phr
Bluelighter
An even exchange
Matt Culbertson
ASU Web Devil
1.23.08
With a gun to his head and duct tape around his feet, mouth and eyes, Jake* was told he'd be killed.
"They could have easily just popped it, walked out the door and gotten away with murder," Jake says.
On that day several months ago, Jake was robbed for thousands of dollars in drugs, cash and valuables from his apartment.
Jake was a target because of his business: drug dealing. Jake, who is young enough to be an underclassman but is not attending ASU, has profited thousands of dollars from selling mostly marijuana and sometimes other drugs to ASU students and Valley residents.
"'Put your nose to the floor, I'm going to blow your fucking head off,'" Jake says one man repeatedly threatened as the others ransacked his apartment for money, valuables and marijuana.
ASU and other college students are a valuable part of his customer base, Jake says.
America's addiction
Demand for illegal drugs is high in the U.S. About 25 percent of the world's supply of illegal drugs are consumed here, according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.
More than 10,000 ASU students, or 19.5 percent of the student population, will use illegal drugs this month, if the 2007 report on college drug use by the Center is accurate.
Other studies have produced similar drug use estimates for college students.
Marijuana is the most popular illegal drug in the U.S., with nearly 17 percent of American college students using marijuana last month and 30 percent using the drug last year, according to the 2006 Monitoring the Future survey.
In the general population, 8.3 percent of people 12 and older have used an illegal drug in the past month, according to the 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
In 2000 — the last year numbers were available — Americans spent an estimated $64 billion on illegal drugs, according to a report by the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Jake claims he made approximately $10,000 in profit during the month of December. It is clear Jake can easily make well above the average income, just by dealing marijuana.
Jake's lucrative business
Jake says he started out as a small-time dealer in high school. He now sometimes sells several pounds of marijuana each week, for a profit of over $1,000 per pound.
Jake says he buys medicinal-quality marijuana for cheap prices in California and brings it to Arizona to sell for high profits. He says he often receives up to 100 phone calls a day relating to drug sales. Dealing marijuana doesn't concern him as immoral, Jake says.
"It's not like I'm selling crack, you know what I'm saying?" he says. "It's supply and demand."
He lives a luxurious lifestyle and smokes about two ounces of high-grade marijuana every week.
"I'm planning on doing this the rest of my life," Jake says of his dealing. "It's a job; I couldn't even explain how easy it is."
Deputy Chief Bill Knight of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigations Bureau says drug dealing is similar to other professions from a business standpoint.
"Most of the time we run into people that don't have legitimate jobs," Knight says of his encounters with drug dealers. "They've got a business to run. As money increases, lifestyle tends to increase."
Jake says he makes more money than many of his customers who work harder than him, and his customers sometimes resent him for it.
"People will hate you for it," he says of his income.
But the profit doesn't come without a price, Jake says.
"I've been robbed four times," he says.
Jake's customer base
Sarah*, an ASU underclassman, is one of Jake's approximately 50 regular customers.
"[Jake] is a phenomenal example of a businessman," she says. "When he got robbed, he just bought a small amount of pot and worked his way back up."
Sarah smokes marijuana daily and estimates her monthly use to be about two ounces, amounting to about $360. She says she usually buys marijuana from Jake and two other dealers.
"I've got a pretty good disposable income," she says.
While many studies show the use of marijuana and other illegal drugs is linked to bad grades, Sarah is enrolled full-time with a GPA above 3.5.
"Pot doesn't hinder me from learning," she says.
Sarah says drug laws have never stopped her from doing drugs. She has experimented with harder drugs like heroin, methamphetamines and cocaine. For the past two years, she has rarely used anything but marijuana and occasionally hallucinogenic drugs like psilocybin mushrooms.
"It's really difficult to talk to people about having done drugs like that because it very much categorizes you," she says. "Who I am was always more prevalent than the drugs."
Sarah says she would never want to be involved with drug dealing, but she says it is profitable.
"You definitely make good money," she says.
ASU student-dealers
Chris*, an upperclassman at ASU, uses, sells and distributes illegal drugs. He occasionally makes money from drug deals, but usually just helps his friends get illegal drugs, he says.
"Once every week, people call me," he says. "Usually, I don't make a profit."
His current source of income is not dependent on drugs.
Last year, Chris says he sold marijuana and a small amount of cocaine with a friend out of his ASU residence hall. While dealing last year, he sold about an ounce a week, but says he let his friend keep the money while he smoked marijuana for free.
