Baltimore Drug Kingpin Exposes Fentanyl Epidemic, Truth About "The Wire"

My mentor was Dante Fatte de Bocsdale. He was the nephew of Avon Bocsdale, who the wire was about. Most towns that have a port, you have direct connection to whatever it is is coming off for those boats. That's the thing that makes Baltimore unique. It's an open air drug market. You can hop off the highway right now and pull up anywhere and get something if you're actual. And you got the money. The project don't shut down. It's like a Saturday night. You can come here anytime. That's the new guy on the block. Like, oh yeah, I'm already gonna kill him. Just get the stuff together. We're gonna open up tomorrow. They're gonna be dead tonight. Murder is a part of the business in Baltimore. I don't think heroin could even sell anymore. It's all fun. They shooting it, snorting it, smoking it. Man, you got people making 30,000 miles a day. The one underlying thing with Baltimore is that you can die anytime. My guest today is Carl Johnson, a former drug dealer from Baltimore, Maryland, who ran the streets during the same years that HBO was filming their iconic television show The Wire. Carl breaks down everything that the wire got right and what it didn't, and reveals how the drug trade actually works in Baltimore, which to this day is still one of the most crime-ridden, drug-infested cities in America. Carl got out of the game a few years ago and is today a drug rehab counselor and helps run a nationwide foundation called Baltimore Recovery Alliance, which you can check out if you have a loved one struggling with addiction. This is one of the most raw, unfiltered insights into the most fascinating inner city slum in modern times. We all watched The Wire, but this man lived it. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Carl Johnson, right here on the Connect with Johnny Mitchell. What's up, everybody? It's Baltimore in the house this week. I can't wait for you to see this one real quick. As always, make sure to hit that subscribe button and turn on the alert bell. Smash that like button and drop a comment. It's really been helping our videos get out to more people, so I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Now enjoy Baltimore Carl. So obviously The Wire was like a show that defined my generation, our generation. People that came of age in the late '90s, the early 2000s, and it was fascinating because I'm looking at a city that in the modern era operates like it's stuck in the 1970s. Does that make sense? Yeah, I can see that. You know, open air drug markets. Like people O.D. and broad daylight, alleyways, shootings. You're like, this doesn't happen in America anymore. In like a northern city, but you know, you're from there. I can agree with that. I mean, Baltimore is, that's why a lot of people, right? If you ever get a chance, check online. A lot of people will say that Baltimore is not a part of the DMV, which is geographically insane to say because it absolutely is. But Baltimore itself is its own thing. We're not DC, we're not Virginia, we're not Delaware's none of that. So you're right. And it's like a time capsule. It's a lot of things we do in Baltimore that a lot of people might not do. You know, and you're right, it is open air drug market. And that's what make it unique. This is what I said before, I learned that most towns that have a port, you have direct connection to whatever it is is coming off of those boats. So there are people far beyond us, way more influential and richer that have multiple things coming through those ports that we'll never know about. But guess what, they end up on these streets. In the famous words of Nino Brown, ain't no oozee's made in Harlem, you know? So how is it so many guns on the streets of Baltimore? How is it so many drugs, you know, on the streets of Baltimore? And when I say so many, I'm talking about it's a plethora. It's not, it's not your usual, like back in the day, Coke, dope, and weed. No, you have at least nine different variants of fentanyl, meaning that now, right? So in the field of men, we have the UA cups where if we have somebody they do a UA, we'll see the fentanyl in it, right? But let's say John Doe is right here, and we see that he's noticeably hot. We can see, but he has one of those variants in him. There's nothing that's gonna show up in the cup. The cup can't catch it, but we see him right here, not in in front of us. So it's a problem, just like for a fentanyl's disallocene. Disallocene, so the companies they had to start making OPV. OPV is from the family of Narcan. You familiar with Narcan? All right, so usually, so Narcan, when you give somebody Narcan, it bonds to the opiate receptors, which will stop whatever overdoses about to happen. But the dealers are starting to now mix it with disallocene, which isn't an opiate, it's a sedative. So it means that I can hit you with 10 Narcans, and it's not gonna save you, because the Narcan doesn't bind to sedatives, and it's so much stronger. You know, so it's like, man, they put in so much, it's so many different things, that these people are putting in the drugs, that makes it, it's like Russian roulette. At least back in the day, right? Let's just say like how you were speaking earlier, like I say in the '80s, '90s, right? You pretty much knew what you were gonna go get. You probably were overdose because of the potency of what somebody had if he was getting her one, not what they're putting in it. You know, that's a big difference. Back in the day, a brick or her one will be upwards of, let's say like, just say like $100,000, right? So it cost to be a dope boy. You couldn't just say, I'm gonna go outside and sell some dope. You had to, it was a machine. You had to know somebody who had the grams, and the grams had to be good. You had to know how to cut it. Once you had it cut, you had to know how to cap it. Once you cap it, you had to also have a team to sell it. It's a well-structured organization when you're selling her one. But nowadays, right? A brick or fentanyl is around $7,000, but the profit margin is about the same as if you had the brick of her one. You understand me? So, meaning this, that any John Doe tax time could say, oh, I'm gonna go get me some fentanyl. But you're not, you don't have what we call table manners, meaning that you don't know how to cut it. See, back in the day, right? You used to have to get your materials, cut it up, put it together, you let it sit, then you would put it out. And, real hard one had an expiration. Meaning that you had to sell it within a certain amount of time, or it was gonna go bad, fentanyl don't go bad. If anything, fentanyl gets more potent over time. So, now, you have John Doe, who's never sold dope enough like that, but he see that the value of dope is everywhere. It's like, okay, I can get rid of it. I know people who get high, or whatever. So, he doesn't know how to cut it. So, that's what he does. This is what they do. They'll get a sandwich bag, put the fentanyl, put the cut in it, zip it up and just shake it up. And, they'll sell it. Now, that inherently is very, very dangerous. Because now, you're not giving it a proper sift, which means that it's hot spots in it. Many of that, you and I could go get the same dope, and I die from it, and you don't. Because, where they peeled my part of it up, was so potent with fentanyl. 'Cause it's not cut. You know, used to have to have sifters and stuff like that. You know, you running it through. You sift it 100 times. You sift your cut 100 times. You sift your dope 100 times. Then you sift your cut and your dope together 100 times. You know, it was a process. You know, that's the error that I grew up in. You know, actually knowing that it was certain things you had to do to be successful at this game. So now, these people are just Russian roulette. So, is the dope being sold on the streets of Baltimore? Is it technically still heroin, but just cut up with a bunch of fentanyl, or is it actually the fentanyl? Are the junkies just going straight to the fent? It's all fentanyl. I don't think, I can't speak for other towns, right? But in Baltimore, I don't think heroin could even sell anymore. You have to think the fentanyl is several times more a potent than heroin. So it's like, okay, we were getting double cheeseburgers for a long time, but now we got steaks. This is the mind of the user, I'm saying. Okay, so with this steak that I'm getting now, which would be the fentanyl technically, I would never go back to a burger. This is holding me longer. It's stronger. You know, and that's the most important thing that it holds them longer. Meaning that they don't have to chase as much. You know, like I said, traditionally with heroin, it's an early morning thing. That's why we always have big rushes in the morning because everybody who work and do dope, they were had to get it before they go to work. You know, so-- - They get sick. - Yeah, less they get sick. But now with the fentanyl, it's not like that. You know, the fentanyl will hold them longer, but the flip side of that is the fentanyl is doing a lot of physical damage on the inside that we don't know about. You gotta think heroin's been out for a long time. So if I grew up a dope fan by my uncle was a dope fan, I pretty much know the 30 years he's been doing dope, I already know with the ailment to be. You know, and I know what to look out for. But with the fentanyl, it's kind of comparison to the vapes. Like, okay, if my mom smokes cigarettes forever, right? Okay, I know cancer, I know this, I know that can happen, but the vapes are still kind of like a gray area. You don't really know what that's doing to you. So that's the thing with the fentanyl. It's not really, it hasn't been out long enough to really. say definitively what it's done to people, but what we do know is the overdose rate is crazy. It's crazy. Are the junkies, the fiends, which I know is disrespectful, but that's just how we talk, right? The dope fiends, are there any more old school traditional Haron, you know, old black people going to cop Haron, or is it, has the fent created a whole new market of like young users, like users are age and younger? It's a very good question. So number one, nobody's looking for any Haron anymore. And the opiate crisis didn't really begin