• Snot Flickerman
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    3 months ago

    Having lived in the dirt poor South for over five years in the early 2000’s and smoked weed the entire time:

    This is not just what the media presents.

    The number of whacked out sketchy fucking freaks I had to associate with when weed was illegal was too god damned high.

    When I was just trying to score some pot once and a methed out freak busts open the front door to yell at my dealer “We caught the neighbors cat” only for my dealer to decide it was high time to ignore that I had money for weed and instead took it upon himself to go outside, take his toddler with him, and sic his pit bull on the cat until it caught the cat and tore it to shreds. I stayed inside the whole time, freaked out, and desperate to leave.

    Yes, the inside of his trailer was a fucking shithole.

    My other dealer started out as a really smart coworker, got into doing meth, and the last time I saw him, everyone called him “mumbles.” Went from a brilliant young man to a broken young man in the course of a few years.

    I am so god damned glad to be able to buy shit from a store.

    • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Maybe it has more to do with the spot in the chain and what they’re slinging?

      As far as I know the dude supplied a lot of hard drugs and had local “mafia” connection, it’s also a larger city at a mil+.

      My parents don’t live in a ritzy nor a downtrodden neighbourhood, but it’s centralist now (outskirts when they bought) they’ve had at least 3 grow ops and/or drug houses get busted on their street. Its a community I would raise my family in, so its not a bad part of town even or anything.

      • Snot Flickerman
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        3 months ago

        Maybe it has more to do with the spot in the chain and what they’re slinging?

        It’s this and just that people from all walks of life use drugs.

        Rich people will have rich drug dealers and poor people will have poor drug dealers, and never the twain shall meet. It’s not any more complicated than that.

        • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          That makes sense, but the media doesn’t want to glorify the good side of making money off of it, so they don’t show that side.

          Both sides exist, but one is shown vastly more on the media than the others.

          • Snot Flickerman
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            3 months ago

            I mean, sort of? The entire show Weeds was about an affluent, classy woman selling weed, and that show is pretty old by now.

            • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Sorry not media, news, you don’t see many rich people on the news being busted or their drug dens being shown. Theres definitely a news bias and that’s what OP was kinda asking about.

              • Snot Flickerman
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                3 months ago

                Now that I 100% agree with. News absolutely minimizes cases against the affluent or connected.

                Now occasionally we do get news about it, but the outcome it always something like this:

                https://www.kqed.org/news/11988510/case-of-former-san-jose-police-union-official-charged-with-attempting-to-import-illegal-drugs-could-resolve-by-august

                This Police Union head got busted buying and selling fentanyl, tried to blame it on her housekeeper, and has had over a year of walking free to fight it.

                Part of the reason for the extensions in the case is “differences in the government’s and the defendant’s views of the facts,” Segovia’s attorney, Will Edelman, wrote in a court filing.

                Edelman, citing health issues and personal difficulties, is withdrawing from the case and Segovia will be represented by attorney Adam Gasner. Edelman noted in his filing that finding a new attorney for Segovia and transitioning the case to Gasner required additional time.

                Nonetheless, “the parties have engaged in extensive back-and-forth discussions about such potential resolutions, including multiple meetings, presentations, and detailed correspondence,” Edelman wrote. He characterized the talks as productive.

                "A potential case resolution that has been discussed and refined extensively remains a possibility,” he wrote.

                The news media doesn’t spend as much time focusing on cases like these because they don’t like people having to see how anyone with money or connections can just pay to endlessly appeal and then walk away with a weak ass plea bargain and a slap on the wrist.

                The reason they don’t show it is they don’t want poor people wising up to how fucking different the legal system is for them versus the rich and/or connected. That’s basically the conclusion of this story: If you have money, you’re basically untouchable.

                See also Nicki Minaj blaming having weed on her while trying to board an international flight out of Europe on her employees. There’s two justice systems, and the world only wants us to know about one of them.

                • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  Fantastic follow up dude/tte. I hate the bias the media/news pushes, but at the same time if that’s the stuff the general public had to go off, the general vibe of people would be much worse as well, so give and take and little doing your own vetting instead of just accepting what’s in front of you.

                  The grow ops on the block weren’t in the news, only gossip and what you could dig up (00-10) from ads, but the places were listed as “remediated (mold)” and with the fact that you never really saw anyone there you could 2 and 2 together.

                  The one had a car parked along the green space after 10pm every Friday, cops asked the neighbours about anything suspicious, shut the water/power off and waited for complaints. Started smelling the next day since the filters weren’t working from lack of airflow. This one was right across the alley and one door down, so literally a neighbours house.