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Estimated street value

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Divine Moments

Divine Moments

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News reports always refer to the 'estimated street value' of drugs. Does anyone know where they get their value from? Are they nationwide figures or does local availability come into it? Do they change regularly with drug trends? Do they seem to over- or underestimate, or are they about right?

Want to know what people think, especially if anyone has a source or good reason :) Just curious
 
I'm pretty sure they may factor in the "cost to society" for very large hauls to make the numbers seem more impressive too? Otherwise I'd say they definitely base the figures on street, not wholesale values. As for where they get those prices from, I don't have the faintest sorry.

I'm not sure of the harm-reduction value of this thread and the question may be better asked in the Drugs in the Media forum? Happy to leave this open for a short period to see if anyone with some more in-depth journalistic knowledge can answer your question. If it is just speculation (like my theories) then I might close it or move it to DITM sorry Divine Moments.
 
^ that's cool, I know it's not HR just we can't post stuff like this in the drug busts thread and I was wondering as I was reading it. I won't take it personally if you close it but I'd like to see a few people's responses ;)
 
I'm convinced they quite often just pull a number out of their ass. I've seen some absurd 'street values' quoted for busts that work out at 2 - 3x the actual value.

Of course, there's also the question of what exactly the street value is. If they bust someone with a kilo of meth, is the street value what you'd pay for buying a whole kilo, or the price of the lowest quantity 'street deal' (1 point, in this case) multiplied by the number of those deals contained in the bust. Do they factor in cuttting? etc. It's a fairly nebulous term.
 
^A bit of that's got to do with people just making crap up/pulling numbers out of their arse's to keep the feds in the dark about things I reckon.. the less they know the better.
 
From what I've seen the 'street value' they refer to is generally what the bust would be if sold in the smallest quantity on the streets. Say they caught someone with an ounce of meth, their street value would be the total worth if sold in points. Any half rate journalist would be able to find out the going prices of substances, a majority of them use themselves. Police figures would come from a mix of information given by people that have been arrested, informants and just general knowledge. More than a few pwople I know who don't touch drugs still have a rough idea of what certain quantaties are worth just from hanging around a certain crowd.
 
^ I agree. You can usually work it out when they say they busted x amount of pills for x amount of dollars, nowadays they usually base it on $30 a bic, but back in 03 they were basing it as being $50 each, which is unrealistic. Of course though saying they busted 1 million dollars worth of drugs sounds heaps better than saying $100,000 worth of drugs. In fact I don't even know if I've even seen them claiming the dollar amount of anything below millions of dollars, or at least hundreds of thousands.

It'd be funny if they claimed the dollar amounts on all those news reports that come out after festivals when they bust like, 50 people with one or two pills. But of course the media can make anything sound sinister if they want to, which they do.
 
When it comes to drug pricing in the media, the higher the $ figure, the better the sales figures will be. When Nan and Pa see the million dollar bust headlines and think little Johnny grandson will have less ('evil') drugs in his face, the world seems safer and of course they are going to support such media outlets.

I can't see that changing any time soon and I also have better things to worry about, as, I'm sure many other BLers do...

Anyway... No price discussion.

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