until people in middle of America started really getting hooked on to it. See, as long as it was in the ghetto, it was fine. It was fine for poor people to die from it, a year after year, they have to date. But when people who are judges and doctors and lawyers, when their children started dying from it, that's when this whole initiative began. That's when it became, oh, we got to do something about this, you know, because let me give you an example. So this is how it works. So let's just say, let's say Wyoming, right? Let's say I'm a rich white man from Wyoming, and my daughter has opiate problem. It might be one program in Wyoming, and the weightless might be three years for her to get some help. So I start doing some research, where can I get help from my daughter? Okay, I find out that Maryland has a plethora of programs, right? Okay. So I'm like, I can get her there this week, and she can get help because they have programs geared towards opiates. Okay, so we get her there, right? And she gets there, she starts getting the help and all of that. Remember, I'm wealthy. This is my daughter. So she's not a brokeie coming to Baltimore. So then what happens is that she finds out once she's in the atmosphere that what she's been paying $1,500 for is $3.00 in Baltimore. You understand me? And that's felt like a perk? No, no, that is a pillar dope. You understand what I'm saying? So you have to understand the markets fluctuate depending on where you are. It's open air drug market. You know, Johnny, you can hop off the highway right now and pull up anyway and get something if you ask for it. You got the money. But in other towns, you got to know somebody, to know somebody to know somebody to get something. Okay, so you're saying because Maryland, Baltimore offers so many opioid rehab centers, outpatient clinics, inpatient clinics, that's what sends all these users to the area. And they in turn just leave the outpatient treatment and go cop dope. Oh, it's fascinating. Okay, so that's because that's what I was going to ask you. How long has it been that way? Because according to the wire, what I saw on the wire, just my perception is that Baltimore is traditionally been an opioid town. Is it even more than crack? Yeah, I definitely will say so. And why do you think that is? Because of that reason? Or is there something in like the working-class bones just backing up a little bit, right? Like back to like the Melvin Harris days. You know, Melvin Harris was his name? You talking a little Melvin. A little Melvin, yeah, the Harron King. Yeah, so that was also in the wire. Right. He played the Deakin. Yeah. And that was amazing. How again, life comes full circle. You were doing something at one time that was destroying the community. But you came because he did a lot of time in jail. Just like, you know, I have a Bollie Box tell, Avon Box tell, my shirt from the Don Deva magazine when he was an article. You know, these guys came home and they started doing better for the community once they had gained knowledge of self. So yeah, man, like Lord Melvin, Melvin was his Melvin Williams partner. I love the Williams, okay. So that was great to see him on that. Definitely, definitely. But do you think that they're, what do you think it is about Baltimore, the culture that drives people to use opioids, Harron, and now fentanyl more than say, like cocaine? We go back to those boats. It's coming right off that boat. So it's right there. If you remember, if you ever seen any interviews with Lord Melvin, he said his plug was last name Salisbury. You know, so that was a high-ranking gentleman who was a night off of the black race who was, you know, his plug. So when you got people again at that height that's pushing it into the communities as a poor underprivileged youth, right? You're going to look at it like this is a great opportunity to make money, man. I'm tired of having holes in my shoes. I'm tired of that. I'm tired of that. But to answer your question, I think it's because, and also, let me tell you this. So I've trapped in different states in different towns, right? And one thing I know is when it comes to the mixture of the heroin and stuff like that. So to answer your question, Melvin was from the 60s and 70s and stuff like that. So this was an updated story that they kind of made the wire out of. So the wire isn't about modern times. They just modernize the old story, you know? So for them, remember, traditionally in the black community, cocaine is a rich man's drug when you're talking about powder cocaine. But when the cocaine epidemic, the crack epidemic happened and they started making ready rock, you know, the rock out of it. That's when black people started or just poor people per year started having access to cocaine. Before that, man, you had to be rich to have cocaine. But heroin was always there. The heroin, the booze and the weed. You know? So I say that to say that that story of like Lord Melvin and Avon and them is from the past. But they were already selling heroin for years before Coke ever came in the picture. That's why Baltimore has such atmosphere or like a legacy of opiates because of that because they were already selling it before crack ever existed and poor people couldn't buy Coke because it was too expensive. Yeah, but heroin was expensive too, right? Yeah. But I guess you if you could cut it down to a 10 bag. Come on, man. See, you talking about a buyer. Now, if I'm a buyer, yeah, it's expensive if I'm trying to get bought, but as a dealer, I mean, you got think back in those days, man, these guys was taking, it was getting heroin that you can cut 60 times, 70 times. That mean you take in one and making 70 out of it. That's so much money. So much money. Yeah. Yeah. The Greeks, this is a big part of a big storyline in the wire. They were a couple of very, very low-key Greek guys that worked at the docks, the ports. And they were bringing in the shit. They were bringing in hair on straight from Turkey or wherever they're wherever it was coming from in East Asia. Did that really happen or does that? I assume it doesn't happen now because fentanyl's basically made heroin extinct, but was that? Did you hear about plugs, like plug plugs went back in your day when you were hustling, did you hear about people getting it through the ports? Yeah, absolutely. The thing is, that's the pinnacle where you can get somebody who getting it straight from there, and it's not really tampered with. It's the same thing like having a cartel, I mean, these are essentially cartels, but just not Mexican cartels. But I'm pretty sure even the Mexican cartels utilize ports as well. But it's not just the drugs, it's the guns, it's the human trafficking, all of that. Everything comes through that, man. And they said that fentanyl was created by China. So you got to think that that's a great way to utilize the ports as well. Like, we ain't making it. It's coming from somewhere. But yeah, man, you have people who have plugs like that, of course, they would never share those plugs. These are the people that would just be on forever, because it's a system. So when you got somebody who's a heavy hitter like that who's actually looking out for you, you're not going to jail. I mean, let's say you don't even have to snatch your none of that. The point is, you're going to have the best luck, because they need you. Imagine that. Imagine you have all these cows that you want to make into burglamy, and you got a guy who got a restaurant, but now the restaurant got a rookie leaf, a leakin' roof, right? As the guy with the farm, you know what I'm saying? Make sure his building is always in pristine shape. So these are the guys who went on from that era that you're talking about, who own a lot of land, that they most likely enter politics and stuff like that nowadays. Because those plugs, my day, is generational. Even if my dad had that plug, if my dad dies or something like that, it's a family thing. Because this is building generational wealth in the community, you know, even though it's the wrong thing, but this is the type of business that these people do. And these are black guys. Yeah, these are black families that have generational wealth from that heroin. From that type of plug, yeah. Wow, absolutely. Did you have anybody in the game at that level, like any family that was super high up like that? No, not me personally. My story is pretty much coming from the projects, right? So my mentor was Dante Fatata-Boxdale. He was the nephew of Avon-Boxdale, who the wire was about. And Dante, he did a, I think he did about 10 years in prison, something like that. He came home. He got himself together. We have an initiative in the city called Safe Streets. Okay, Safe Streets is a community initiative of people who try to keep the streets safe from violence, so they hire people who weren't formerly in gangs or stuff like that. Because who knows the game better than people who actually in Florentzki. streets. So, Tata actually was like a supervisor in that organization. So, when he came home and he started, you know, like, like teaching me, like, boy, look, I ain't hustling no more. I'm showing you the blueprint. I remember one time he told me he was like, yeah, I gotta go down to the, um, to the courthouse, uh, to get some paperwork or something like that. It was something they had to do. But me coming from, I'm coming from anybody who goes to the courthouse, you gotta take everything out pockets. You gotta go through the metal, uh, the type of, but him being a state employee, he just walked around it like he showed his, his, his, whatever it was, his back, you know, and that was like a level to show, like, man, change is possible, you know, but for me, my guys, before I actually started making that transition, I mean, at my heyday, I had maybe about 10 bricks of coat, you know, and when I'm from one brick of coke, you rich, you know, that's enough change your life. So, I had came across a plug before I actually went to prison and got my life together who, um, he, he, he had it, you know, um, he had some good work. And I was in the area where I can actually get rid of a lot of it, you know, um, really stress free. Um, you're from the east side. I'm from the east side. He's both Lafayette projects. That was the largest housing project in