We interviewed a student drug dealer

Everyone has one, or has a friend who has one.

So why do we know so little about this elusive breed of individual?

One dealer who has since given up his part-time work sat down to tell us about his time selling in Stirling.

What did you sell?

Mostly weed. Sometimes I’d sell E or other stuff, but the most demand was for weed.

Do you still sell?

 No, it’s not the kind of job I recommend doing for long periods of time.

Did you ever try your own stuff?

Yeah, I used to smoke a fair bit but I’d only really tried the harder stuff once. I’ve seen people get fucked up on that so that can put you off.

Were you ever worried about getting addicted?

Nah, it doesn’t really work like that. I mean you can get used to the lifestyle of smoking weed but you don’t really get addicted to it. It’s harder stuff, like coke or heroin, that gets you addicted.

What about a Scarface style showdown? Did you ever see things ending like that?

Haha! Nah, I never really fancied myself as a Tony Montana kind of guy. He had a tiger, all I have is a springer spaniel.

So what made you start dealing? The using or the need for money?

Why does anyone start anything? I guess the money was the reason. Students struggle to find jobs when they leave uni, so what chance do they have when they’re at uni? As far as I’m concerned, I did the smart thing and made some by providing people with what they want.

So you provide a service?

Exactly. There is a demand so I provide a supply. People will always be on drugs whether I’m dealing or not. The fact that I’m the dealer basically means people can get their weed safely, rather than hanging around parks or whatever the fuck.

So what kind of mark-up do you reckon you were making at the height of your dealing?

I don’t really like talking about the money side of it, but safe to say I made more than enough. For a quarter ounce of decent stuff I’d probably get £40-£50. It can be kind of hard to say because if someone bought a lot of stuff I’d give them a good deal, and the same goes for mates, so it varies really.

If I was selling a £40 bag it’d cost me around £24 quid, so mark-up was £16. You can make a lot of money if you know enough people to sell to.

Did people ever owe you money? How did you handle that?

When you’re dealing you can get kind of arrogant and see yourself as being high up, and if you’re above someone you can’t really let them mess you about.

I’ve never been in a position when I’ve had to use violence, but there’s been more than one occasion when I’ve had to threaten people or take something they own as a substitute for money.

How much is the most someone has owed you?

£700. Think the guy was a wannabe dealer himself to be honest.

How did you resolve it?

I think he realised he was out of line, to be honest. I didn’t exactly need to go round his house with a baseball bat like in GTA or something, but he ended up paying me with his Macbook. I think that was fair.

Is it a difficult job to keep up? What skills do you need?

It can be difficult. The worst part of the job is the paranoia that you’re gonna get caught. Even when you’re not a proper dealer there’s always a risk. The actual dealing is just about who you know. That and your maths skills. My basic arithmetic and knowledge of fractions is like rain man level now.

Not really CV transferable skills though?

Despite probably learning more from dealing than I did from college, I have to sum this part of my life up on my CV as “soul searching” or some shit like that. Oh well, it’s a loss for the financial industry in this country!

So what drugs have you taken?

Well obviously I’ve had weed before. I’ve also had salvia, E, and coke — depends really on what kind of night you wanna have.

Do you feel like weed is a gateway drug?

No, not at all. Look at the kind of people who take weed and then look at the kind of people who take meth and other class As. Two totally different types of people.

You find a lot of people on the harder drugs are trying to escape something, whereas people who take weed are just trying to chill out and have a good time, you know? I don’t really believe in gateway drugs and all that, people can make up their own minds — they don’t need drugs to help them get there.

So what kind of people were your average customer?

The average customers are usually students or hipster types. I mean, some of my customers would surprise you.

Anyone interesting?

Well, I’ve not had Alex Salmond calling me asking for an eighth or anything like that. You do find yourself selling to uni academics and middle aged nine to five workers who are just looking for a buzz. One of my customers runs a well known local business. Like I say, people can surprise you.

What’s your relationship with your customers? If any?

I started off selling to my mates, but I don’t do that as much now. You start to branch out from word of mouth, but then that can lead to other sorts of problems.

A lot of customers don’t really interact much with you because they read things and hear things about dealers and assume people like me are evil or something. I’m just a regular guy.

Have you ever been arrested?

You only really get in trouble from hanging out with the wrong sort of people. If you keep customers at arm’s length you find it’s easier to avoid trouble. I’ve nearly been arrested a couple of times though.

Closest call was when I got stopped on suspicion of selling to some student outside a gig in Glasgow. I wasn’t even carrying that much weed but I had a baggy of coke on me as well. Only the student ran off for some stupid reason, forcing the guy who stopped us to run after him. You’d think that sort of thing happens quite often but it really doesn’t.

What do you think of the police then?

Most of them are decent guys just trying to do their job. You do get the odd wanker though, who’s just having a bad day and wants to cause trouble. I’m not like one of these twats who call the police “pigs” or anything like that, but I do think some people join the police for the wrong reasons.

Do you think cannabis should be legalized?

I think making it illegal causes more problems than it solves. As things are now it’s also a great way for kids to rebel against their parents and act out, which is a problem. If you look at countries like Holland, weed isn’t such a big deal, so by extension it’s not such a big problem over there. If it was legalized as well, it would stop people from trying to buy it in “dodgy” circumstances. So yeah, I think it should be legalized.

Won’t that put student dealers out of the job?

Should have started dealing earlier! It’s not really a long term job anyway.

How so?

If you deal for too long you get greedy and then you get caught. The job is best as a short term thing.

Do you think other drugs should be legalized?

It’s hard to say, but there’s definitely pros and cons to legalizing. One thing you can guarantee is it would become less dangerous to buy harder drugs, and at the same time criminals would struggle to replace the steady sources of income that drugs provide.

Have you ever refused to sell to someone?

Not really. I mean, if I’m not selling to someone then they’ll just go somewhere else to get it. I’ve not really ever been in a situation where I’ve needed to refuse to sell someone.

So you would refuse to sell if you had to?

I guess I wouldn’t sell to kids, like 16 and under. I mean cannabis can have some bad effects on young people. Same goes for pregnant women.

Your phone’s not stopped ringing. How many times a day does that go off?

That’s why I have a second phone. If it gets too much, or I’ve got a lot of uni work on, I just switch it off.

Now that you’re no longer dealing, how do you see your time as a dealer when you look back on it?

I hate that word – dealer. I mean, that’s defining me as this one dimensional stereotypical bad guy and it was only part of me. I do look back on it quite a lot, but I never regret it. Maybe things would be different if I got caught, but at the end of the day I made a lot of money and had a great time.

It’s not like dealing was the only part of my life back then. I went to gigs, learnt a lot, and met a bunch of cool people. I mean, wouldn’t you enjoy it? 90 per cent of the people who read this will judge me and think “he was stupid” or that I was “morally wrong”, but the simple fact is I needed money and couldn’t get a job because I was a student. This was the perfect answer – I chose my own hours, made a load of money and had a great time. No risk, no reward.