This week, the New York Times reported that five students had been arrested pertaining to a drug-ring they were running. Drugs on college campuses are not really a rarity, and one could ague that college campuses are perhaps one of the easiest places to procure illicit drugs. What is interesting, however, was that two students being charged in the arrest claim to have been doing it to help pay for tuition. As college prices climb, it's not unusual for students to do whatever they can to get some money, and drug-dealing is perhaps one of the more interesting avenues to go down.
John, whose name has been changed for anonymity, is a student at Syracuse University, who for two years, sold cocaine.
"I was selling about $3,000 worth a week. Not all of that is profit, but I had a lot of money. It wasn't unusual to be sitting on multiples of thousands of dollars at some points."
John sold cocaine from his apartment, mostly, he claims, to the same fifteen or twenty customers. He drove to New York City from Syracuse every Thursday or Friday to pick up and would drive back the same day. He used different people's cars each time he went. He turned his phone off on the drive, drove the speed limit the whole time, and did everything he could to have some sort of an alibi.
"Sometimes, I would wear a suit," he says, "and claim that I had a wedding or a court date or something, if I were to get pulled over." He was very careful, he says.
"I could sell an ounce of coke in less than five hours. I used to pick up two or four at a time, and because it was the best on campus, people would buy it up right away. I think that half of Greek life got from me."
But what did he do with his money?
"It's cash, which is kind of tricky, it's not like I could suddenly dump it into something. I didn't want to put it in the bank because I know those records are looked at, so I kept it in shoeboxes in a safe in my closet. I had to find a way to use the money for things, so that year was a really exorbitant year. I took friends out to eat, bought things that were completely unnecessary, like expensive sunglasses and clothes whenever I felt like it, and I basically showered my friends with monetary affection. I was going to be going abroad, which is what I was saving for because I knew that it was expensive over there, so I slowly turned it into traveler's checks that I brought with me. I thought it was an almost understandable thing for a student going abroad to go with a few thousand dollars in traveler's checks. I got away with it."
He doesn't regret doing what he did. He admits he did a lot of cocaine in those day, and probably would have been smarter to have not done that. He said that where there's a market there's always going to be a salesman. If it wasn't him, it would be someone else, he said.
In another vein, there are less illicit and nefarious drugs being sold on campus, like marijuana. Thomas, whose name has also been changed for his anonymity, is a marijuana dealer at Syracuse University. He sells marijuana to help pay for his own habit with the drug.
"There's no money in weed," he says, "it's not like I'm trying to make money here. I just want to smoke for free. I get a nice head-stash from selling, so it's worth it. I get enough money to go to the bars, and I've always got weed." He admits that the risk is there, but it's worth it.
"I'm going to have weed anyway, you know? It's not like I'm going to stop smoking it, so why not find a way to make it free?"
Interestingly, the Columbia Students all seem to have a reputation for being good people. Despite their shortcomings with the law, they existed below a radar for some time, accruing all that cash and the plethora of drugs. They had differing intentions, according to the report, of what to do with the money, but some were doing it because they had a need, and there was a way for them to fulfill that need, with a little bit of risk.
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