Baltimore City because we had the most high rises, the towers. See, the wire says towers, but we call them high rises. So in the project, you have high rise and low rise, um, those still there, do they know? No, no, no, no, no, the wire was accurate with that as well. They had an initiative to get rid of those towers, uh, well, a lot of projects because they thought that it would make the community safe and all that, but all you did was, uh, send those same individuals into residential neighborhoods now. So that's how a lot of beefs happen because, okay, um, I'm from the projects, but now you move me up on, let's say, uh, let's say Preston Street. That's a residential neighborhood. But I'm still hustling. I still got guns. I still got drugs. They have to be sold. The projects are gone. So now it's like, um, I don't respect you guys up here, you know, so I go hard. I have 10 bodies. I'm just speaking for somebody, uh, individual who might have came from the projects when the towers were destroyed and how they're, um, um, how their mind might have worked because this is my income. I got, however much drugs, I got a cell, you know, so, I'm in a new area, so they still got to be sold. So either we can figure something out or it's get down to lay down, you know, and that's, and that happened all around the city because they tore down Lafayette projects, which was the, uh, the towers. They tore down Murphy Homes projects, which had towers, Lexington Terrace. So they, but, uh, Lexington Terrace and Murphy Homes, that's Westside. That's what the wire was really about those projects. Um, but the tower that was on the wire, that still exists. That's there today. Yeah, that's, uh, that's, uh, that's, um, what's that? I forgot in there in the, uh, the project, but it's over West Baltimore. It's right off the like Dolphin Street. It's still they get money in those projects or is that like off limits, uh, you know, where, where are these trap spots? Are they in vacant abandoned row houses, like townhouses, or do they still trap out of those big high rises? No, I mean, this Baltimore, so people going hustle wherever they can, you know, but predominantly it's, it's on corners. It's everywhere. It's, so they're still selling dope on corners everywhere. Yes, sir, they're not working off cell phones like it's 2026. They use the cell phones, but the cell phones, uh, uh, usually give them three. I mean, come running corner now. You understand, that type of thing, like, you know, or text much of something, you know, or that nature, but yeah, it's still street level sales. Is that because there's so many people buying that it just makes more sense to just go to a place because you're, say you're a 14 year old kid working a pack for an older guy, you might go to jail, but the junk, he's got to get high, you know, on a Tuesday and he's in jail. So is it, does it make more sense economically to just have it run like that as opposed to just, hey, I need heroin. You're my dealer. Like I do with my weed guy in Austin. I call you up hand, eat some weed. Right. Like I call you up hand, eat some heroin. Can you come meet me at McDonald's or wherever? Does it make more sense to just push these mobs of people to an open, an open-air place? Um, that's a good question. I'm trying to help him out. Yeah. I hate you, man. You sound like you're the man of the people, man. Uh, but the thing is, right? That's probably that, that's, that's what's happening now. And that's why so many arrests. That's why so many old days because for the older, for the people who really know how to get money when it's coming, selling dope, they still have a, a very good operation. So you will never really be successful selling dope hand to hand. You're going to get hot. The police are always watching, you know, so you have to have a operation. So it's always best if, if somebody's walking up and they say, Johnny, I need, I need four of them. I need ten of them, whatever it is, right? You're like, all right, go around the corner. Now you might call me, uh, blue coming around the corner. He gave me the money, give him ten of them. You understand? You don't want to have the drugs with the money. Of course. That's the bigger charge. See, having the drugs on me, that's just possession, having drugs and money. That's the possession we've intended to distribute. That's a bigger charge. So you want to always keep them two things separate. You know, you don't want to, you don't want to, you don't want to get everything in one shot. The police is watching. They like, oh, we see him. They pull up on you. Got drugs and money on you. You're going down. Right. Of course. I mean, the feds don't need that. The feds can set you to prison for life with no drugs. Absolutely. That was part of the, one of the biggest pieces of bullshit from the wire that I did not appreciate was that, you know, season five, the finale, they put this huge case on the stanfield crew. They get him with like, I think like 50 kilos of raw heroin or something, and it's the state police. It's like the Baltimore cops have taken down. That's a fed charge. How often do you see federal busts in the city of Baltimore? Or is it usually, does that usually happen like on the outskirts where like the kingpins live? No. It's fed this fed bus every day, you know, and they work in conjunction with the state. So what you said, you're absolutely right. That would have never happened in real life where it was just a state police. With that amount of work, it definitely would have been a fed charge. With the type of bodies, everything the feds would have been took that over and that whole McNulty crew and all that, that would have been, you know, to the side at that point. But no, the defense are very, very heavy in Baltimore. Look, man, just a couple of weeks ago, maybe a couple of months ago, we just had like 30 overdoses at one area. One area had 30 overdoses from fentanyl. And then like, I think like a week or so before that, it was like 14 overdoses. See, this is what this goes, this goes back to my original point that anybody is selling it. There's no honor in the game compared to how it used to be. It used to be like, OK, you can stand behind something that's good. I know this is good. I put it together myself. And again, in Baltimore, we have what's called testers. I think Cavario spoke about that, about the alley, you're giving out tests and stuff like that. Because so a tester for lack of a better time is a sample. So you make up a certain amount so you can give some out for free. It's free promotion. You know, nothing works better than an adult game than word of mouth. You know, so you got crowd. I mean, I had a scene where it looks like a school full of people just waiting, you know, for the right dope to come out. Now this one dope was dope. And you might, you might got some dope, you know, and you like, uh, no, I'm good. Y'all come on. Come get it from me. But no, they won't wait for who they waiting for. And they don't care if you start trying to, if you selling 10 out of pills and you say, man, I get to you for a dollar. They're not going to buy it because they know what they want because those testers let them know I need this. And remember a dope, nobody wants to be dope sick. That's one of the worst feelings, you know, you know, you're sweating, uh, uh, uh, uh, you have diarrhea. You're throwing up body aches. What they call it is heavy. Like they come out selling, man, I'm feeling heavy, man, I need, I need, I need, I need a, I need a hitman. I feel heavy, you know, and for me, when I was selling dope, I will always make sure that nobody was heavy because the loyalty of the people will determine your success. You know, like, like, if you are, man, some people crack people's side to here because they got a dollar short. You know what I mean? You know, bust somebody upside the head. But this person been coming to you every day, religiously for the past month, and I come with a short once, and you just, you know, you can't win like that because they will snitch on you. They will tell, you know, yeah, man, look, man, like it's dumb down there. Look, think about your man, Bubs. Yeah. Sure. Bubs is going to put the hats on people and all that. Just because of his, his homeboy who got beat up by the boys and the low rises. Yeah. You know, so this is real. That actually does happen. Cooperation is at an all time high, especially with these computers that we have in our pocket. Those phones might somebody be two blocks away zooming in. That's Johnny right there. You know, and go show somebody. You know, and now you're looking at a whole indictment or investigation, you didn't even have an idea about because of somebody who you didn't want to give a free pill to. Right. You know, like that sucks. I mean, it's a part of the game. I'll say that, but this is the the game has been played now. back then, like you had, it was more boots on the ground. But now, somebody can fly drone over. It's crazy out here, man. - Well, that's why it's so crazy to me that they're still selling really big time federal amounts of drugs fentanyl in the middle of the open air, where they can't identify you from any which way. You know, like that's, when you go up to New York, you go up to Harlem, you go up to the Bronx. You don't really see that shit. Everybody's behind closed doors. You gotta go through a gate. You gotta have a referral. You gotta pass money through a little slot. - It's like the car to, like they don't wear the car. - Exactly, it's like the car to, and that's actually good for the community, you know? Like that's where policing does help. Like the drug war has failed at the top because you can't stop. You can't stop people when they're motivated by so much money. The product's always gonna be getting in where policing does help in the drug war is by like cleaning up the streets. 