I am sitting in the lobby of the methadone clinic having just picked up 2 takehomes and waiting for the dose I just consumed to course through my veins. I took a bit of a loss this week as the Americans took down Liberty Reserve. This is the second time I've lost a significant amount with the firm's owner Arthur. He took a hit in 2005 but after he re-gained his footing he fully refunded that initial loss and so like any sucker I fell for it. Still, I move most things through a traditional Jewish system and only dealt with Arthur when I dealt with non-Jews (Arthur is a Jew but when I enter into arrangements with non-Jews I cannot use the regular system). Liberty was great because if I had any issue I knew who go to. There is a system based in Malaysia that I might look into on my long awaited return to the Orient.
Then, a guy I know got popped with 39,000 glassines. Back in the day a retailer dealer owned his own stamp, he bought directly from a connection and bagged it himself. Back before my day people would buy a "Nickel," a 5 dollar bag in a plain glassine branded with coloured tape. Brands were known, for example, as "Green Tape," "Blue Tape" and so on. Nicel dealers bought up to an ounce, already adulterated to 35 to 50% purity, once removed from the importer. Buying from a Nickel man junkies would whack it down to 5% and bag 5 to 10 "Dos" or "Tray" [sic] bags costing $2 or $3 respectively. Other junkies would usually buy a 2 or 3 Dollar bag from such petty dealers.
Then, in 1975 Nicky Barnes changed the game, selling his famous "Quarter Bags," a tablespoon of 10% heroin stuffed into a double packed glassine, very fat and costing- as the name suggests, $25 per bag. After Barnes got popped and his underlings fell one by one the game shifted to Nickels as the usual retail package, petty dealers buying relatively pure grammes. By 1981 "Dimes" began and by 1982 stamps began. Since 1982 the only thing to change in packaging is the proliferation in different wholesale units outside of New York City.
Up until the new millenium everybody on the East Coast was buying New York Dimes and eating off the extra "PC" that distance offered. As soon as you left Queens heading east out to Long Island, north out of the Bronx up into Yonkers and White Plains or across the Hudson River into New Jersey the dime became a $15 bag. Move west or south of Newark and that 15 bag became a "20 piece." By the time you were in Washington DC that dime would get you $30 and it jumped to 50 in the Carolinas.
In all of the 1990s there was only a single dime outlet in Newark, "Puma" brand on South StrEet in Ironbound, in between what was then two Portuguese neighbourhoods and is today a straight up ghetto. The proliferation in wholesale units that I mentioned related mostly to a unit those in the Northeast US call a "Brick," 100 glassines in New York, 50 in Northern New Jersey, 130 in Camden, Atlantic City and Philadelphia. These developed as these other areas developed their own dime trades. Today it is cheaper and much easier to buy heroin in Newark, Irvington and Paterson than it is in New York itself. In New York the trade is entirely off the street now, if you don't have a petty dealer's cell phone you are fuck out of luck.
Paterson and Newark are what New York was 20 years ago...
Today importers have cut out the middle man and are importing several kilos at a time. Running 12 hour shifts they have kids stampings tens of thousands of glassines and bagging it all up. The bust I mentioned earlier was of a mill that suprisingly dealt with just a single stamp, which is probably how they were discovered. "Blackberry," with a stamp of a Blackberry phone was all this mill dealt with. 39,000 glassines in one fall swoop. It sounds like a lot of dope but when you realise that 1 gramme off the boat becomes 10 on a table things come clearer into focus.
Lately I have felt like heading to Cambodia for a month or two, can you tell? Hahaha...
Then, a guy I know got popped with 39,000 glassines. Back in the day a retailer dealer owned his own stamp, he bought directly from a connection and bagged it himself. Back before my day people would buy a "Nickel," a 5 dollar bag in a plain glassine branded with coloured tape. Brands were known, for example, as "Green Tape," "Blue Tape" and so on. Nicel dealers bought up to an ounce, already adulterated to 35 to 50% purity, once removed from the importer. Buying from a Nickel man junkies would whack it down to 5% and bag 5 to 10 "Dos" or "Tray" [sic] bags costing $2 or $3 respectively. Other junkies would usually buy a 2 or 3 Dollar bag from such petty dealers.
Then, in 1975 Nicky Barnes changed the game, selling his famous "Quarter Bags," a tablespoon of 10% heroin stuffed into a double packed glassine, very fat and costing- as the name suggests, $25 per bag. After Barnes got popped and his underlings fell one by one the game shifted to Nickels as the usual retail package, petty dealers buying relatively pure grammes. By 1981 "Dimes" began and by 1982 stamps began. Since 1982 the only thing to change in packaging is the proliferation in different wholesale units outside of New York City.
Up until the new millenium everybody on the East Coast was buying New York Dimes and eating off the extra "PC" that distance offered. As soon as you left Queens heading east out to Long Island, north out of the Bronx up into Yonkers and White Plains or across the Hudson River into New Jersey the dime became a $15 bag. Move west or south of Newark and that 15 bag became a "20 piece." By the time you were in Washington DC that dime would get you $30 and it jumped to 50 in the Carolinas.
In all of the 1990s there was only a single dime outlet in Newark, "Puma" brand on South StrEet in Ironbound, in between what was then two Portuguese neighbourhoods and is today a straight up ghetto. The proliferation in wholesale units that I mentioned related mostly to a unit those in the Northeast US call a "Brick," 100 glassines in New York, 50 in Northern New Jersey, 130 in Camden, Atlantic City and Philadelphia. These developed as these other areas developed their own dime trades. Today it is cheaper and much easier to buy heroin in Newark, Irvington and Paterson than it is in New York itself. In New York the trade is entirely off the street now, if you don't have a petty dealer's cell phone you are fuck out of luck.
Paterson and Newark are what New York was 20 years ago...
Today importers have cut out the middle man and are importing several kilos at a time. Running 12 hour shifts they have kids stampings tens of thousands of glassines and bagging it all up. The bust I mentioned earlier was of a mill that suprisingly dealt with just a single stamp, which is probably how they were discovered. "Blackberry," with a stamp of a Blackberry phone was all this mill dealt with. 39,000 glassines in one fall swoop. It sounds like a lot of dope but when you realise that 1 gramme off the boat becomes 10 on a table things come clearer into focus.
Lately I have felt like heading to Cambodia for a month or two, can you tell? Hahaha...