Drug dealing, they say, allows them to set their own priorities and schedules. Working at McDonald's or Wal-Mart puts them at the mercy of a system that will ruthlessly replace them should they break any of its rules. While dealing is not significantly more lucrative - economic researchers report that independent drug dealers make, on average, $20,000-to-$30,000 a year - being self-employed offers these men a freedom unavailable to them at a normal job. "Try to raise a family working at McDonald's or Wal-Mart. Selander sees it as a larger societal problem. Each of the dealers I spoke with said that they began selling drugs when they realized that there was no way their jobs would allow them to do what they wanted to do. With the exception of Shorts, they've never been arrested. They've never murdered or physically hurt anyone while selling drugs. These men don't belong to cartels or gangs. Finn Selander, a former DEA agent, puts it this way: "There is almost zero chance any of these men will end up an Escobar." If the drug trade were its own country, this would put its GDP somewhere between Saudi Arabia and Switzerland.)Īnd, like any other Fortune 500 company, there is little opportunity for the lower-level employees to rise to its upper echelons. (The United Nations estimates that the drug trade generates $600 billion per year. They are cogs in a multi-billion dollar industry. Mention "Albuquerque" and "drugs," and chances are someone will squeal "Breaking Bad!" Walter White's transformation from a cancer-stricken chemistry teacher to a successful drug lord made great TV, but for most dealers here in Albuquerque, selling will never be so bloody, nor so profitable. "It's almost like you work to go to work," Rico says. Naw." He explains that when an hour's work at minimum wage buys you two gallons of gas, and you spend a gallon each day getting to work, the choice becomes pretty clear. "You don't make enough money to do anything: Travel, get your car fixed up. He says that it's just enough to pay bills and occasionally go out. His "real-world job" pays a few bucks more than minimum wage. I think that's why a lot of people sell drugs," Rico says. Real-world jobs don't allow people to do that. I'm just trying to get money to enjoy myself. He lives in the the same small house he's lived in for 12 years, in a down-and-out part of Albuquerque that recently began to "yuppify," as he puts it. Rico works a full-time job and only deals as much as he can reasonably use or hide. We're in a old Subaru wagon.Īs Rico, another dealer, tells me, "You have to maintain appearances." Maybe in a place more prosperous than Albuquerque, flashy cars would blend right in, but when parking lots, alleys, and gas stations are your office, it's best to have transport that seems just like everybody else's. No rims, no underbody glow, 4-door, nothing fancy. Two lines he has set aside for himself, from "the good shit." The good shit we just picked up in a diner parking lot, from a kid in a black Honda Civic. He's bent one card into a trough and uses the other to scoop up the blow. "Like fish scales." I'm watching him measure out $20 and $40 bags using a metal, digital scale and two business cards.
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