,000 unpaid rank-and-file members, many of whom wanted nothing more than a chance to become a foot soldier. And how well did that dream job pay? About $3.30 an hour.
A crack gang works pretty much like the standard capitalist enterprise: You have to be near the top of the pyramid to make a big wage. But selling crack is a lot more dangerous than most menial labor. Anyone who was a member of J. T.’s gang for the four years covered in the notebooks stood a 1-in-4 chance of being killed. That’s more than five times as deadly as being a timber cutter, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls the most dangerous job in the United States.
The one thing I have a problem with is this conclusion:
So if crack dealing is really the most dangerous job in America, and it pays less than minimum wage, why on Earth would anyone take such a job? Well, for the same reason a pretty Wisconsin farm girl moves to Hollywood. For the same reason that a high school quarterback wakes up at 5 a.m. to lift weights.
The assumption that people are just easy to hook on “Get Rich Quick” schemes is an easy and popular answer. But it belies a more depressing reality. I would argue that many of the people in this business are “unemployable” thanks to a combination of entrenched privatized segregation, criminal convictions from over-policing, and poor economic conditions in the immediate area. That gets us to OP’s headline. They aren’t doing this work because they want the job, they’re doing the work because they want any job.
Incidentally, one burgeoning jobs program in the modern American economy is… Paramilitary policing of low-income communities.
Not a coincidence that many of the folks at the top of the current state and national governments are, themselves, drugged out degenerates and mafia ringleaders in their own right. So we’re seeing the possibility of climbing out of poverty hedged by the same ladders being lowered into the scrum.
We are, quite literally, paying one half of the proletariat to kill the other.
Who would build those robots? With which materials? No one is going into the mines or into a soul crushing factory production line if their needs are already met. If this survey were made to retail workers, for example, I bet it would be much closer to 100%. We aren't getting ubi ever, not in our current society, because it literally would collapse in a few days without miserable, desperate fuckers that can't afford quitting slowly killing ourselves to make the rich richer.
threaded - newest
I mean, yeah only idiots think a life of crime is fun, but how do you even make that survey? “OK to start, you are a drug dealer, correct?” Starts taking notes
I was a weed dealer for a while… it’s shitty and annoying. I’m glad I’m out of this shit…
Only the big dealers and druglords enjoy it because the rest has to do the shitty job…
I knew someone who grew basically scientifically. He really loved the botanical aspect of it, but then he quit and sold alllll his gear. Lights, water systems, everything. He said the social aspect of it was always tiring for him but after dispensaries around him opened it got even worse. What a loss too considering dispos only focus on certian strains of flower that grows the quickest, his flower was high quality grow of high quality strains, and didn’t go through some of the overprocessing commercial grows use.
My wife and I still grow for private use and also because I don’t want to hang out with anyone in the business at all. Most of them were dicks anyway
The risk calculation makes no sense. For like ~$10 profit for an 8th you send some guy away who has plenty of incentive to rat you out when he gets caught with it. Maybe one guy has 0.1% chance of getting caught. Multiply that by the hundreds of people you sell to and you’re probably fucked eventually. Depending on the state you could see a few years in prison.
I bet thats true of most jobs
Its simple math: fed minimum wage is $7.25/hr. Even at a full 40/hrs a week (which doesn’t happen since they want to avoid providing healthcare), that’s $290/wk, or $1160/month, and that’s before taxes. Working your ass off, with a likely amount of physical labor, under a middle management chode on a power trip that probably has the IQ of a walnut but is good at kissing the asses of people above them while making your life miserable.
Now say you sell eighths of weed for $45, and you’re buying ounces at $200 a piece. There’s 8 eighths to an ounce, that’d $25 as a cost per eighth, leaving $20 in profit. To gross $2k/month, you’d have to sell 100 eighths, or roughly 3 eighths a day. Or, you can sell 10 eighths a day, 5 days a week, and gross $4k/month all profit. And this assumes you’re either driving around are sitting on your couch.