'Cause that's what affects the community the most. It's not the fucking Mexican guy bringing in 100 bricks. It's a bunch of little 14 year olds, you know, beating up dope fiends on the corner when kids are just trying to walk to school. - Correct. - Like that's what affects the quality of life the most. So, but you guys don't give a fucking bolster more. - I can give you, let me go a lot deeper for you, right? Since the game has changed, right? This is the problem. This is what it really is. There's no order, there's no structure. You have people who are selling, let's say crack to go buy a percussence. See, when I was coming up, people wanted to be fly. You wanted to have money. You wanted the women. These guys are selling drugs to buy drugs. - They're drug addicts themselves. - That's so pathetic. - So, there is no order or no structure. Listen, when you come to Baltimore, take you to a place it's called Lexington Market. - It's downtown Baltimore, man. When you see this, Johnny, you go, and what I'm gonna tell you is this, everybody down Lexington Market is buying drugs, selling drugs, don drugs. And it's wide open. There is no discretion at all. - Would you equate it to Kensington in Philadelphia or like downtown LA like Skid Row, these places? - There are Kensington. - Very similar. - Okay. - Very similar. But what I would say is it's more unique because the difference is this is an all day, every day thing, and it's wide open. And it's not just the, like Kensington is more, like people using this stuff like that. This is people hustling, like wide open. I'm talking with people got the Synex, whatever it is. You know, methadone, all that. Like we got what's called spitback, right? You know what we spitback? Okay. Spitback is this, spitback is, if I'm in a methadone program, right, and I go take my methadone, but what I do is, I hold the methadone in my mouth till I'm out of the place and I spit it back in the bottle and go sell it to somebody. You understand? People want to get high that bad. - Wow. - You know, so it's, and that's why my initiative is what it is, like the Baltimore Recovery Alliance. Because I see that people need help. People with addiction don't need jobs. I mean, they don't need jail. They need rehab. You know, don't put me in jail because I get high. It's helped me. - It's so tough though, because people have been trying to clean up the streets and the community for decades. And it doesn't seem to do any good. In fact, it's like a blowback, as you say, let's open up a rehab center in Baltimore. And then we'll get all these junkies to come to this rehab center. And then they'll just leave. And it creates a bigger pool of drug addicts in the city. And this one I wanted to ask you to start to cut you off. Like in, do you think there's corruption in the rehab industry? Because like, for example, the homeless industry in California and LA, right? They'll give billions of dollars to a developer to go build up free housing for homeless people and drug addicts. And if it does get built, you know, costs way more money because it's free money. It comes from the government, it comes from taxpayers. And so they'll build these giant nice buildings for homeless people and they'll be empty. - Right. - Because obviously they have to piss test these people. They have to be clean to stay there and they all piss dirty. So it's just, you know, or maybe they go check in, they get high and then they leave. It's a fucking mess. Do you think the rehab industry actually perpetuates drug addiction more than it helps? - Yeah, absolutely. I mean, very, very good point. So what I'll say is this, number one, right? Just to speak on what you say in LA. That happens because you're right. It's already a plan to not have those people in those buildings. And that's because they are not addressing the one major aspect. That's behavior health. See, it doesn't matter. See, it's like the chicken at the egg. That's what we learned in this. What came first was the drug abuse. The led to the mental health issues. What's the mental health issues? The led to the drug abuse. And if you're not about that, if you're not focused on that, you're not helping anybody. All you're doing is lining your pockets. Now to answer your second question, yeah. And Maryland specifically, that, look, the corruption was so bad that the state, they put a moratorium on opening new programs. Meaning that in Baltimore City and Baltimore, it was the whole state for now it's down to just Baltimore City and Baltimore County that you can't open any new program because it was a lot of fraud. This is what the fraud looks like. Okay, Johnny comes into treatment, right? Johnny leaves after three days, right? But we're still billing your Medicaid for three months. You've been gone three months, but we still getting that money for you. Like you in here, you know? And the money on these programs, they make a lot of money, man. It is boo-coo money, you understand? But so the corruption is always there. As long as bad people are involved. Let me give you another example to build on what you ask. So think about this. Let's say you are, and John, right? You're John and I, we got some money. We like, man, let's open the programs and wait to make some money. But we're not clinicians. We don't have no true passion about helping anybody. So that means that when people come to our program, we're not really helping them. We're just scanning them, you know, to get down to the shorts money and you leave, you leave, okay? So then you get a bad name, then you got people, you'll take anybody. So now people are overdosing whatever, but you still collecting money. So they put the moratorium on because it's the same way as if a conglomerate opened the restaurant. Nobody's a chef, nobody's a busboy, nothing. It was like, hey, we could just make money off a restaurant. People like to eat. But it's no passion about it. We don't even know what's on the menu. That's the same thing, like as far as these people open in these programs. They don't really care about the people. And when that happens, it's always going to lead to relapse and everything else. But for me, if I have 100 people, and out that 105, I'm succeed, that's a win. Because what we learn is this, man, when these people who come to these programs, they are the backbones of their family. So when they're doing bad, the family's doing bad. But when they're doing good, the family's doing good. So it feels good to be able to help people reconnect with their children. You know, it feels good to be able to help people get out the slums, get out the bandos. You understand? Like the whole key is that you're still a person and you matter. That's what we have to perpetuate. That's what we have to project to people. Yeah, you got to need it on your home right now. But guess what? You're still worthy of love, respect, and redemption. So I mean, some of the most famous people had some of the worst drug habits, you know? But a lot of those people, they had the type of infrastructure that just kept them going. Like, man, you know, like, think about like somebody like Charlie Shane, you know, Robert Downey, Jr. These people were, you know, very famous, you know, infamously known for drug abuse and they got what they had was money. That really seems to fix almost all of the world's problems. Yeah, but today's episode is sponsored by hymns. If you have a workable penis, turn this off. You don't. That's what I thought. Every guy I know, literally a billion men will suffer from ED at some point, right? 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So people are actually shooting the fence. Yeah. Damn. That's rocking wrong. You're smoking it. You know? Yeah, man. Yeah. The fentanyl is terrible, man. Yeah. And remember, I originally said it's nine different variants. And every degree is worse. So yeah, man. They shoot it, you know, snorting it, smoking it, you know, and the thing is, you have people who have pill presses who are making these fake percassettes, you know? Yeah. Like M80s. Right? And something like that. And the thing is, back in the day, you used to be able to see the difference between a prescription percassette and one somebody made. But they're getting, so just like in everything else, we know how it goes, technology always improves the fraud. So now, they look so good that you wouldn't even know, man, I know recipes, man, I know three kids, man. They were all under 21 who died from the fake perks within like the last two years, you know? Because it looks so real. So people, basically what it is is people want perks. Percs is a whole market, you know, I think a lot of young kids too, right? Some of them. They're influenced by rap and shit like that. And so they think they're getting a perk, but it's really fentanyl. Right. And what's the point of doing that? Because I guess a dealer can get fentanyl cheap, whereas it's more difficult to get real percassettes. Correct. Okay. Right. Remember, percassettes generally only come from a doctor, this prescription medicine. So if I can fool the market to send it, hey, I have, you know, a stockpile of these percassettes, you know, combine for me, because it used to be like dollar per milligram. So if you get a perk 30, that's $30, but now in certain places it's double. You pay $60 for a perk 30. But this is the point though, Johnny, when I'm telling you that these kids don't realize that they're still an opiate, lean as an opiate, percassettes as an opiate, heroin as an opiate, morphine as an opiate, fitting all as an opiate. So what happens is, I know some people who they were on like three perk 30s, I mean, five perk 30s a day, right? That's $150 habit a day. Okay. That money starts to get low. And guess what? What they find out is, I can go get a pill of fentanyl for three dollars. It's bigger, it's stronger, it lasts longer. And guess what? You're never going to do a perk again in your life. Now you're officially on that side of the tracks. You know, so everything that you thought that you wouldn't be, the same people you were laughing at, oh, you're a dope thing, this is not, no, bro, it's the same thing, you know, so even with the lean, right, promethazine is opiate. So you are going to, you know, you're going to feel the same roughness as somebody who's just doing heroin or fentanyl. You know, it's the same exact thing, just a different form, but that's my whole key to inform these kids. It's the same thing. So before you pick it up, understand what you're signing up for, because like you said, these rappers, they tell you, oh, yeah, I got my double cup, I'm mixing my sprite with the lean, I got the purple, you know, all that, no, man, but a lot of these people are going through a lot more than