Drug dealers in San Francisco have evolved from that one sketchy kid who hangs out on Haight to an app service that can bring you legal marijuana in under seven minutes. It’s efficient and safer, and it means that you aren’t loitering in the Target parking lot waiting for some half-baked Harry to show up and overcharge you.
Taking a trip down foggy memory lane, it’s those “friends in high places,” as I like to call (or text) them, who always made for the most interesting characters.
Usually, I would start this type of article off with a specific anecdote of my own, but…cough, cough…I’m surely not the type. So I’ll just puff, puff, pass it on to my sources. I asked anonymous San Franciscans to tell us their best drug-buying stories, from the good to the bad to the downright strange.
“He handed me a black business card with his number, a drawing of a puff of smoke on it and the name ‘Steve.’ I said, ‘Oh, so you must be Steve,’ and he quickly replied, ‘we’re all named Steve,’ and disappeared.”
Tip Is Included
Anonymous, 22
“A group of my friends were coming up to celebrate a birthday, and we all decided that we wanted to make our club night a little more…fun, shall we say. So I was given the task of finding it ahead of time, and they would all pay me when they got here. When I was pulling out the cash, I decided to pull out an extra $20 just to have for getting food or drinks or whatever. When I met up with the guy, I was so nervous that instead of counting out the money, I just handed him the entire wad of bills in my wallet and left as fast as I could. When I got in the car, I realized I had given him $20 extra; I just chalked it up to good service.”
G.O.T. Drugs?
Anonymous, 24
“When it comes to having drug dealers’ contacts in my phone, I like to keep it as discreet as possible, and punny. Right now, he’s labeled as Jon Snow.”
Space Cake
Anonymous, 56
“When I was traveling through Europe with a good friend of mine, we decided when we were in Amsterdam that we wanted to go into what they call ‘coffee shops.’ We had absolutely no idea what any of the stuff was or even if it was spice cake versus space cake. We eventually settled on getting a little something to split and put it into one of our backpacks. It wasn’t until we were on the train to Germany that we decided to eat it—long story short, it was too strong for my friend, and we definitely had to get off that train.”
Kimono in the Snow
Anonymous, 29
“So it’s Christmas time, and my friends and I have a special little tradition we like to call the Christmas Crawl. It’s a festive tradition that involves us all taking turns at hosting the party guests in our houses throughout one long day of intense drinking and other activities. It also involves dressing up in wild outfits.
I usually ended up being the group supplier of a certain special item not available in Safeway, so fast-forward to me, drunk, in a random scary man’s car, as he gives me $500 worth of cocaine while I wear my best kimono and not much else. I’m not sure what happened, but there must have been some kind of spillage, as my nose still feels a little numb when I smell that kimono.”
The Name’s Steve
Anonymous, 21
“I was walking downtown one day, and this guy came up to me out of nowhere and asked if I smoked. When I told him I did, he handed me a black business card with his number, a drawing of a puff of smoke on it and the name Steve. I said, ‘Oh, so you must be Steve,’ and he quickly replied, ‘we’re all named Steve,’ and disappeared into the shadows.
Baked
Anonymous, 23
“Every time I pick up weed from my dealer, he also gives me pastries. It’s awesome.”
Let Yourself In
Anonymous, 34
“One time I got this guy’s number to buy drugs in LA, but when we arrived, he wasn’t home. We used the spare key under his mat to get in and were waiting in this complete stranger’s apartment alone for, like, 45 minutes. It was a really weird apartment, and we built all these expectations and thought it was going to be some super-sketchy man. Then, finally, this super-flamboyant gay guy runs in and is so friendly! It was shocking and so, so funny.”
Drug Therapy
Anonymous, 22
“One time over winter break during my second or third year in college, I was bored as fuck at home and seriously craving some ganja. So I started digging through my contact list to remember who sold pot who also lived within a reasonable distance of my parents’ house. Eventually, I had a eureka moment and stumbled upon Jeffrey’s number. Fifteen minutes later, I found myself in Jeffrey’s room ordering myself up an eighth of his finest.
This is where things get interesting — as Jeffrey starts to weigh out my buds, he begins to tell me a story about him and his high school sweetheart, a girl I once kinda, sorta, used to know, Miranda. Miranda and Jeffrey had been together since high school and that’s about all of the extent of their relationship that I knew about. He proceeds to spend, no joke, the next 40 minutes telling me about an insane physical and verbal altercation he and Miranda had the other day. This involved a car crash while they fought with each other, just to illustrate the intensity of the story. I think she jumped out of the car, and it rolled down the driveway or something—absolutely crazy.
Jeffrey poured his heart out recalling every detail of the story, repeatedly exclaiming how crazy Miranda is and how he never wants anything to do with her. Once his story calmed down, I was able to get out of there without being a complete asshole. But the wildest part is, literally five hours later, I see a picture on Facebook of Jeffrey and Miranda snuggling together in bed. Seems like they’re both crazy…for each other. Good bud, though.”
