EVERYONE is a drug dealer

[CommonOrNot]

Bear with me…

I have name changed for this for seemingly obvious reasons. Yesterday, I was at the hairdressers getting my usual weekly services chatting as usual to my hairdresser - who every single week I’m there is dating a new drug dealer. She is very much a “glam” type. Neither of these things are uncommon in my city.

She then turns to the woman next to me and starts chatting about said woman’s partner and when he’s going to be on day release from prison and how he’s getting XYZ done cosmetically but it’s ok because the prison thinks he has a business so the money won’t be from dealing. (In other words, he’s still very much running an enterprise from behind bars). Again not uncommon in my area.

it got me thinking, in my city almost everyone has some sort of connection to dealing drugs. at all levels. I’m not exaggerating, I can’t think of a single person that doesn’t either deal themselves or is close friends with someone who does. All the women are dressed head to toe in designer, surgery, etc. the males have big cars, watches, designer clothes. It’s quite rare to see anyone under 30 without this aesthetic.

the 35+ generation maybe not so much but I would say all people I know in this age bracket absolutely have ties to someone who is a dealer.

before anyone comments that people may have the money for this aesthetic through legitimate reasons, I myself have a “flash” car, designer clothes, cosmetic procedures etc. but through running businesses and my partner being a well payed professional. I’m talking specifically about people that I know are dealers, and when I was thinking about it last night I was actually baffled how there seems to be so many.

PS I know there are people that work to have what they have, I’m talking about my city specifically being particularly dense with criminal activity and I’m wondering if it’s a regional thing or not. Where you are, is this the case?

If she hadn't have said city I would have guessed formby.

Once the area for footballers and wealthy professionals now also home to the more successful drug dealer

I kind of get what the OP is saying in that nearly 30 years ago as a teen I hung out with a group where it appeared everyone was dealing (not me I was being a rebellious teen and hanging out with the wrong crowd).

But none were flashy or rich.

I can see how a people with that mindset would all be friendly with each other and clustered in a particular area.

Well yes to be honest if everyone she know, socialise with and speak to is a drug dealer or involved in drugs then the problem is probably the company she keeps and she indeed is involved in some way.

Most of Mumsnet believe they have never encountered drugs. Or are friends with people who would do such a thing.

Since COVID, my eyes have been opened to just how many of my friends take drugs recreationally. Had no clue before.

You hang out with criminals op, let that sink in.

I’m in SW London and it’d be weird if you DIDN’T have some sort of connection to a drug dealer.

My hairdresser picked up from the local dealer just outside my house on the main road.
My white, middle aged neighbour sells drugs from her house and constantly has people in and out of her flat.
The kids dad was a drug dealer at some point but stopped as soon as I was pregnant.
Even my mum’s close friend has started selling drugs. The list just goes on and on tbh.

I was really close to some of my neighbours growing up and it was only as I got older that I realised they sold drugs. Sometimes you make relationships with people and BAM, they’re a drug dealer. Just a day in the life of a South Londoner in my experience

Agree. Utter rubbish. Most people don't know drug dealers FGS. Gotta laugh at how some people assume everyone else must know a drug dealer just because they do! 😆 Never known one in my life, and I used to live in a pretty rough part of a rough town! Obviously depends which circles you move in.

I live in London. The estate next to my flat used to have drug dealers waiting for business outside but I think the police have mostly got rid of them because it's not as "busy" as it used to be. I live a gentrified "middle-class area". Cars of all sizes and expense used to turn up. I watch what's going on from my window but I don't get involved, I don't know their names or if they actually live there. I know better than to be anywhere near them.

I think Sky TV made a programme about the "Liverpool Narcos". I haven't seen it. But that sort of publicity puts Liverpool in a poor light. I've never been there but if I was to go as a tourist surely I'd have to be actively looking for a dealer if I wanted drugs? Otherwise I wouldn't notice? It's like any kind of illicit behaviour, you have to go looking for it, don't you?

In my hometown we had a lot of barbering businesses open up suddenly. The men claimed to be Turkish but were Albanian in origin. Turned out they were fronts for laundering drug money. Most have closed down now after the police cottoned on. It's a market town in the East Midlands, so hardly gangland.

This made me laugh. My social circles are doctors, dentists, media agents, lawyers, engineers and architects. Every single one has either knows a dealer or has one in their family.

God, it sounds depressing wherever it is (yes, I did assume Liverpool).

I've lived in fairly rough bits of London and the south east my entire life and don't know any drug dealers.

I can't imagine thinking that it's normal to be chatting about your drug-dealing boyfriend and his prison sentences in the hairdressers. What a grim crowd you hang out with, OP.

🤣🤣

That would put them in the ‘wrong ‘un’ category though.

I remember having a very dim view of the middle class drug using wankers (whose entire personality seemed to be taking coke) at university. More so than the dealers.

Similarly, the ‘professional’ people who are coked up are usually hanging out with people just like themselves. Other people gravitate away from them.

Perfect response and just the sort of view/opinion I was looking for. Thank you.

Definitely the social circle but hey ladies don’t be so presumptuous to think your circles have nothing to do with dealing or taking drugs of any sort

some can hide it very well , especially when they’re rich

You go to the hairdresser every week?

Have you thought through the economics of this OP? If everyone is dealing, who are they selling it to? You make it sound like an MLM!

The naivety is believing that drug taking is fine if you are middle classed and ‘respectable’.

You do realise that drugs are part of much larger organised crime gangs and these people are bad, bad people involved in all kinds of terrible crimes?
It’s not as though lovely Mrs Smith down at No.5 has her own drug lab in the cellar and is supplying to all her lovely neighbours and all is rosey!

Regardless of your job or social status, if you dabble in drugs you are funding hardened criminals and their awful activities.

@Firebug007 probably unknowingly come across them but they’re not in my friendship circle so it’s not something that visibly part of my life.

It's not my experience and I live in a not so nice area in a really nice tourist city.
I know people who take recreational drugs, I know of a couple of dealers but most people I know are straight up.
Just boring, like me, go to work, like the odd glass of wine or a night out.

'My social circles are doctors, dentists, media agents, lawyers, engineers and architects. Every single one has either knows a dealer or has one in their family'

@CommonOrNot this comment is cringe! Are you actually high now?

i know a lot of users, so i suppose by degrees of association a lot of people i know will know a dealer.

I’m also North West and while I’m confident that I could find a drug dealer within a couple of hours if I needed to, I couldn’t name one (although I may recognise their name) and I don’t have their number.

I’d say the same for 90% of my peers.

And this is coming from someone who as a child sat on the knee of who was at one point the UK’s most wanted drug dealer, so I’m not particularly naive to the situation.

I don’t think it’s as prevalent as you think across the whole city. I think it’s skewed by your own perspective.

To be honest this was my first thought too. When the murder of Olivia Pratt-Korbel went through court I was astounded to discover how powerful the gangs were in the city.

It really is you and the company you keep OP.

Sure we will all have come across people involved in dealing and using drugs. But whether or not they share this with you is indicative of the extent to which they perceive you as like minded.

My husband is a pharmacist, that’s about as close as we get 😂