what you realize, you know, and like you said, they can afford to go to great rehabs, death jam or Columbia Records to put them somewhere nice, but whole time where you at in a band, though, right? So it does sound like a lot of the youth, like really like young kids are becoming addicts. Yes, sir. At an alarming rate. I just thought when I was growing up, you know, I would see crackheads and doffines of Kamportland, you know, out of the bridge or wherever down to Portland. And I'm like, okay, well, we all know now these guys are strong out. They're addicted. We can't help them. But once they're gone, like the new generation will see clearly. This is, you can't do this, though, I always thought I was like, oh, yeah, heroin will just die. It did die, but because of something much worse, a much worse villain. Yeah, that's a really sad, yeah, it's like a bad guy in a movie. And then you say, oh, God, he's actually, we missed that bad guy. This guy's even worse wayward, you know, um, so God, kind of so many questions. They're going to be out of order. But let's talk about the abandoned buildings, right? The season four of the wire, Marlowe and his crew are killing dudes and dumping them in the abandoned buildings, did that ever really happen? Yeah. That was a real thing. Yeah. I mean, now, I'm not going to say based on the names from the wire. I'm not saying that the real Marlowe Stanfield, when he was on the street, because he is a real person that his crew was doing that. But no, yeah, I mean, so many vacants, yeah. I mean, and also you get a lot of people, oh, did these vacants that nobody ever sees again? You know, until a city worker goes to board it up, or something, they get a stench, and they like, oh, it's bodies in here. It's that simple thing about this, Johnny. Again, they don't have any structure to what they're doing. They just got to fit in on mixing it up. So let's say five people went all to this one place to go get some dope, and they all went back to the band or the door, and they all overdosed off it. Who's there to call the police? That's five bodies in that building. So five people could just die like that, and their bodies will be decaying when they find them. Right. Well, you talked about like when they knocked over the big high rises, it caused a bunch of people to be jammed up, it basically caused a whole migration of drug dealers to go to other people's turf, right, whether it was bullards, or avenues, or alleyways. How does that get resolved? Like, does, do you own a spot? Like do you, if you're running a crew, and you say, okay, this is my corner, like, do you own it? And then what happens if one of your guys gets killed, do you step off, or do you go to war, or is it, is it organized in the way that we saw it in the wire, where they're like, this is a stand field corner. Yeah. It's just like that. But it's more of an open air market, whereas though, it's not really just names. But yeah, it happens just like that. You've been right here for having, you grew up on this block, this avenue, right? You grew up here. And you've been hustling here forever. Everybody around here know that to get it from you, only people who come around and hustle as people that you bring in. But now I came from the projects, and I moved in the house down the street, and I got a whole bunch of project guys with me and everything else, and we looking at this block. We like, well, this is new style, yeah, so yeah, unless, because some people are so infamous that they might already know each other, because what brings people together also is jail. So even though I'm not from your neighborhood, I might have been over the jail, which, you know, and like, okay, all right, let's roll my mind in them, okay, Johnny, come here, all right. That's why he was like, yeah, bro, blah, blah, blah, blah, that's my man, you know, okay. Now, I might got a supplier that's way better than yours. So a lot of organizations come together, like the co-op on the wire. Organizations come together, they cop together, and they strategically, you know, take over other times and knock off, will take over other areas and knock off a smaller players, you know. So it works like that a lot of times, but sometimes it's, you know, I'm a hardcore killer from the projects, and you just somebody up here getting money. See, remember, it's a difference between a hustler and a killer, you know, like, or, you know, in a gangster, because you could be somebody who hustles, somebody who just outside getting money, whatever, you could be a killer, somebody who, people just pay you to knock people off, but then you could be a gangster, somebody who's organized, like, you know what, I ain't got to do none of that. I know exactly what you just put the piece, it's just a chess board. And now, everybody who's out there is now gone, and you just move on in, whereas though you're thumbprint ain't on anything. It's just now, this is my territory and my drugs are better, my hours are better, and that's another thing, too. And glad you brought it up, is that people want avenue, streets, and stuff like that, residential blocks. Somebody have a cutoff time and a time that they start. The project is 24/7. So now, whoever moved there from the projects, they out there all day. Which means that it's more money all day. That means that it's more crowds all day, which means that it's harder all day, too, because the police probably was used to the block being shut down at a certain time, like, all right, Mike and them gone, you know, okay, whatever. So now, the flow who normally come through this is up there now, whatever. And now that these project guys are here, oh, and they know shutting down, because the projects don't shut down. It's like a 7/11. You come in at any time. So now, it's a whole different atmosphere on the block, you know, and that's what usually leads to a lot of murders, because number one, okay, I want this. You know, I got 10 bodies, you know, you might not know who I am, but it's probably best for you to leave. You grew up around here, you know what I mean? Okay, you know what I mean? I'm not saying this to you. This is what I'm thinking, as the new guy on the block, like, oh yeah, I'm already going to kill him. We're going to open up tomorrow. They're going to be dead tonight. And if you heard people talk that casually about, yeah, murder is a part of the business. You know, hurting people is a part of the business. It's just a part of the job, you know, and the thing is, what I learned is, man, it's easy to hurt somebody. Let me just think about it. You got soccer moms who dropped the whole van into the lake with their kids in it. You understand? She just called four bodies and killed herself, you know. But it doesn't. makes a certain mentality to be able to live with what's happened. You know, and that's why a lot of people crack and tell because they get haunted by you didn't kill somebody and you just keep seeing that face every night or whatever like that. No, you gotta be, you gotta have the mental fortune to know that whatever goes on, I can handle it. - Yeah, I mean, it seems like you guys are so, just the whole Baltimore city is so desensitized to death. - It really is. - From the guy, you know, shooting somebody to death in the corner to the city worker, just, oh, smells like shit. We got five dead ones in here, like, - That's a good point. - It's just nothing. It's nothing. - You're right, Johnny. You're right. - Let me build on it before we move from that. And that's what keeps Baltimore very respectful as well. Let me give you an example. Because for the true G's, you could be coming into the store and I'm walking out, I'm gonna hold a door for you. If I bump into you, I'm gonna say, excuse me. Because the one underlying thing with Baltimore is that you can die anytime. You don't know who's a gangster, you don't know who got it on them, none of that. So you always want to be, unless, when it's go times, go time. If you say, if you say call. These guys down here on that block, blah, blah, blah. We got a mission we're gonna do, that's that. But what I'm saying is, it's just an everyday life. You, it's a certain level of respect that Baltimoreians have for each other. Because we always know there's a chance that you can die. You cut somebody off in traffic, somebody might shoot your car. You step on somebody's shoe, somebody might blow your head off. So it's always a level of, you know what I mean? Like, real gangsters don't-- - It's like prison. - Yeah. - Jail and prison really like that. It's like, hey, are you using the phone? - Yeah, I'm sad. - Because I can go after nobody deal like everybody's like, 'cause you try to avoid that shit. - Right. - 'Cause it can pop off at an instant. - Because it's gonna be that easy. And of course, remember Marlon isn't an open-carry state, you know? So it's different than other, you know, states to have open-carry rules. No, so you don't know who got it on it. You know, it'd be the old man in the chicken-box spot. You didn't want the way old man, but the whole time, hit old-school gangster. And he'd been waiting for something like this to happen for when your young knuckleheads to try him, you know? So it's just those type of things to happen to Baltimore. - So gun dealing is an industry. - Oh yeah, absolutely. - 'Cause you can't have it on you. - Right. - New York, so you can make money selling guns and shit. - Yeah, man, the switches and all that thing about it. We went from back in the day, let's say in the 60s and 70s that you had to fight somebody to say 70, 80s, 70s, 80s, you know what I mean? You might have to stab somebody. The knife was, you know, the bigger thing. Then you had your 38s and stuff like that. So now they got glocks, you know, then you're like, okay, you got a glock, right? And let's say you got 17 shots. That's a lot of shots to do something when you went from having six shots. And now they got not only the, you know, the 17 shots. Now they got the drums on it, you know? And now, not only the drum, they got the switch on it. So now they just making ways for you to kill people and kill each other even at a faster rate. And a lot of these guys shooting with their eyes closed, they're not really, you know? So that's why a lot of innocent people actually get hurt. Because there's so many bullets and ain't nobody really got, and everybody's high. - Yeah, everybody. You wake up down to bookings. 