Understanding the real drug dealer
By: Vincent L. Hall
“Pimping Ain’t Easy” is a 1970s-era adage that has never lost popularity.
It sounds simple, but obviously, these are people who know little or nothing about the American drug problems and are “easy targets.”
Growing up in Dallas, I was privileged to co-mingle with people from all walks of life. But the most interesting group was the hustlers, gamblers, and wannabe gangsters.
My daddy advised me to keep a job because my “skills” weren’t sharp enough to feed and clothe me.
The “street life” genre was valuable to me. I understand that there is one substantive difference between a crap game and the stock game. You can count your winnings or your losses during a crap game.
With the stock market, winners are announced weekdays at 4:59 EST. But the same mentality of betting on winners holds for both.
Pimping ain’t easy, but Donald Trump’s minions are spoon-feeding Americans a bullsh!t line that tariffs placed on Mexico and Canada are all about stopping the flow of fentanyl.
That’s a straight line of misinformation, skullduggery, and a big-tent circus-marquee advertisement.
First and foremost, the onus of drug use is a personal one. The Progressive Policy Institute reports it this way.
“Synthetic opioids, in particular fentanyl, are the main cause, accounting for 87,155 or 78% of all American drug overdose deaths in 2023.
Drug Enforcement Administration reports continuous pressure on the two large narcotics ‘cartels’ responsible for most fentanyl trafficking.”
What no report has stated was that any of those who lost their lives were forced to take a single dosage. The fentanyl crisis, just like the crack cocaine scourge, was fueled by willing drug users.
Parenthetically, because Black and Brown people got caught in the crack craze, it wasn’t a big deal. Once White folks saw a disproportionate number of their clan dying from fentanyl, they cried foul!
Tariffs sound like a good end to this wave of deaths, but it won’t be.
In Dallas County and throughout this state, the only way that poor people ever get a chance at drug rehabilitation is if it is court-ordered.
In other words, a person with an addiction commits a crime, gets sent to a diversion court (if they are lucky), and that judge orders them to either in-patient or outpatient care.
According to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics, in 2023, the average cost for the “cheapest medical detoxification program” was $2,000.
A 90-day outpatient program costs $5,000, and the outpatient programs cost $5,000 per month, and they take at least three months to be effective.
Add to that the cost of lost wages to individuals and families and the fact that most addicted people go through complete rehab at least twice before succeeding, and you conclude that tariffs on any country to rid us of overdoses is wrong-headed, if not downright futile.
Pimping or the “Ebonically correct spelling pimpin’ ain’t easy. But if you believe that Trump’s tariffs will be a deterrent to drug overdoses in America, you are an easy target!
You are one of those suckers born every minute that P. T. Barnum built his circus on.
A long-time Texas Metro News columnist, Dallas native Vincent L. Hall is an author, writer, award-winning writer, and a lifelong Drapetomaniac.
