Suburban Drug Dealing in Los Santos, by Thobias Wizzle

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Thobias

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Suburban Drug Dealing in Los Santos

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A drug dealer sniffing crack inside the Jefferson Motel.

Over the span of some years, we interviewed around 20 middle-class, suburban drug dealers from Los Santos, San Andreas. We were hoping we would gain access to the inner working of this subculture.

Drug dealing has inherent dangers – you could be robbed, threatened, assaulted or arrested – and we were interested in how these suburban dealers handled the inevitable array of conflicts they encountered. What we found may be surprising: in most cases of potential conflict, nothing happened.

For example, one teen named Adam was angry that his friend hadn’t paid him for the ounce of marijuana and two ounces of mushrooms that he’d sold him a few weeks earlier. Fed up, Adam threatened to kill the guy. “You’re going to kill me over $400?” the debtor said, to which Adam replied, “Yeah, I guess not.” And that was that.

In another case, a dealer named Robert returned home from high school to find that someone had stolen a quarter-pound of weed from his bedroom. The following day, convinced it was one of his friends, Robert threw the friend against a locker and threatened to beat him up after school. Hours later, onlookers circled to watch the fight. Fists raised, the two locked eyes. There were a couple of shoves and a sucker punch. Seconds passed. But then the tension deflated. The crowd dispersed, and Robert and his friend went their separate ways.

It’s widely thought that when a drug dealer is ripped off, violent retaliation is likely to follow. But what’s striking about these two examples is that they’re more violent than the majority of conflicts we documented for our recent book about suburban drug dealing. Most of the dealers we talked to handled their problems peacefully, either by doing nothing, avoiding the individuals who slighted them or negotiating a resolution. And it seems as though the etiquette of the suburbs – one that preaches conflict avoidance, conformity and not drawing attention to oneself – is largely responsible.


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Suburban Drug Dealing.

The same can’t be said of dealers from disadvantaged, inner city neighborhoods, whom we’ve also interviewed.

Asked what he did to someone who failed to repay a minor debt, a St Louis street dealer who goes by the name of Big Mike calmly explained that he “threw a brick in his face. He was pretty well busted up. You can’t let people get over on you, even if it’s five dollars.” Like his peers, Big Mike lived by the code of the street, which maintains that no affront should go unpunished.

Another inner city dealer explained the code this way: “Shootouts, killings, that’s what the game is about. You mess up, you get killed.”

Both suburban and urban dealers have plenty of reasons to retaliate. They can’t go to the police out of fear of incriminating themselves. By not striking back, they risk coming across as soft, inviting others to take advantage of them down the road.

So why didn’t suburban dealers ever seek revenge? One of the main reasons may be the way they’ve been raised and oriented to operate in their world. These kids' parents, teachers and coaches taught them to abide by what we call “the code of the suburb,” which eschews violence and holds that the best way to handle conflict is to suppress it.




The benefits of wealth and privilege another key difference between suburban and urban drug dealing.

Compared to their urban counterparts, it was easier for the suburban dealers to give up dealing because they didn’t really need the money. Their parents were able to provide for them, so for these teens, dealing was never meant to be a career. It was just another phase on their way to becoming successful adults, which they had no intention of jeopardizing.

Given their desire to avoid legal trouble, why did the suburban dealers take up selling drugs in the first place? The answer is complex. In part, it’s because they believed that the odds of actually catching a drug charge were low. Official data confirm this belief; while adolescents from the suburbs and inner city sell and use drugs at comparable rates, inner city users and dealers are far more likely to face criminal charges.

Suburban dealers didn’t think the same when it came to violence; in their mind, the police in their community would never stand for that. Fortunately for them, they didn’t need violence to protect themselves. They lived in a suburban environment that espouses nonviolence – a mindset that seemingly trickles all the way down to the local drug dealers.

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Article made by Junior Reporter,
Thobias Wizzle

 

Jordy

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I'm Proud to inform you that after careful examination of your article by High Command it has been decided that your article meets the criteria and therefore has been published.

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Awesome Article Really nice Job - Jordan.
 
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Grande

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@Jordan™ -

The original article, "Suburban Drug Dealing in Los Santos," can be found here:

http://theconversation.com/inside-the-world-of-suburban-drug-dealing-43219

The unauthorized and infringing copy can be found at:

http://www.lawlessrp.com/threads/su...s-santos-by-thobias-wizzle.91476/#post-667532

This letter is official notification under Section 512(c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (”DMCA”), and I seek the removal of the aforementioned infringing material from your website. I request that you immediately notify the infringer of this notice and notify them to cease any further posting of infringing material in the future.

I am providing this notice in good faith and with the reasonable belief that rights I own are being infringed. Under penalty of perjury I certify that the information contained in the notification is both true and accurate, and I have the authority to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright(s) involved.

Should you wish to discuss this with me please contact me.

Thank you.

Grande V. Menace
420 W. Combat Lane
San Andreas, California, 12345
(555) 555-5555
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Mozzza

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Published Article

I'm Proud to inform you that after careful examination of your article by High Command it has been decided that your article meets the criteria and therefore has been published.

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SANews leader and you can't even find plagiarism?. fucking pathetic. Why can't people do original articles...oh yeah it's because this server is entirely full of pakis with broken English.
 
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Prince Ahmadala

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SANews leader and you can't even find plagiarism?. fucking pathetic. Why can't people do original articles...oh yeah it's because this server is entirely full of pakis with broken English.
No, it's because he wouldn't reinstate me without an application!
 
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