'Cause you know one of the side effects of Xanax is that it could be temporary memory loss. So you can wake up and not even know, you know, you're over the bookings, charge people, slide down the door, you don't woke up. You look at the toe, I killed six people last night. - There must be some mistake. - It gotta be. - Check the security camera out. - Check this out. - You're like, I damn sure did kill six motherfuckers. - You feel me? - I feel like I'm crazy. - So do you think that Baltimore also, 'cause speaking of everybody getting high, I mean, you know, when we were growing up, meaning like the 90s and the 2000s, like it was not cool to be a drug user. Like the, and I got that from rap specifically and like hip hop culture. It's like we sell drugs to these losers, these old school guys that started getting high in the 70s and 80s, those are the junkies and we're the fly drug dealers and we smoke weed and we drink and we have bitches, you know? But it doesn't, it seemed like that missed Baltimore. Like Cavario, for instance, you know, Cavario has been a good friend of the show, talks about he went to Baltimore in like the late 90s and to try to get on selling Coke, he went to a club, like a nightclub. And there was like this like hot black girl. Like a bunch of these like hot black girls with like, you know, their club dresses on, look at all sexy and they're like nodding from heroin. Like, Baltimore, I think that's kind of like unique to Baltimore, don't you think? - Yeah, I mean, Baltimore, that's, we have the title as the heroin capital, you know? Even 50 cent, he had a, what was it called? I forgot the name of the song, but he references Baltimore as like the dope capital, something about his love thing. I forgot the name of the song, he had a come to me. - It's a Baltimore, it's a love thing. - Yeah, because he was talking about dope, right? You know, but yeah, I mean, - But it's just, they're just not that stigma amongst like, you know, like young black men, like teenagers, you know, they just don't have that. - No, and it's largely because of the music as well. You know, remember, you got, these rappers talking about drinking the lean all the time, you know, popping the zany and the perk and all that. And Baltimore has that type of, Baltimore is a city full of people who are followers, you know? Now, we have famous people from Baltimore, right? We got Javante Davis, you know, tank shot up to him. We have, you know, two pop came from there. We have, you know, you know, we have a lot of different people who've made that way, right? But as a rapper, we've never had somebody on the level of a Jay Z, of a little Wayne, you know, no superstar rappers have ever came from Baltimore, you know? And, but we had a lot of people who were actually like, on their way up, but then they got killed. And that's, that's like, we have this whole thing, like it's the crab in the bucket. Once somebody's about to get out the city, another crab just pull you down. But nonetheless, it's a city full of followers. So all of these trends that go on, no matter if it's in the Bay Area, if it's in Atlanta, if it's wherever's that, Baltimore or Zorb at all, you know, like just like that kid who wants to fit in, you know, like, okay, that's what they doing there, that's what we doing. You know, but the difference is Baltimore also has a culture of homicide, which a lot of these places don't. So when these guys getting high in a party, these guys getting high in a killing, you know? So it's a difference. So, and I only mentioned the music thing because it matters in the aspect of identity. So it's like, oh, they pop in perks in Atlanta and drinking lane. Well, we're gonna do it more than them. We're gonna pop extra perks. We're gonna drink extra lane. We're gonna show them that because it's a lot of successful drug dealers in Baltimore. You know, I know that's actually more fun, but I'm just saying like, it's a lot of people who, who are making a lot of money, who are not famous, but they got rapper-type money, but not rapper-type fame. So they feel like they got, they got to have the Christian Diorz. They got to have the who blow, and you know what I'm saying? And they can afford it legitimately, but illegally, you know? So it's that type of mentality. - Yeah, Baltimore lacks an identity in like a legal lane. Like the wire put the city on the map, but it's only known for really bad things. Everywhere I go, Johnny, they say, "Is Baltimore really like the wire?" Let me hear you say, "Do, two." You know, it's like, "Yeah, this is how we talk." - It's fascinating how even how the accent came to be. I mean, you're only, you're north of Washington, D.C., you're like a half an hour north of D.C., but it's a city that feels and operates like it's the south. - Yeah. - And also, I think, don't you think the lack of gentrification, like, you know, all these cities, D.C., Atlanta, New York, Chicago. I mean, they still have their hoods, but the downtowns have been revitalized by young white people going to, you know, strike it out and get sheep rents, and why does Baltimore not have any kind of flow? You know, like Austin is like, you know, it's this place where like young people are going and there's no optimism in Baltimore. But it's around all these cities that have really like been revitalized. - I think it's by design. You know, I think that some of the politicians who are on top, maybe not like the mayor or the governor, but some of the people, I believe it's by design. Remember, people get paid off of the misery of others every day. So there's no mistake that these drugs in the community, these guns, these homicides. You know, I believe that if the government help address four things in Baltimore, and I think this model could be addressed across the nation, joblessness, homelessness, miseducation, and mass incarceration. If those things are addressed, things can change for anybody. Listen, in Baltimore, there is gentrification. It's a lot. A lot of neighborhoods that used to be just straight hoods. No, we have Johns Hopkins. We are the home of Johns Hopkins. In this Johns Hopkins, all around the world. arguably one of the, if not the best hospital in the world. And. They brought up a whole area of the city. It was called Dikyland. And it's nothing but like buildings and hotels. They got, I think it's a Marriott or something right there on Wolfstreet. So it is happening, but you also have to understand this, that we have a lot of hoods that are full of poor blacks, Hispanics, and whites, like a neighborhood like Highland Town, a lot of poor whites, Middle River, Dundalk. You know, these type of places, they have a lot of different, you know, and remember these people I'm voting. So certain things are happening to people because it's a design. It's not a mistake. So I think it's somebody or some people who are making a lot of money off of the misery of Baltimore and they don't want it to change. And that's why the nature has been that for so long. You know, I mean, we have beautiful colleges there. I mean, like I say, we're not far from DC, Virginia. Maryland is a very rich state thing about Montgomery County, I think, is like the richest county in America, because you have all of these federal employees who live in MoCo, that's short from Montgomery County. So it's a lot of money flowing through Baltimore, but it's not a lot of opportunity. It's like being in high school, if you're not in the cool, click, you ain't gonna get no money. And most of us are struggling. So you're not gonna ever even get to meet somebody who can actually put some money in your handle, give you an opportunity to change. So that's why for me, with the wire bandwidth it was, right? Because people don't believe this. But when the wire was brand new, a lot of Baltimore guys wasn't watching the wire. We saying what was going on around the city, 'cause it's always movies being shot in Baltimore. But a lot of times they're shooting Baltimore and say it's DC. You know, like that type of thing. You know how they shoot movies there, say, you know, you get my point. But like we didn't watch the wire. Not like we was anti-wire. We didn't know what was going on. Like I said, it was a guy next door to my uncle who worked at the, on the show, he worked for Stranger Bell at his print shop. And he will come home with like Polaroids and stuff like that from behind the scenes, like, yeah. But we didn't know what was going on with you. We young streetnakers trying to get money. We like, my eye, well, I'm glad it's, you know, whatever, you know, acting. We ain't worried about showing up no set. We worried about selling this dope, you know? So I say that to say that after the fact that I got to watch it. And because like you say, HBO had a run, man. They had the wire, sopranos, Gamer Throne, Oz, remember Oz? Oz really started, yeah, right? So it was just like, what's I really got into it? Because the name "Barksdale" means a lot in Baltimore, you know? And then I'm like, I talked to my big brother, you know, Fat Theta, he's like, yeah, man, that's about my family. But, you know, man, so I'm like, oh, yeah. And then, but at this point, Fat Theta had already changed his life, you know? So I was blessed to have somebody who went through something on a major level to be able to help me pivot some. Like so, while he was in jail and still bumping his head, I was still outside, you know, making my own name and doing what I was, you know, doing what I was doing. But it helped to have somebody who was like in that atmosphere of change. 'Cause he was growing, man, he passed now. But he was growing like into a political figure in Baltimore. So you didn't come up under him in the drug game. Right. Okay, so you just knew him after he had already changed his life? So I knew him in the drug game, you know? So what I said is this. He went to prison, he came home, you know? And so I knew him from as a Lord boy, but then he went to prison, then he came home, then he started getting his life together. But it was still a time and between. And even with him exiting the game, he still had the knowledge and experience. So I was in the street, you know? 