Entry Level?

Working on this second post kind of reminded me of my second “time”. Although I had done it once, I still wasn’t as experienced as I thought I was. And I tried to last as long as I could, without ending to quick, before getting my “point” across. The second topic that I decided to write about has taken me to an interesting subject that I have thought about for a long time. No not that. Get your mind out of the gutter. I was thinking more like “entry level” drug dealers.
Growing up I was fortunate enough to have my father around. Well for the most part. When I was very young, my father did a bid down at Lorton Correctional Facility. He was arrested on charges of possession with intent to distribute (not really putting his business out there he’d share his testimony with anyone). Luckily he didn’t have to spend much time down there, so he was able to raise me and show me how to become a man. One thing he made sure of is that I would not follow in his footsteps. So as I matured, I never had the desire to be one of the guys on the corner selling drugs. Not only because my father would whoop my *expletive*, but also because it didn’t make much financial sense to me. Now I know we all see the drug dealers riding around in a nice car, with nice clothes, and a fresh pair of tennis shoes (or sneakers for my up north folks). But if you just examined a few details of the way that these dealers are paid, it probably wouldn’t make much sense to you either.

Okay, let’s start out with a guy Tyrone (if me choosing this name was a little prejudice then we can change it to Jamaal). This is a figurative guy so you can stay with me. Tyrone decides one day that he isn’t making enough money with his 9 to 5 at McDonald’s, where he was pulling in a salary of 35K as an assistant manager. So he makes the decision to hook up with a friend who’s dealing a little in crack cocaine sales. Let’s call this friend, Jamaal. Jamaal is a street level dealer who hasn’t advanced in his profession due to various reasons. So he put’s Tyrone on. Tyrone dives in head first. He picks out a corner where there is nobody selling so he won’t have any beef over territory. Only problem, he doesn’t have any clientele. So he has to put in a little extra time on the corner so that he can get some customers. This will require him to allow the users that he is trying to persuade to get free samples of the product. This will probably take about 3 months. And with Tyrone spending around 10 to 12 hours on the corner a day, 7 days a week, he has spent about 990 hours on the corner. Now let’s remember he doesn’t have that much of a clientele in the 3 months that he’s been out there, so he might make a sale every 2 hours. Now with a rock being about 10 dollars, combined with the fact that Tyrone is trying to get his business off the ground, we’ll say that he made about 2,745 dollars in that 3 month span of time. Let’s go back to the McDonald’s job in a 3 month span Tyrone would have made 8,750. Okay stay with me. Now Tyrone has built up a little name for self with the fact that he sells his rocks for about 5 while the competition is selling for about 10 or 12. So naturally he is going to get a few new customers. But wait. Where are those customers coming from? You guessed it, other established dealers. So when those established dealers find out that Tyrone is making his profits by taking money out of their profits, what do you think they’ll do? Bust their guns? Nope. They’ll probably send an anonymous tip to the police. That “Stop Snitching” stuff only sounds good out on the streets, take a look at “First 48” and see how many so called “thugs” hold true to this street law. So now Tyrone has “eyes” on him. But for 3 more months he is able to up his sales to about 1 sale per hour at the same rate of 5 dollars per rock. So this brings him to 5,490 in that 3 month span. Remember he would’ve seen 8,750 in 3 months at McDonald’s. Now let’s refer back to the “eyes” that have been on Tyrone for the last 3 months. You didn’t think they’d just allow him to just keep making tax free money at the expense of people’s health did you? So basically the next 3 months Tyrone is penny less behind bars. I’d think by this time I wouldn’t have to mention the McDonald’s salary again, but since some of you are a little slow, 8,750. Tyrone gets out of jail and his release is anticipated by all of his customers. So he goes back to selling, not realizing that the “eyes” are still on him, or maybe he does realize it and doesn’t care cause he’s a little broke now. Not to mention with that record he can’t go back to McDonald’s. So now he has to up his price to about 8 dollars a rock, which is still cheaper than the competition and should yield him more of a return. So the next 3 months he brings in about 7,920, which is a lot more than he has been making but less than the McDonald’s salary. In a year’s time, Tyrone has made 16,155 selling drugs. But that is only a little more than half of the 35k dollar salary at McDonalds.

I told that long drawn out story just to illustrate to you the ignorance of some people.
Now the story I told was based on the average. When dealing drugs the results may vary. You may have people out there getting more than the figures I reported and maybe you have some getting less. But what I do know is that you don’t make any real money unless you are dealing in wholesale distribution. And the odds of making it to a drug kingpin from a street level dealer are 1 in a million. You have a better chance of graduating from college. I do know that the average drug dealer doesn’t read blogs so I guess I wrote it for the high school graduate who is tired of being broke and think that drug sales are better than a 9 to 5. In any event it was “Just my thoughts, just what I was feeling at the time”.