In December, a friend paid him $300 to pick up a kilogram of cocaine from a house in Phoenix for distribution by a larger drug-dealing organization.
"Just a week ago, this guy called me up for his mom's birthday. He wanted to give her two ounces of marijuana," Chris says of a recent sale.
He claims he has sold almost everything at least once, from cocaine and hallucinogenic mushrooms to methamphetamines and heroin.
"My roommate and his girlfriend wanted to have sex on ecstasy, because they heard it was great, so I got them ecstasy," Chris says.
Chris has profited significantly from the drug trade, though he has never made money by violence or manipulation, he says.
"It's possible, with minimal involvement, to make thousands every month," he says.
Chris estimates he uses about $180 a week worth of mostly marijuana and sometimes other illegal drugs. Lately, he is concerned about studies that show smoking can cause hearing damage, he says.
"I'm planning on cutting back [on] hard narcotics, but I'm trying to phase out marijuana," Chris says. He says if he uses a drug, it is moral for him to sell or distribute it. If he stops using marijuana, he will stop distributing it as well, he says.
But Chris says he'll probably use other illegal drugs for the rest of his life. When he starts a family, he'll quit drugs, he says.
"Harder narcotics are just a part of the culture that I'm in, that I choose to be in," Chris says. Over winter break, he says he went on a "massive" cocaine binge, at one point snorting about 20 lines of coke.
But, like Sarah, his grades don't reflect his drug use. Chris is on the Dean's List for his college. His ASU transcripts show more than 100 credit hours at ASU with a cumulative GPA above 3.9.
"I'm an academic star," he says.
Campus violations
Last year, ASU police arrested 181 people on three of the ASU campuses for drug law violations, according to campus crime statistics. No arrests were made on the Phoenix campus for drug law violations.
"The most common drug-related crime at ASU is marijuana use," ASU police spokesman Cmdr. Jim Hardina says in an e-mail. Most drug arrests on campus are for possession of marijuana, and usually are a result of students smoking marijuana in residence halls, he says.
There is a zero-tolerance policy for drugs on campus, and students receive the same penalties for drug-related crimes from ASU police as they would from Tempe police, Hardina says.
Detective Parker Dunwoody of ASU police is part of a continuing partnership between ASU and Tempe police, and drug-related crimes are his primary responsibility. Currently, he is on assignment with the Tempe Police Department Special Investigations Bureau.
Dunwoody investigates ASU-related drug cases, he says in an e-mail. During his five years at ASU he has "seen them all," including heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine, he says.
ASU has undercover officers to deter drug-related crimes, but the best method for stopping drug use is educating the public on the dangers of drugs, Dunwoody says.
"Some students coming from other states and countries with more lenient drug laws aren't aware that all controlled substances…are felonies in Arizona," Dunwoody says.
Drug laws deterring dealers
Eric*, an ASU upperclassman, says Arizona's drug laws caused him to stop dealing when he moved to the state.
"I wouldn't do it in Arizona because it's not worth it," Eric says. "A seed is a felony in this [state]," he says.
Eric says he was never arrested for dealing during his time as a dealer. He smokes marijuana regularly but hasn't sold any since last year, when he sold marijuana on the West Coast for about six months. He says he stopped dealing when he moved to Arizona, partly because of the state's harsh drug laws.
Eventually, his friends started to expect to get marijuana for free, which cut into his profits. Eric says this was another reason to stop dealing.
"The problem is you don't go into dealing to smoke for free," he says. "If you start to give freebies to your friends, the turnaround profit isn't very good."
Eric estimates he sold about 10 pounds when he was dealing, which he bought for about $8,000. He walked away from selling marijuana with $1,200 in savings and spent the rest of his profit, he says.
"It doesn't sound like much, but it [was] like having an extra paycheck," he says.
Alcohol Prohibition revisited
The rationale for keeping drugs illegal is similar to the failed experiment of alcohol prohibition in the 1930s, says ASU professor Kyle Longley.
"If your measure is stopping the use of drugs, they've failed," Longley says. Longley, a Snell Family Dean's Distinguished Professor of History, specializes in U.S. Foreign Policy and Domestic Politics.
Longley says the reason why drug use is still common in the U.S. is similar to the reason why alcohol prohibition failed.
"When you tell people they can't do something, they often respond by doing it," Longley says. "[Alcohol] prohibition is probably the best example of the failure of the government to stop the use of an illegal drug."