'Cause he's older than me, of course. You know, so he would, like, boy, look. If that's what you're gonna do, number tell you. When you cutting that like that, make sure you do this like that. Boy, look, if you're gonna do this, then you understand what I'm saying? It's like, he didn't wanna see me fail. Because he knew that what he gave me, I would give to somebody else. Like right now, he will be so proud. And man, you're sitting with Chinese? Like, boy, you were, you don't interviews? 'Cause he wrote a book. He actually has a book. I'm gonna get you a copy of it. It's called Growing Up Boxdale. You know, he talks about everything, you know? Because the way I didn't put everything in there by this family, of course, you know? Because those police and the news reporter, they were doing credits, they were working together and they were doing credit stuff. See, that's what they didn't put in there. They weren't working, I mean, even if you think about the show, think about Menon, he was doing all of them. They was doing credit stuff and legal things to acquire certain information and everything else. So he was exposing that and he would talk about that. Like, yeah, man, like, they making it seem like they were just doing their job, but non-reality, they were doing a lot more, you know what I mean? - Police. - The police. - Yeah, we were super corrupt, obviously, you know, in Baltimore. - Yeah. - Did you experience any of that? Like blatant police corruption when you were a hustler? Every day, we used to call them the cruddy whites, you know what I mean? Like, man, look, the gun trace task force, the disgraced Baltimore City Police Unit. - Which they also did a show about. - Yeah, yeah. - What was that? John Bergen, I thought, right? Yeah, he's a great actor, man. - John Bernthaw, yeah. - Bernthaw, right. So they didn't depict all of the stuff that they was doing, man. These guys were like some of the worst of the worst, but that's the nature of police, though. I mean, I think there's so many police, you know, units just still operate in the same way that they are all across the nation. It's just that they were so corrupt that they got caught up for. But yeah, man, what? - Well, they were robbing, were they robbing drug dealers? - Robbing, killing, doing hits for people so it'll work like this. Okay. One of them, they come to me, right? They come shake me down or something like that, right? And they say, they put me in the car or something like that, like they're gonna take me to the jail or something, they catch me or something. And they say, "Hey, Carl, we see you out here making money." Now remember, this is a police talking to you. We see you out here making money, you know? But you ain't got to go to jail tonight. I got a deal for you. I got two bricks of coat to sell it and get me my part, you know? And I make sure that it keep coming. You'll have protection out here and anybody who against you, you know, will knock 'em off. So for somebody who that sounds good to, they gonna be like, "All right, Johnny down the street from me, he got them big, he got them big 30 pieces, you know, I need him gone." Guess what, Johnny and I would be heard from again. Yeah, man, he was murdered for hire, man. Police way, that we're making people disappear too. Yeah, holy shit, yeah. That is gangster shit, that is fucking gangster shit. So let's talk about your ascension through the street. When did you jump off the porch? I jumped off the porch. I would say kind of late, I was a late bloomer. And what kind of family, too? Did you have family selling drugs, hooked on drugs? Yeah, what was family home life like? So I jumped off the porch when I probably was about 16. Which is late? Yeah, late, you know, in relative terms. To Baltimore, yeah, to Baltimore, right? And come on, I had friends outside, 11, 12, stuff like that. So growing up, my mom, she had passed from drug abuse. She was a heronatic. And she had actually, she shot needles. So she had old deed and my grandma had found me in the house like two days later after she had already passed. So then my grandma raised me. My grandmother, she was a hustler. Like my grandmother, she actually, like so, loose cigarettes, hot plates, frozen cups, candy. Whatever it was. So I grew up in a house that was essentially a store. So it taught me supply and demand, you know, how to count. You know, 'cause somebody can come with a 20 and they want a something that's, you know, a dial in, 70%. I gotta make sure that that change right, I ain't give them more, I ain't give them less. You know, so my mom passed. My father had a history of addiction. My grandmother had three kids total. My mom was the oldest and she had a daughter and a son. They both had their own addiction issues as well. So coming up in the house, I just learned how to hustle, you know, like, and that could be applied to anything. My first plug was my great grandma. She gave me like three pounds a weed. Now, the thing with the weed was this. She had a flood, right? I think she had about three floods. And it was in a plastic bag. And I think it just, it just sat and just kept like, you know, like over, I don't know how long, I remember she told me. She said, I got this weed. Do not tell your grandmother about it. I'm in high school at this time, right? You know, and she like, 'cause I'm like, you know, how old is your great grandmother at this point? Who knows, man? Like, 40. I'm just kidding. Maybe 50, I don't know, man. You know, she was old school. You're like, This was back when grandma never met their great-grandmother. - Oh, okay, here she's the plug. - She's putting you on. - Yeah, man, and I took the weed and I don't know what happened to this weed. I know what she told me, but I know it was no THC on it and I knew at that time I smoked and I had smoked massive blunt to this and it would never get me high. So I don't know if she had it for years or whatever it is. Because it wasn't as if I was working for her. It was just one day I was over at a house and I was just like, "Man, I'm in high school. I'm like, "Man, need some money," blah, blah, blah. She just came with an idea, "Well, look, I got this, if you can do anything, you can take all of it. If you can do anything, what are those yours?" Don't tell your grandmother though. My grandmother wouldn't have went for that. So I took it, I did what I could, I talked to some of the OGs around the way they said spread with some alcohol, with some Jack Daniels, actually. I did it. I sold enough of it just to be able to cop like an ounce of wheat. Remember this back when Reggie was out, it wasn't no Zah or nothing like that. It was just regular wheat, especially on the East Coast. I know on the West Coast they always had hydroponic wheat. We didn't have that. We had sticks and seeds and shit now, but anyway, so I did what I had to do and it taught me something. In that breath like, because remember, I was a late bloomer, so 16, 17, that was like the first time that I ever actually sold anything that wasn't stuff that my grandmother had that was frozen cup cigarettes and stuff like that. But I already knew supply and demand, so I'm like, "Okay, so as time passes on, I'm in high school, I get better wheat, I'm selling that, I graduate, then I then get into the streets." So I always had a big cousin who was always in the streets, and when I got to a certain point, I actually went with him where he was at, which was a whole different project than South Baltimore, and it was kind of like coming apart of a family. He already had a whole set up. All I had to do was go and be a stand-up guy. You understand? As long as I'd never displayed any weakness, I wasn't a sucker, I didn't make them look bad, I was good. Which is fairly easy for a stand-up guy. You know, just don't be a bitch. Don't snitch or nobody, don't steal nothing. Look out for your brothers, walk for your brothers as you want for yourself. So after becoming part of that, that's when my life really started to change on the criminal aspect. And at this time, this one fatator was still in jail, so I'm not around him at this time. But I'm learning the game, and as I'm learning the game, I'm excelling. And behind sight, I wasn't making like tens of thousands of dollars. But what I did have that I think a lot of people never had was power. You know, I had the power from the people I was with that I can make anything happen as far as violence. You know, like it's people that I know who sell a lot of drugs and all that, and they got to pay somebody to do something, or they just, or they just chumps. And you could put $10,000 on some of my head and get them gone, but you settle in for whatever it is because you're a coward at heart. But I don't have a hand, I was in a position where I might not have been making the most money, but I had power and influence. What was your function in the organization? What was your role? An enforcer. Okay. You know, and a hustler, you know, so. So how many people like describe this operation, like a typical, yeah, a typical hair on spot, a typical dope spot. How many lookouts, how many pictures, runners, people counting the trap, checking the stash? So how much do they get paid? How does the payment work? That's a very good question. So when you selling dope, man, especially in Baltimore, you tell about, man, you got people making $30,000,000 a day, you know, I mean, easy, but I'm talking about then, I don't know what the fentanyl is, don't and I like that, and I'm not in the streets, but. So let's just say, but it will be weekly pay. All right, so this is how it works. All right, let's say we made $30,000 a day, right, the spot, the spot, yeah, right. It will be a weekly pay. So that means at the end of the week, so whoever block it is, they're taking whatever they're taking. I'm going to tell you from the hierarchy down, from the guy who actually has the block, who stuff it is. Okay, so the guy who run the block, he might be getting maybe about, let's say like $20,000 a week, you feel me? But out of that 20, 10 to 15 is his money a week, five or 10 of it goes to the workers. So the guy who runs the block, who is under the guy who's giving him the work, he gets 10,000. All right, so now you got 10,000. So now you're paying, so you might got two different hitters, but one hit every day, then you might be alternating. So your hit is the one who actually, when the people come up with the money, they don't want who giving them the drugs. So your hitter might get paid $1,000 a week, so that's about $9,000 left. All right, you want to have about three to four corner men, so you'll pay them probably about $1,000 a week. That corner man is what? A corner man is somebody who's going to stand on the corner, who's not selling any drugs, he never touches any drugs, but he's making sure that you know when the police is coming. So most blocks got a key word that you know that the police is coming. So when you yell it out, you're not just saying police, you're not saying five, oh, it might be like one of my, round, round one of my old blocks, I used to be like, Trayvon, Trayvon. So it's saying like we just calling somebody named Trayvon, but we actually saying the police is coming. Yeah. So, all right. So, let's say those four. So they split 1,000, four corner boys split 1,000 bucks. