The Life of a Female Pot Dealer

By Jeralyn, Section Crime Policy
Posted on Tue May 29, 2007 at 08:46:09 PM EST
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Meet Jennifer in San Francisco. She's a pot dealer.

Jennifer, who is white, and who dresses tidily and arranges flowers for a popular art gallery, talks about the [Latino] dealers with clear discomfort. Not because they're troublesome or violent. It's more that she feels guilty. The police never arrest her.

Jennifer enjoys the flower arranging, but mostly it functions as a legitimate income to show the IRS. Really, she's a marijuana dealer.

As a female, Jennifer says, the police aren't looking for her:

More...

Drug dealing has been dominated by men, historically. It's a glass ceiling that, ironically, has worked in Jennifer's favor: Police zero in on those who comprise the bulk of the industry and tend to overlook anomalies like Jennifer, who have typically been left out. It also helps that she looks like she doesn't need the money.

"It's a double standard," Jennifer says about her neighborhood dealers, forever getting arrested. "I probably earn twice as much as them."

What about the pay?

Jennifer is 20 and figures she earns about $500 for an hour's work.

She could earn more, she says:

If she put in a little effort, she says, it wouldn't be hard to bring in $2,000 a week. Her clients? Conservatory of Music students. Customers and employees from various bars and cafes in the Mission. Friends she meets at work. She pays $35 for an eighth of an ounce and sells it for $55-$60. Or else she trades it for coffee or a haircut or drinks at a bar, or even friends' belongings.

"It's a business," she explains, "and business ventures are male things. Even now my dealer treats me like I'm fragile.

I'm curious to see where she is three years from now. Will she have saved any money or be in jail?

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The Life of a Female Pot Dealer | 16 comments (16 topical)

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She's a fool giving out too much info (5.00 / 1) (#4)
by oculus on Tue May 29, 2007 at 11:55:05 PM EST

which the federal drug agents will see as a challenge. She'll be in federal custody w/i three years.

Somebody please hook me up (5.00 / 1) (#7)
by Aaron on Wed May 30, 2007 at 01:39:29 AM EST

I can't find any decent weed here in St. Louis, and I can't afford to keep flying back to Holland to catch a buzz. :-(

Is she selling literally on the street? (none / 0) (#1)
by Dadler on Tue May 29, 2007 at 09:30:07 PM EST

Since this is who the cops bust, not the more affluent who can afford to do business inside with a less seedy clientele. Most dealers get busted because they get careless and obvious. Throw in race and it just gets worse.

Pot has no business being illegal. A more pointless prohibition you'd be hard pressed to find.

A white middle class woman (none / 0) (#2)
by JSN on Tue May 29, 2007 at 09:41:14 PM EST

selling a couple of ounces per week. Hmm sounds like very small fry but if she is unlucky or has an enemy or two she could get caught.

Jeralyn could you in trouble for not turning her in?

: I have no idea who she is (none / 0) (#3)
by Jeralyn on Tue May 29, 2007 at 10:09:01 PM EST

How could I turn her in?

: One (who does know) is NOT required (none / 0) (#8)
by Deconstructionist on Wed May 30, 2007 at 08:07:44 AM EST

to provide police with evidence against people who violate criminal laws. Not only does one not have to "turn them in," one does not have to answer the questions of police if they come to her. (If one gets a grand jury or other subpoena, she does have to appear and testify truthfully in the absence of a privilege.)
There are laws against giving FALSE statements to police but refusing to talk to police is not a crime. It's against the law to aid, encourage, assist, etc., a lawbreaker but not to simply do nothing to stop them. Imagine how many criminals we would create if we established a duty for private citizens to enforce criminal laws.

: California has a strong journalist shield law (none / 0) (#13)
by janinsanfran on Wed May 30, 2007 at 11:42:11 AM EST

but the Feds have been known to run rough shod over it. Think Josh Wolf.

Hmmmmm (none / 0) (#5)
by Maggie Mae on Wed May 30, 2007 at 12:05:10 AM EST

White, female, suburbanite selling pot to people she knows? I truly cannot wait until the new season of Weeds starts.