Yeah, no shit that math maths in favor of hanging out at home selling weed all day. And that’s just weed. There’s much higher profit in other substances. Now that said, there’s much more risk in selling weed, be it the law or getting robbed/assaulted/etc. But for some with few options, you can easily see how much more attractive that is than working a dead end retail job just to keep the lights on.
This guy maths the math…
I’ve got a coworker now and have had multiple others where this job was their first job in life. They just sold drugs before and, for some, after.
All of them didn’t want to sell drugs but it was easy money for their skill set and it paid for their use. From what they said it was a pretty annoying job.
All you wrote rings true for me.
When I was 19 - 21 I sold drugs in the club scene. Early 90s. I did it Thursday - Sunday.
I made £1k per week minimum.
It was not fun but ... I couldn't make surviving money with the shitty jobs I had (I'd been working since I was 15) and this was easy. It was 90s clubs, they practically sold themselves.
Decent money but lots of stress.
!theydidthemath@mander.xyz
This article is about Brazil.
According to the same article, 42% of drug dealers did not complete elementary school. Not quite the same situation as what it’s like in the US.
Yeah I'd quit my job if I had an income too.
It sounds like they were saying the opposite, that they would quit their (illegal) income if they had a job.
They have a job.
Customer service is the shits though.
One surprising thing I learned from an article is that many of them take drugs because they cut hunger. So it’s their way of coping with the reality of not being able to eat.
This shows that you really can’t judge.
And the other 40% sell mushrooms and make no money either way.
Same goes for their clients. Most people turn to drugs as a way to escape something. Sometimes it’s trauma, sometimes it’s just boredom. But happy, fulfilled people don’t normally feel the need to do anything beyond very limited experimentation.
This goes for ALL drugs, from weed to horse. The only difference is in the intensity of “denying reality”-power of the chosen substance, which is why people who are even heavily addicted can sometimes still manage to function, at least outwardly.
Selling drugs is an extremely stressful job.
*illegal drug dealers.
Idunno, probably some Purdue Pharma reps that would have preferred another source of income too 🤷🏻
Lots of criminals would quit if they had stability. Like food, a roof, a paycheck, purpose.
the vast majority of crime comes from poverty, unless you consider wage theft, in which case thats the biggest crime $$ wise. then afterwards is poverty based crime.
Why Drug Dealers Live With Their Moms
The one thing I have a problem with is this conclusion:
The assumption that people are just easy to hook on “Get Rich Quick” schemes is an easy and popular answer. But it belies a more depressing reality. I would argue that many of the people in this business are “unemployable” thanks to a combination of entrenched privatized segregation, criminal convictions from over-policing, and poor economic conditions in the immediate area. That gets us to OP’s headline. They aren’t doing this work because they want the job, they’re doing the work because they want any job.
Incidentally, one burgeoning jobs program in the modern American economy is… Paramilitary policing of low-income communities.
Not a coincidence that many of the folks at the top of the current state and national governments are, themselves, drugged out degenerates and mafia ringleaders in their own right. So we’re seeing the possibility of climbing out of poverty hedged by the same ladders being lowered into the scrum.
We are, quite literally, paying one half of the proletariat to kill the other.
Yeah, freakonomics is often this close to making a breakthrough and then they back off into neoliberalism
I think in a society where everyone’s basic needs are met, we could build robot drug dealers to deliver straight to our homes.
Who would build those robots? With which materials? No one is going into the mines or into a soul crushing factory production line if their needs are already met. If this survey were made to retail workers, for example, I bet it would be much closer to 100%. We aren't getting ubi ever, not in our current society, because it literally would collapse in a few days without miserable, desperate fuckers that can't afford quitting slowly killing ourselves to make the rich richer.
You mean they’re not married to the game?
But “criminal tendencies” and “lazy people” and and and and. I’ve already deleted this from my memory as it does not fit my worldview.
This is baloney, no way Pfizer reps would quit their cushy jobs.
would be nice if they linked back to the study