They lied to me all through elementary school

As I look back on the 80’s, I realize that my entire generation was lied to as it related to drugs…

They told us in school to be aware of and avoid drug dealers, who would offer kids drugs (at no charge, mind you) and shoot you for not accepting their offer. Once these idiot drug-“gifters” (“dealers” sell, “gifters” give shit away) realized that the D.A.R.E. program had properly empowered and educated (non-profit organization standard buzzwords) kids, they changed their story. Now we could no longer accept candy or anything from strangers and should have our parents inspect our Haloween candy, because NOW drug dealers were making a new kind of drugs for kids and putting it in candy to give (<-- again, that word is my problem here) to kids.
Now, not to let you in on more than you need to know about me but I know enough about the peddling of illicit goods to know that you don’t make a DIME on anything you give away. That is why I NEVER got involved with weedhead women when I was doing what I had to do.
I also believe in honor amongst thieves, and that has always included watching out for the babies.
With that in mind, to suggest that anyone about their paper would pull up on a little kid and simply OFFER them a hit of crack free of charge(!!) and commence to murdering them for rebuffing was fucking stupid.

As it happened, I figured it was all pretty much worth ignoring, and then when I was 12 we moved to a neighborhood where such dealings actually took place. By “dealings,” I mean hand-to-hand crack sales and such.
To give you an idea of the proximity, I could throw a football from right in front of our house and it end up on MLK, and you KNOW what streets named after that man nationwide entail.
The hustlers, as I described above, were more entertained by the kids in the neighborhood and actually did right by us 90% of the time, with that 10% deviation being selling dope right there in they neighborhood. Hell, most of the time they would watch us play football in the street or basketball in the park while they “worked.” It was nothing to be stopped on the way to wherever in the neighborhood and be offered “aye lil man, go to the store for me? Bring me a Mountain Dew and a bag of Doritos…” in 1991-92 money, this was about $1.75, but invariably there would be a $5 provided to do so and keeping the change was payment for the 3-block walk.

Furthermore, they usually…
  • Sent crackheads down the block a bit to be sold to, not right in front of kids.
  • Screamed on the same crackheads for harrassing the kids
  • Never (well, rarely) cursed in front of our mothers, responding with “ma’am” as necessary if ever addressed by them.
What they were, however, were (usually) shrewd businessmen, and no way in hell does giving shit away to someone who cannot afford to become a paying customer equal good business.

So all this time, I am living in one world at school where they told us that drug dealers were these big bad evil cats, while at home and in the neighborhood, they were just “Mike with the green car.”

Not that they were ever necessarily trustworthy, but this FURTHER alienated me from the teachings of the Reagan Administration, having told a bold-faced lie to us yet again. Here, from age 8 and up to 15 or so, I was WAITING on someone to offer me some (free) drugs, and it never happened.
Well, never happened with any hard drugs, as it seemed I was offered free weed every year from age 16 until 2 months ago, though most times I declined.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

True Story©... The Treasure Hunt Pt. III

AMERICAN (bout damn time) Automotive Pr0ns -- SSC Ultimate Aero TT