Alcohol was engrained in American culture, so prohibition of the substance failed miserably, Longley says. Drugs are not as embedded in American culture as alcohol is, he adds.
But historically, governments have been ineffective at limiting drug use, he says.
"The illegal drug trade is always going to exist — it has for thousands of years," Longley says.
An alternative approach to drug policy
There is a small but vocal group of people who disagree with the drug war.
Former police officer Tony Ryan is part of it. Ryan served for 36 years in the Denver police department, and now lives part-time in Tucson.
He is a decorated veteran of the police force, having received awards such as the Medal of Honor and the Purple Heart for his service. Now, he is an advocate for the legalization of drugs.
"Maybe a third of the way through my career, I realized that we should be trying a different approach," Ryan says.
He says laws against drugs have done more damage than drugs ever will. Ryan says he wants to see illegal drugs legalized and regulated.
"Regulation would include something like we do with tobacco," Ryan says. "You control the quantity, the purity, who can buy it."
Ryan is on the board of directors for the international organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, or LEAP. The U.S.-based group, made up of thousands of current and former law enforcement and justice officials, says the war on drugs has failed in its goals and worsened the drug problem.
Drug legalization would be "less harmful, less costly, more ethical and [a] more effective public policy" than current U.S. drug policy, according to LEAP's Web site.
Ryan, who is also a spokesman for LEAP, says drug laws are counterproductive and result in increased crime, criminal profits and user deaths.
Legalizing drugs would force dealers to stop selling and make the country safer, Ryan says.
"The United States is spending $69 billion a year on the war on drugs," he says. Drug laws have failed to make the population safer, or to even have an effect on drug use, Ryan says.
"They haven't slowed it down one iota," he says.
Detective Dunwoody says his personal views on U.S. drug policy don't impact his job.
"My opinion can't come into play, [but] the fact of the matter is that there are laws that the public voted on and I was hired to enforce [the laws]," he says. "If the public doesn't like drug policy the way it is, they have the power to change that."
However, Dunwoody warns of the dangers of drug use.
"I will tell you that I have seen drugs ruin people's lives, from the elderly to infants," he says.
Jake says the drug war keeps him in business, and his customers agree.
High demand for drugs and especially their illegality "is how you make the money," Jake says. "If the laws weren't there, I wouldn't be making the money."
Link!
Matt Culbertson
ASU Web Devil
1.23.08
With a gun to his head and duct tape around his feet, mouth and eyes, Jake* was told he'd be killed.
"They could have easily just popped it, walked out the door and gotten away with murder," Jake says.
On that day several months ago, Jake was robbed for thousands of dollars in drugs, cash and valuables from his apartment.
Jake was a target because of his business: drug dealing. Jake, who is young enough to be an underclassman but is not attending ASU, has profited thousands of dollars from selling mostly marijuana and sometimes other drugs to ASU students and Valley residents.
"'Put your nose to the floor, I'm going to blow your fucking head off,'" Jake says one man repeatedly threatened as the others ransacked his apartment for money, valuables and marijuana.
ASU and other college students are a valuable part of his customer base, Jake says.
America's addiction
Demand for illegal drugs is high in the U.S. About 25 percent of the world's supply of illegal drugs are consumed here, according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.
More than 10,000 ASU students, or 19.5 percent of the student population, will use illegal drugs this month, if the 2007 report on college drug use by the Center is accurate.
Other studies have produced similar drug use estimates for college students.
Marijuana is the most popular illegal drug in the U.S., with nearly 17 percent of American college students using marijuana last month and 30 percent using the drug last year, according to the 2006 Monitoring the Future survey.
In the general population, 8.3 percent of people 12 and older have used an illegal drug in the past month, according to the 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
In 2000 — the last year numbers were available — Americans spent an estimated $64 billion on illegal drugs, according to a report by the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Jake claims he made approximately $10,000 in profit during the month of December. It is clear Jake can easily make well above the average income, just by dealing marijuana.
Jake's lucrative business
Jake says he started out as a small-time dealer in high school. He now sometimes sells several pounds of marijuana each week, for a profit of over $1,000 per pound.
Jake says he buys medicinal-quality marijuana for cheap prices in California and brings it to Arizona to sell for high profits. He says he often receives up to 100 phone calls a day relating to drug sales. Dealing marijuana doesn't concern him as immoral, Jake says.
"It's not like I'm selling crack, you know what I'm saying?" he says. "It's supply and demand."
He lives a luxurious lifestyle and smokes about two ounces of high-grade marijuana every week.
