THE DRUG ECONOMY
The citizen who does not walk these streets and alleys—who only glimpses these places through social media news or press releases from a prosecutor’s office—might think that the street-level dealer leads a strong, vibrant, and prosperous economic life. Nothing could be further from the truth. At most, their economy is anchored to a mid-range income, perhaps between $600 and $1,000 USD a month. When compared to the astronomical figures the State spends to extract these individuals from their daily lives, the disparity is staggering.
Now, let us think a bit deeper and try to see why a kid ends up in that world. I will ignore the statistical data; I consider it mathematically elementary, as it is merely a count and not a measurement of operating forces. Statistics cannot measure movement while it is happening, nor the forces acting on a person before an action takes shape. Only differential calculus can do that.
Exceptions arise the same way matter does: seemingly from nothing. There are cases where one enters not out of necessity, addiction, or culture, but for pleasure, a desire to belong, or simple convenience. However, the case I consider the rule—the one that led me to write this text—is the following:
A boy or girl in a poor childhood, marked by abuse from parents or caregivers. A childhood where, by age 7 or 8, they already know the city by roaming it alone like a curious cat. Situations of abuse, whether against them or their siblings—physical violence or sexual abuse—with no one to report it, out of complicity or fear. In their pre-adolescence (12 or 13 years old), schooling has been nonexistent for a couple of years. Their body is already weighed down by informal, poorly paid labor—odd jobs done as a “favor” or through family ties. A premature encounter with alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, cocaine, and excess. Throughout their entire development, they never hear the word of an adult who managed to establish themselves; no advice or hand reaching out to correct their course. Above all, there is a total ignorance of any other possible way of life beyond what TV, social media, or the internet might show. By age 17, the trajectory is irreversible. Only then will they face the police and the full weight of the criminal system, waiting to be unloaded onto them.
This long chain of experiences forms a mass that cannot be diverted without a force of equal magnitude in the opposite direction. No one can stop someone who is ready to earn $600 a month by dealing, because they know no other way to live. Consider this: situations cannot be explained with words when there is a total ignorance of most words. How can a reflection be born—one sufficient to choose a better path—if that word does not exist within them, nor in anyone they know, have known, or will ever know? Even the local evangelical pastor cannot know them, blinded by the idea of resisting misery for a prosperous paradise. We are demanding too much from someone incapable of giving it. Language is the limit of thought, and everything that cannot be processed by it becomes a symptom of various kinds.
The economy of the street-level dealer is secondary. The kid enters it because they know nothing else.
But I want to make a distinction here. I have noticed an intelligence in many of these kids that, with some instruction, would allow them to surpass anyone. I have seen it in addicts who have no chairs, tables, stoves, or gas tanks in their homes. I have seen intelligence even in those who are completely illiterate. And that is where the “narco-bandit” emerges—someone perhaps more dangerous for society because they possess the physical and intellectual capacity to plan actions that the common transa never could. I will explain this later… along with the differential mathematics of the matter.
Before finishing this segment, I want to destroy the State’s statistics once and for all and explain how, conceptually, the State steals resources by seeking applause through four different paths:
If governments stopped using statistics and turned to differential calculus, they could see the dynamic forces at play, intervene in time, and avoid sentences, criminal acts, and recidivism. But the State does not seek to intervene; it only seeks to perpetuate itself. Thus, it intentionally commits four economic crimes under the banner of justice:
- The prevention scam: All taxpayer money that should be used for prevention (which a dynamic differential model would allow them to see) is never used. Every security budget is simply a hoarding of resources for actions with a single goal: ensuring the State’s own existence and obtaining oblivious applause. You keep applauding, but you are being swindled.
- The cost of the hunt: The cost of hunting down a criminal who earns a maximum of $1,000 from their illicit activity is at least 50 times larger.
- Paying to imprison him: You, the TV-voting citizen, must continue to pay to keep the condemned in prison.
- The cycle: The condemned, once their sentence is served, will return to the same cycle. YES, IT IS LIKE PAYING FOR YOUR OWN HITMAN.