page 2b
oxnio,
I
"I
(
by Bart Becker
If it's drugs you're looking for, Tom's
your man. Of course it's not his real
name. Drug dealers have an aversion to
their names in the newspaper. That's
right, he sells drugs for a living.
Drugs. They can be smoked, snorted,
swallowed, skin popped or shot.
The place to buy them is from a
dealei. So, assured of anonymity, Tom
scratched at his black bread and talked
about his life and times as a drug dealer.
Tom said he began dealing while he
still lived in McCook. He called the
situation there a "cooperative" thing.
Someone would go to Denver for drugs to
supply their McCook friends. According
to Tom, he's been dealing drugs ever
since. But it wasn't until he moved to
Lincoln to go to school that he got
heavily into dealing.
"I was dealing mostly marijuana at
that time," he said. "You see, for a
student without much money to keep a
good supply of marijuana you go out and
buy a pound. You sell some of it and
smoke about a quarter of it. I started out
with a partner I'd known for my whole
life and our idea was to have as much
dope and turn on as many people as we
wanted to.
"Which we did. Which I hope I'm still
doing."
He is well lead, particulaily in reseat ch
done on diugs. Sometimes he pointedly
talks about an article he's read, other
times it becomes evident from his
conversation that he does know more
about drugs than most people who take
them.
In fact, he suggested that everybody
should research the drugs they take,
"there's lots of good information around.
Find out what you have; set up ways to
get it tested pharmaceutical."
He is, admittedly, something of a lone
bird in his "profession" because he
constantly rejects the capitalistic lure of
dealing. He is, besides, conscientious and
ethical about what he does.
"I deal mostly in smoke now," he
mused. "If I deal a psychedelic I take it
myself. I feel like if I'm going to sell a
drug I ought to take it; I ought to be able
to tell the person what it is. Like I say,
I'm very sensitive to drugs. I have a
history of diabetes in my family and most
diugs operate on the blood-sugar level.
"So I can take mescaline, say, and the
instant I come on I can tell you what it
is.
He agreed that drugs are not the only
answer to everybody's ills.
"What's happened is, because of a
fluke in evolution, we're disconnected
from about a third of our brain. And
diugs allow you to tap into the potential
yout biain has. But there aie a million
ways you can do the same
thing - knowledge, love, ritual, all kinds of
things.
"I think thete are certain diugs that,