"I'm planning on doing this the rest of my life," Jake says of his dealing. "It's a job; I couldn't even explain how easy it is."
Deputy Chief Bill Knight of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigations Bureau says drug dealing is similar to other professions from a business standpoint.
"Most of the time we run into people that don't have legitimate jobs," Knight says of his encounters with drug dealers. "They've got a business to run. As money increases, lifestyle tends to increase."
Jake says he makes more money than many of his customers who work harder than him, and his customers sometimes resent him for it.
"People will hate you for it," he says of his income.
But the profit doesn't come without a price, Jake says.
"I've been robbed four times," he says.
Jake's customer base
Sarah*, an ASU underclassman, is one of Jake's approximately 50 regular customers.
"[Jake] is a phenomenal example of a businessman," she says. "When he got robbed, he just bought a small amount of pot and worked his way back up."
Sarah smokes marijuana daily and estimates her monthly use to be about two ounces, amounting to about $360. She says she usually buys marijuana from Jake and two other dealers.
"I've got a pretty good disposable income," she says.
While many studies show the use of marijuana and other illegal drugs is linked to bad grades, Sarah is enrolled full-time with a GPA above 3.5.
"Pot doesn't hinder me from learning," she says.
Sarah says drug laws have never stopped her from doing drugs. She has experimented with harder drugs like heroin, methamphetamines and cocaine. For the past two years, she has rarely used anything but marijuana and occasionally hallucinogenic drugs like psilocybin mushrooms.
"It's really difficult to talk to people about having done drugs like that because it very much categorizes you," she says. "Who I am was always more prevalent than the drugs."
Sarah says she would never want to be involved with drug dealing, but she says it is profitable.
"You definitely make good money," she says.
ASU student-dealers
Chris*, an upperclassman at ASU, uses, sells and distributes illegal drugs. He occasionally makes money from drug deals, but usually just helps his friends get illegal drugs, he says.
"Once every week, people call me," he says. "Usually, I don't make a profit."
His current source of income is not dependent on drugs.
Last year, Chris says he sold marijuana and a small amount of cocaine with a friend out of his ASU residence hall. While dealing last year, he sold about an ounce a week, but says he let his friend keep the money while he smoked marijuana for free.
In December, a friend paid him $300 to pick up a kilogram of cocaine from a house in Phoenix for distribution by a larger drug-dealing organization.
"Just a week ago, this guy called me up for his mom's birthday. He wanted to give her two ounces of marijuana," Chris says of a recent sale.
He claims he has sold almost everything at least once, from cocaine and hallucinogenic mushrooms to methamphetamines and heroin.
"My roommate and his girlfriend wanted to have sex on ecstasy, because they heard it was great, so I got them ecstasy," Chris says.
Chris has profited significantly from the drug trade, though he has never made money by violence or manipulation, he says.
"It's possible, with minimal involvement, to make thousands every month," he says.
Chris estimates he uses about $180 a week worth of mostly marijuana and sometimes other illegal drugs. Lately, he is concerned about studies that show smoking can cause hearing damage, he says.
"I'm planning on cutting back [on] hard narcotics, but I'm trying to phase out marijuana," Chris says. He says if he uses a drug, it is moral for him to sell or distribute it. If he stops using marijuana, he will stop distributing it as well, he says.
But Chris says he'll probably use other illegal drugs for the rest of his life. When he starts a family, he'll quit drugs, he says.
"Harder narcotics are just a part of the culture that I'm in, that I choose to be in," Chris says. Over winter break, he says he went on a "massive" cocaine binge, at one point snorting about 20 lines of coke.
But, like Sarah, his grades don't reflect his drug use. Chris is on the Dean's List for his college. His ASU transcripts show more than 100 credit hours at ASU with a cumulative GPA above 3.9.
"I'm an academic star," he says.
Campus violations
Last year, ASU police arrested 181 people on three of the ASU campuses for drug law violations, according to campus crime statistics. No arrests were made on the Phoenix campus for drug law violations.
"The most common drug-related crime at ASU is marijuana use," ASU police spokesman Cmdr. Jim Hardina says in an e-mail. Most drug arrests on campus are for possession of marijuana, and usually are a result of students smoking marijuana in residence halls, he says.
There is a zero-tolerance policy for drugs on campus, and students receive the same penalties for drug-related crimes from ASU police as they would from Tempe police, Hardina says.
