A LITTLE TRAFFIC ON CITY'S STREETS

A co-worker asked me recently where he could score some drugs.

He doesn't actually use any illegal substances, as far as I know. Very few
of us in the age bracket of 50-64 do use them -- only 1.7 percent,
according to 1999 estimates from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration, or SAMHSA.

It was just his way of jiving me about the amount of time I've spent over
the past several months trying to understand the drug war, and about the
number of words I've written on drug-related issues.

I said that since I don't buy them myself, I couldn't tell him precisely
where to get them.

Said I have heard from many people who have been busted for drugs and I
could ask one of them, but did he really want information from someone who
got caught.

In the hit movie Traffic, the boyfriend of the daughter of the incoming
drug czar had some strong lines about white people going into black
neighborhoods and asking anyone they happen to see where they can buy
drugs, and how inappropriate and rude such behavior is.

A lawyer I know suggested that some night we cruise around a neighborhood
some of his clients told him about, stop and talk to someone on the street,
then see how fast we get pulled over by police.

He's willing to wager and give odds that a couple of middle-aged white guys
cruising around that neighborhood in the late hours would, indeed, be stopped.

Pot's Popular With Drug Users

One fellow told me that on a night shortly after moving back to Houston
after living in Mexico, where he had acquired a drug habit, he went into a
neighborhood close to downtown, asked a man on the street and soon made a
buy. Said he chose that area because if the cops happened along, he stood a
good chance of losing them in the downtown traffic.

A couple of policemen who e-mailed recently expressed their opinions that
people who buy drugs also are guilty of stealing the money and guilty of
contributing to the violent lifestyles of their dealers.

In 1999, an estimated 14.8 million Americans were illicit drug users,
according to SAMHSA -- a number equal to 6.7 percent of the population age
12 and older. Some 57 percent of these users consumed only marijuana.

A few of them get their grass from a man I visited with recently.

He described himself as "40ish, divorced, well-read, reasonably
intelligent, a native Houstonian, gainfully employed, middle class," and
said he has "a multitude of wonderful friends" who also are his customers.

Mostly professionals and business owners, he said, they buy their marijuana
from him because they trust him and because he knows where to get it and
they don't.

He said he doesn't use or sell any other illegal substances and has never
been busted in 18 years of dealing and using marijuana.

His personal pot consumption rate is less than his customers', he said. He
sometimes goes weeks between tokes. Said he was 22 before he tried it the
first time, although he was around it a lot before that.

Friendly Neighborhood Dealer

Back when he was going to high school, tobacco use was tolerated to the
point there was a student smoking area on campus. This fellow said that
someone often fired up a joint in the school smoking area, but when it was
passed to him, he would simply pass it along without trying it.

Since he limits his dealing to friends he said his volume is small and
likewise his profits -- maybe $200 in an average week. "They have to ask
me," he said. "I'm not standing on a street corner pushing anything."

The heaviest user among his friend-customers is a business owner who uses
about three-quarters of an ounce per week -- a tightly wound fellow who
smokes marijuana a few times a day to combat stress and tension.

Such a person might otherwise turn to a prescription drug, said the grass
merchant, who believes his merchandise is superior when measured against
the potential side effects and withdrawal symptoms of many medications.

"I'm doing something illegal," the dealer admitted in the first half of a
sentence, "but I'm not doing anything wrong," he contended in the last half.

In 1999, some 704,800 people were arrested on marijuana charges, according
to the U.S. Department of Justice.