So for now, drop your pong paddles and follow me as I venture behind the scenes of one of Dartmouth's most prominent, yet risky business ventures: dealing marijuana. In honor of 4/20, I sat down separately with three Dartmouth gentlemen (whose names have been changed to protect their identies) and learned about the highs, pun intended, and lows of selling weed.
Like any good business, however, it is important to start small and work our way up, so before I introduce you to the former king of weed dealing, I will start with the smallest-scale dealer of the three, Sal. Sal considers himself more of an opportunist and sells weed to clueless freshmen, Hanover High Students and prospective students, (hi Dimensions!) only when the occasion arrives.
"When I first started coming to school I wasn't really dealing," Sal said. "Then as time progressed I would find myself in social situations and people who didn't know me would come up to me specifically and ask me where to get weed. I was like 'Do I look like I know?' After the 10th time this happened, I decided I should try to make some money off of it."
Sal then laughed to himself as he fondly described his encounters with underclassmen and high school kids who approached him to ask for weed on frat row, in frats or on the streets of Hanover.
"I would look at my watch and say, 'Hold on, I'll be back. I have to make some calls first,'" Sal said. "My friend and I would go back to my room and just sit around for an hour, doing nothing, talking and laughing. Then we would walk back to the kids and be like 'Okay, so it took a lot of work and it's very short notice but we found some weed, but it might be a little expensive. Do you still want it?' and they would say, 'Yeah, yeah!' Then I would go back to the room again, sit and laugh for a while and then finally bring them the weed. I sold them an eighth of an eighth [of an ounce] for $20. An eighth [of an ounce] usually costs $40 so I way overpriced it."
Sal's business is impromptu and spontaneous, and I was eager to learn the more formal aspect of the business, so I met with the second dealer, Jim. We originally met at a dining hall but Jim was paranoid that people would overhear us, so we went to his room to discuss how he made $2000 selling weed last year. According to Jim, he began selling weed as way to support his own habit.
"My smoking habit became too expensive," Jim said. "I was like 'I need a job.' I applied for a job on campus. I never heard back, so I started selling weed."
Today, Jim boasts over 50 clients, and his client base is made up of friends and acquaintances. The life of a dealer, however, is not as easy as it may appear.
"It's a battle to find a steady supplier," Jim said. "Being in Hanover, there is not always a steady supply."
Last year, Jim had a very steady connection with a Dartmouth student but this year he has had to get weed from people who have driven to Boston, the University of Vermont or Green Mountain College.
"UVM and Green Mountain College are big enough stoner schools that they actually grow it," Jim said.
Jim usually acquires a quap - a quarter pound - of weed to sell at any one time. A quap will usually break down to 32 eighths. Many people usually buy an eighth at a time, which will last for a few nights, unless the person is a very experienced stoner.
According to Jim, the standard cost for an eighth on campus is $40, but if it is especially good weed or if it cost him extra to buy, he might sell it for $45. Jim points to the lessons of Economics 1 to describe further variation in price.
"It's like what people learn in econ," Jim said. "When there is less supply of weed on campus at any time, the price goes up."
Last spring, Jim bought quaps at $850 and sold them for $1450.
"For every three eighths that I sell, I allow myself to add an eighth to my stash," Jim said. "Thus for every quap I sell, I make a cash profit of $230 and smoke an ounce."
Spring term last year, Jim sold five quaps.
"I sold five quaps so I made about $1000," Jim said. "But I also consider it an additional profit to smoke weed."
At this point in the conversation, Jim opened up his backpack to show me the difference between good and bad weed.
"This is good weed," Jim said as he pointed to a bud-shaped piece. "Good weed is called headies or nugs. The fewer the seeds the better. You can also tell by the smell." Bad weed, by contrast, is called beasters or schwag, and is loosely broken up rather than in buds.
For Jim, one of the most annoying aspects of the job is when buyers fail to recognize quality weed.
"Last spring I had hydroponic weed, which is extremely good weed," Jim said. "This kid was like 'Yo I'll give you $40' and I'm like 'Um, no.'"
Hydroponic weed or not, Jim is small-scale compared to the third and final dealer. After a week of attempting to get ahold of him, I finally obtained an interview with Dartmouth's most mysterious, elusive and professional weed dealer, Brad.
Although Brad refused to disclose the amount of profit he brings in per month, at the peak of his dealing days he was distributing weed to each of the frats and two of the sororities.
"When I first got into the business, I had a person at every frat house, two of the sororities and one person at the senior apartments who I distributed weed to," Brad said. "They in turn distributed the weed to people in their houses."
Brad turned the weed culture at Dartmouth into an efficient industry.
"When I came, prices were through the roof for weed," Brad said. "There wasn't a dependable connection. I came in, filled the gap, and made it into an industry on campus."
Although Brad has decided to lessen his involvement in the business these days, he had several students working for him in his prime.
"I wouldn't even touch it and would just take a portion of the profits," Brad said. "I would front the money and my whole network would go to these other people."
Brad got his weed from "nowhere close to Hanover," and he would drive to get it or people would deliver it for him. Brad emphasizes the fact that the weed culture revolves around the Greek system and maintains that his business "was just a machine that was very efficient."
Brad attributes his success to his commitment to the etiquette of weed-selling.
"Blitz is not an appropriate means of communication," Brad said. "I use a cell phone that is unregistered to my name. Also, it is very important to not keep the weed on your person and to make sure it is not in your room. Find somewhere else to keep it."
According to Brad, a main thing that works in the favor of the weed industry is the incompetence of Hanover police.
"The perception amongst dealers on campus is that Hanover police [are] inept," Brad said. "And it's comforting for dealers to know that there is a lack of competent police work for them to contend with."
The best part about being a dealer in Brad's eyes?
"Being able to roll the fattest blunts you've ever seen and haze your friends with massive, massive amounts of weed," he said.