Detective Parker Dunwoody of ASU police is part of a continuing partnership between ASU and Tempe police, and drug-related crimes are his primary responsibility. Currently, he is on assignment with the Tempe Police Department Special Investigations Bureau.
Dunwoody investigates ASU-related drug cases, he says in an e-mail. During his five years at ASU he has "seen them all," including heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine, he says.
ASU has undercover officers to deter drug-related crimes, but the best method for stopping drug use is educating the public on the dangers of drugs, Dunwoody says.
"Some students coming from other states and countries with more lenient drug laws aren't aware that all controlled substances…are felonies in Arizona," Dunwoody says.
Drug laws deterring dealers
Eric*, an ASU upperclassman, says Arizona's drug laws caused him to stop dealing when he moved to the state.
"I wouldn't do it in Arizona because it's not worth it," Eric says. "A seed is a felony in this [state]," he says.
Eric says he was never arrested for dealing during his time as a dealer. He smokes marijuana regularly but hasn't sold any since last year, when he sold marijuana on the West Coast for about six months. He says he stopped dealing when he moved to Arizona, partly because of the state's harsh drug laws.
Eventually, his friends started to expect to get marijuana for free, which cut into his profits. Eric says this was another reason to stop dealing.
"The problem is you don't go into dealing to smoke for free," he says. "If you start to give freebies to your friends, the turnaround profit isn't very good."
Eric estimates he sold about 10 pounds when he was dealing, which he bought for about $8,000. He walked away from selling marijuana with $1,200 in savings and spent the rest of his profit, he says.
"It doesn't sound like much, but it [was] like having an extra paycheck," he says.
Alcohol Prohibition revisited
The rationale for keeping drugs illegal is similar to the failed experiment of alcohol prohibition in the 1930s, says ASU professor Kyle Longley.
"If your measure is stopping the use of drugs, they've failed," Longley says. Longley, a Snell Family Dean's Distinguished Professor of History, specializes in U.S. Foreign Policy and Domestic Politics.
Longley says the reason why drug use is still common in the U.S. is similar to the reason why alcohol prohibition failed.
"When you tell people they can't do something, they often respond by doing it," Longley says. "[Alcohol] prohibition is probably the best example of the failure of the government to stop the use of an illegal drug."
Alcohol was engrained in American culture, so prohibition of the substance failed miserably, Longley says. Drugs are not as embedded in American culture as alcohol is, he adds.
But historically, governments have been ineffective at limiting drug use, he says.
"The illegal drug trade is always going to exist — it has for thousands of years," Longley says.
An alternative approach to drug policy
There is a small but vocal group of people who disagree with the drug war.
Former police officer Tony Ryan is part of it. Ryan served for 36 years in the Denver police department, and now lives part-time in Tucson.
He is a decorated veteran of the police force, having received awards such as the Medal of Honor and the Purple Heart for his service. Now, he is an advocate for the legalization of drugs.
"Maybe a third of the way through my career, I realized that we should be trying a different approach," Ryan says.
He says laws against drugs have done more damage than drugs ever will. Ryan says he wants to see illegal drugs legalized and regulated.
"Regulation would include something like we do with tobacco," Ryan says. "You control the quantity, the purity, who can buy it."
Ryan is on the board of directors for the international organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, or LEAP. The U.S.-based group, made up of thousands of current and former law enforcement and justice officials, says the war on drugs has failed in its goals and worsened the drug problem.
Drug legalization would be "less harmful, less costly, more ethical and [a] more effective public policy" than current U.S. drug policy, according to LEAP's Web site.
Ryan, who is also a spokesman for LEAP, says drug laws are counterproductive and result in increased crime, criminal profits and user deaths.
Legalizing drugs would force dealers to stop selling and make the country safer, Ryan says.
"The United States is spending $69 billion a year on the war on drugs," he says. Drug laws have failed to make the population safer, or to even have an effect on drug use, Ryan says.
"They haven't slowed it down one iota," he says.
Detective Dunwoody says his personal views on U.S. drug policy don't impact his job.
"My opinion can't come into play, [but] the fact of the matter is that there are laws that the public voted on and I was hired to enforce [the laws]," he says. "If the public doesn't like drug policy the way it is, they have the power to change that."
However, Dunwoody warns of the dangers of drug use.
"I will tell you that I have seen drugs ruin people's lives, from the elderly to infants," he says.
Jake says the drug war keeps him in business, and his customers agree.
High demand for drugs and especially their illegality "is how you make the money," Jake says. "If the laws weren't there, I wouldn't be making the money."
Link!
