Selling Drugs As A Side Hustle

Kevin Morris 5m 1,369 #drugs

The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.

A Surprising Income Stream For Career Professionals

Imagine a reliable employee who shows up every day for their 9-to-5 job. Their boss likes them, and they don’t have any personality conflicts with other coworkers in the office. When it’s time to clock out for the day, most employees go to dinner, the gym, or maybe just home for an early night. Well, almost all of them. That one reliable employee off everyone’s radar transitions into their second job: selling cocaine. Here’s what this teaches us about the complexity of selling drugs and how it can affect people’s professions.

Motivation and Morals

The British woman who sells cocaine on the side in the above-linked news article is just one example of the many faces of drug dealing around the world. In that story, she says she has to live a protective life, so that dealing cocaine doesn’t jeopardize her employment or land her in jail. This requires keeping details slim around certain friends and family members and having some form of protection when meeting with people, especially because of the violent symptoms that some cocaine addicts can experience.

When asked why she sells cocaine when continuing to work her 9-to-5 job, some of the reasons she gave included wanting to pay for her family’s needs, extra spending money, and sometimes because her normal job wasn’t enough to pay her bills. Surprisingly, she shares that she hates drugs and doesn’t use any other than marijuana. While she says she hates drugs, she also says she feels no remorse for enabling addicts as a cocaine supplier because life is hard; dreams of finding the perfect job don’t always come true.

Meanwhile, in the United States, reports have claimed for decades that a large part of drug dealing is done by people with full-time employment, even in urban places like Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. Sometimes, the draw comes from widely known drugs like cocaine, but recently this has expanded even riskier niches: counterfeit drugs. These counterfeit drugs can come in various forms and can include anything from mixing other powdery substances with cocaine to fake oxycodone pills. While filler ingredients are used to give people a diminished version of the drug being advertised, today marks a new era of counterfeit drugs. The current favorite filler ingredient is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine: fentanyl.

Ignorance Is Deadly

These days, fentanyl has risen to a place of prominence in the drug arena. It continues to break records, not only of potency but also of fatalities. For people ages 18-45, fentanyl is the leading cause of death in the U.S., a troubling figure that should cause anyone to give pause. While some people are knowingly sending these deadly drugs into the market, like the Washington State couple charged last month with over 300,000 fentanyl pills, the average career professionals who are selling drugs on the side are most likely don’t know the drugs they’re selling are laced with anything, let alone fentanyl.

So, why is this happening? Why are dealers at the top content to lace drugs from A to Z with this deadly opioid? Unfortunately, the answer is it’s cheap and easy. Fentanyl is also highly addictive, so it carries job security for dealers at the top to have returning customers who have these intense highs. These experiences mean they’re likely to keep coming back for more. They will continue to pay high prices for their perceived drug, and the dealers will continue to make large profits.

While this cycle might continue in some cases, fentanyl’s fatality rate proves the cycle likely ends when someone loses their life rather than a dealer or user moving on from drug involvement. Because of its high potency and lack of information about how potent any given dose is, any fentanyl dose should be considered potentially fatal. And because of the widespread use of fentanyl in street drugs today, the willingness to take or sell drugs illegally is to engage in what some in New Mexico are calling “a game of Russian roulette.”

The Downfall

There are various types of drug dealers, and they sell drugs for various reasons. Sometimes people with normal, everyday lives enjoy taking a drug and decide to start selling it to ensure they have a supply for themselves and their friends while making some extra money on the side. Others sell drugs because they believe most users are harmless and want to use drugs to enhance their lives or provide themselves the energy to work their production jobs. The truth is, the potential harm and violent nature of any drug are up for debate, and how addictive a drug might be can vary from person to person. Today, people can point to the range of legislation that has decriminalized drugs such as marijuana to legitimize their drug-selling side hustle.

However, the world of drugs has changed dramatically over the years. The question of whether any given drug has been laced with fentanyl has moved from possibly to probably. The average person selling drugs must now assume their supply has fentanyl in it. The only question is whether it is a deadly amount. Because fentanyl isn’t officially used for anything beyond end-of-life treatment for chronic pain, no long-term use of fentanyl should be considered harmless. It’s doubtful that most people looking to make some supplemental income in drug dealing are thinking about these things, but perhaps educating each other about how deadly drug cutting has made even the “harmless” types of use will help people think twice before taking up this side hustle.

Sources

I-News. (2018, October 18). “I’m a Woman who Works a 9-5 Office Job and Sells Cocaine on the Side. This is Why”. Retrieved https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/im-a-woman-who-works-a-9-5-office-job-and-sells-cocaine-on-the-side-this-is-why-210358

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.).Guide to Cocaine Addiction and Treatment. Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/stimulants/cocaine/

Los Angeles Times. (1990, July 11). Drug Dealing Called a Second Job. Retrieved https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-07-11-mn-212-story.html

Delphi Health Group (n.d.) Cocaine vs. Meth: Potency, Differences, Detox. Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/stimulants/cocaine/vs-meth/

DOJ. (2018, Feb. 9). San Francisco Woman Who Helped Sell Counterfeit Oxycodone Pills Sentenced to 151 Months in Prison. Retrieved https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/san-francisco-woman-who-helped-sell-counterfeit-oxycodone-pills-sentenced-151-months

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.) The Most Potent (Strongest) Opioids Currently Available. Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/opioids/most-potent/

ABC Denver (2022, January 4). Fentanyl is the Leading Cause of Death in Americans Ages 18-45. Retrieved https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/national/fentanyl-is-the-leading-cause-of-death-in-americans-ages-18-45

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). What Is in Fentanyl, and How Is It Made?. Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/opioids/fentanyl/how-its-made/

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). What Amount of Fentanyl Causes an Overdose? (Plus Treatment Help) Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/opioids/fentanyl/overdose/

US News. (2021, December 21). Fentanyl: a Game of ‘Russian Roulette’ for New Mexicans. Retrieved https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-mexico/articles/2021-12-18/fentanyl-a-game-of-russian-roulette-for-new-mexicans

The Conversation. (2018, April 20). Not All Drug Dealers are the Same- It’s Time to Ditch Outdated Stereotypes. Retrieved https://theconversation.com/not-all-drug-dealers-are-the-same-its-time-to-ditch-outdated-stereotypes-93773

Sapiens. (2019, August 28). Why Are People Who Use Illegal Drugs Demonized? Retrieved https://www.sapiens.org/culture/drug-users-demonized/

DOJ. (2021, Sep. 30). Department of Justice Announces DEA Seizures of Historic Amounts of Deadly Fentanyl-Laced Fake Pills in Public Safety Surge to Protect U.S. Communities. Retrieved https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-announces-dea-seizures-historic-amounts-deadly-fentanyl-laced-fake-pills

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). What Are the Short-Term and Long-Term Effects of Fentanyl Use? Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/opioids/fentanyl/short-long-effects/

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