Sorry, couldn't help myself. They mentioned the show in the article and that triggered my anticipation gene. lol.

From the article, it comes off as if she sees it as a another one of her part time jobs that just pays Really well. She also does some bartering, which doesn't allow for banking the money. I got the feeling she's using the money to live on, rather than save.

Will she get caught? Unless she makes a huge mistake, I doubut it. Although the article's author says that her "precautions are minimal," it seems like she's aware of how to keep a low profile:

She only sells out of her apartment and only to close friends. When the customers come to buy, she tries to keep them around a while so that a suspicious stream of visitors isn't coming and going. Her scale, money and pot are kept in three different parts of her apartment. She never has more than two ounces with her at a given time.

In three years, after she's decided what she really wants to do with her life, I'm guessing she's out of the business and on to a full time career. It is just a guess, though.

Here in Humboldt (none / 0) (#6)
by kaleidescope on Wed May 30, 2007 at 01:07:05 AM EST

What this woman does is small potatoes compared with what most regular Humboldt families do. With their Prop 215 cards, getting busted for possession will never wash. The only way to get busted is to sell to a nark. And there are very few of those out there interested in buying 1/8 of an ounce.

As the story indicates, her customers are her friends and acquaintances. She's not selling in Union Square on the street.

People who get busted for selling 1/8 ounces are really getting busted for something else. Like being too overt or being in the wrong neighborhood, or for mouthing off to a cop.

It would be hard for this woman to get busted if she tried.

Other than her "artsy" job (none / 0) (#9)
by Deconstructionist on Wed May 30, 2007 at 08:21:34 AM EST

she's extemely typical.

At the bottom of distribution chains, the "dealers" are very commonly just people who like to get high and have a source from which they can get dope at the "wholesale" price and then sell a portion to their friends who also like to get high and essentially keep half for free.

This is true of campus weed sales and it's true of inner-city crack distribution-- and most everything "in between."

If this girl doesn't cause some of her potential monetary profit to go "up in smoke" that would be the only unusual thing about it.

So true.... (none / 0) (#10)
by kdog on Wed May 30, 2007 at 09:02:18 AM EST

the biggest reefer distributor at my high school was a woman...women are just less likely to get their chops busted by the police, and that makes all the difference in who gets busted and who doesn't...its all about avoiding a run-in.

A dealer who sets up shop on a street corner will have more run-ins than a home based dealer. A minority will have more run-ins than whites, and men will have more run-ins than women. My conclusion...white women have it the easiest in the reefer business.

In my experience, there are 2 ways people get busted, dealer and user alike....1) Somebody drops a dime or 2) you get unlucky and have a run-in.

Will pot ever be sold legally like alcohol? (none / 0) (#11)
by kindness on Wed May 30, 2007 at 09:32:45 AM EST

I remember friends in the 70's saying it would only be a matter of a few more years.

Now, I just hope it happens in my lifetime.

PS- I don't mean in the Cannabis clubs/215 set ups. I mean in liquor or tobacco or grocery stores.

Not if.... (none / 0) (#12)
by kdog on Wed May 30, 2007 at 09:47:16 AM EST

Coors and Anheuser-Busch have anything to say about it!

They've got a govt. sponsored monopoly on the legal buzz business and won't give it up without a fight.


: It wouldn't matter a whole bunch. (none / 0) (#14)
by kindness on Wed May 30, 2007 at 12:46:16 PM EST

If it ever got to that point, only inner city folk would be buying the stuff most the time. Anyone who's in the burbs or sticks would just grow their own. It does grow like a weed, a very pretty and smelly one.

Legalize it? (none / 0) (#15)
by ltgesq on Wed May 30, 2007 at 01:18:09 PM EST

It will never happen. The anti pot lobby is aligned with the puritans with Mothers against Drunk Drivers

500 a day (none / 0) (#16)
by diogenes on Wed May 30, 2007 at 11:03:30 PM EST

If there's so much easy money in this then why is there any poverty in this country?