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, remember we're making 30 a day. They get $1,000 each. So each of them get 1,000. Right. That's a really good money. Do you want your people to be happy? Wow. I'm making $30,000 a day. I can afford to pay y'all this. You know, and then remember most of these people get high anyway, so they're going to spend some of that 1,000 back with you anyway. Wow. Is that right? So you're not just having people who are just like upstanding to citizens, no. These are people who are part of the drug game. They get high or whatever like that. But amongst their peers, they are the crem de la crem. I'm making 1,000 hours a week. So let's just get back to the map. So, all right. So the head of 1,000, the corner man, because you don't want the corner, the corner man are not on one corner. You got to have them spread out at four corners. So one corner man can y'all down the block, you know, Travon and then the other corner man who hit, he throws it to the block, Travon. So now the head of those who has the drugs that the police are coming and the guy who runs the block, you know, he's actually the one who's going to decide how things move from this point. Like, yo, shut it down for now, whatever like that. Like, just go and walk up. Let's go get some lunch. You know, so to the cool down some. He's the manager. He's the manager. So, the manager might get, so, so the head of it is 1,000. The corner man, four corner man, they are 1,000. The manager, the guy who runs the block, he might get around about 3,000. A week. You know, and the other 2,000 that'll go to, you know, you got other people, it's miscellaneous money. Because remember, we on the block. So, we might be given the old lady across the street some money, you know, to make sure that we can keep some packs in there, you know, we buy the kids ice cream on the block. You know, somebody come through, whatever, that's just like a petty money, petty cash, you know, for whatever expenses that might need to happen throughout that block for operations. Remember, you're still feeding people, because you got to feed your crew, you know, so when it's lunch time, everybody getting a check-in box, whatever it is, you know, you want to make sure that you're treating your people fair, that's how they stay loyal, and that's how you keep making 30,000 a day. So, 30,000 a day, how much product is that, is that like a half a brick, a whole brick? 30,000 a day, well, it's not a half a brick at all, because remember, it's being cut. Remember, we're talking about having grams of heroin, and this is heroin at the time, not fentanyl, you know, so let's just say a quarter brick, something like that, you know, but the numbers, the numbers vary, because I might got something that I can step on at 10 times. You know, so now, I'm not really using a quarter brick, but it's coming out to that. Okay, so just say it is a quarter, it says like nine ounces of raw heroin, how many bags does that make up after it's stepped on, it's pretty good product, after it's, you put the mix on it, yeah, how many like, how many transactions is that, 30,000 bucks, you know, that's a hard question. It's impossible, but like, it's a hard question. But I mean, okay, you know, do you think gel caps, not bags? Right, right, right, so it's the tops, right? Yeah, it's, it's the gel cap, like the same gel cap if you used to take a vitamin in, you know, whatever. That's why you say pills, pills, right? Okay. So Cavaria, when he put his slang down in Baltimore, he sold New York style, he, he put it in the bundles. Like the hundred, the hundred pops. Like a hundred bucks gets you 10 bags. So actually kept them in the little papers. - Right. - Yeah, maybe that was the difference. - Maybe that was the differentiator himself. - Right, right. - And that's probably, I believe that's how they did it up north. But in Baltimore, you have what is, you have gel caps, you have the P-weas, which are the very smallest, and you have the ones, which are like your standard size, then you have your double-woals and your triple-woals. Your triple-woals are the biggest gel cap you can get. And it's like a horse pill, you know? So imagine the delight of a user who see a pill that big that's filled to the top with premium work, you know? Like, man, so I'm telling you, I've seen it, like, so again, just to get back to your original point, that so that's the function of it. If I'm making 30,000 a week and I'm paying people, you know, yeah, I mean 30,000 a day. And that's how people get paid. Plus, you would pay people a daily stipend as well. You know, that's what comes out of that 2,000, because again, these are users. So they need to go home with some pills, so they can get up on time early, everything. You understand? Because they go in the party when they get off. But you got to be here at five in the morning, six in the morning, you know? That's the difference between heroin and crack. A person can be on dope and have a job for 30 years, go there every day, crack hitting a whole new job. That's fascinating. Why, I thought heroin was worse for you. Like, we all, the perception was, heroin turns people into unrecognizable dysfunctional junkies. How is it to crack, which is just cocaine, which is the most used, widely used illegal drug in the world, especially in America, it's cocaine. Crack is just, you know, that in rock form with a bunch of, you know, bacon soda. And why does that turn a person worse than-- you wrong, Johnny. Crack cocaine is the worst thing to ever happen to the world. Crack cocaine, listen to me. Crack cocaine takes your soul from you. That's why a crack hit will come clean your car, your house for $2, $5, or whatever like that. See, the thing is, see, what you're saying is, that's based on the physical addiction of heroin. See, you'll be sick, you'll be hurt. You can't function if you don't have it. That's what heroin does to you. Crack cocaine is a mental thing. See, when people smoke crack, what happens is, this is the effect of crack. You announce the flash. You understand me? And it's a very short high. When they smoke crack and their mind, they're moving so much faster than everybody else. That's why they clean your car, you know, wipe your walls down. That's why crack hits will work for you for such a small fee. Because when they do crack, it gives them an explosion of like, I won't say strife, but like speed. Now I'm not saying like a crack hit or run up the street faster than you probably say, but you ain't catching or crack it even. But what I'm saying is, it's the psychological. When they hit it, it does something to their brain that everybody else is moving slower than them. That's what I mean by you become the flash. You know, in the Marvel movies, when you see the flash, or whatever like, oh well, flash at DC. But you know, when you see the speedsters, and everybody else moving the slow motion, but they like, you know, that's what the crack hit experiences when they do crack. And I don't want you to minimize it when you say, it's only cocaine, what's the biggest soda? No, whatever that chemical compound is, man, it does something that most crack hits, right? This is how it goes. When they start doing crack, and most drugs, when they start doing crack, they are stuck at the age that they started doing it. They don't grow past that until they can actually quit. I know people got clean in a crack house, 'cause when you're done, you're done. When you hit your rock bottom, you're there, you're done. In my program, if somebody comes and say, man, yeah, Johnny, my brother, man, he just dropped me off. I'm just gonna come this program and do this for him, where if anybody's trying to be in recovery for anybody other than themselves, it's not gonna work. You have to do it for you. Recovery is a very selfish process. You gotta put you first, but crack, man, listen. Crack is gonna take everything from you. I mean, addiction in general, but I'm telling you, in my experience, man, a dope thing can have a job, hold a job, have a family, everything. But when that crack come in to pitch you, man, that crack, and some dope things don't do crack. Some crack hits don't do dope, you know? Well, look, I'm speaking to somebody on good authority. I do know a lot about the streets just from talking to guys like you, and Kavario told me, 'cause he witnessed it firsthand, like, crack got a lot of people off heroin. And maybe that's bad, but like, you know, Rick Ross, for whatever Ross told me, he's like, dude, I know smokers to this day that I used to serve back in the '80s. So, I don't know, that's. - What was the context of what he said? - He's saying crack again, 'cause we're talking about the unfairness of the crack laws compared to powder cocaine. And my contention, and many people's contention is, those laws are bullshit because crack is just coke in smokeable form. And it wears off quickly, so maybe it makes you, it makes you go get it more, whereas Coke, you can kind of do, it's not as intense, and so it doesn't create the junky effect so quickly. But on its face, I mean, you could do Coke. Coke is disgusting. I've been to labs in Columbia, literally, where I've seen how it's. What is the difference? You're just, there's baking soda in Coke a lot of times, or there's gasoline, ethanol. So, that's my. Yeah, I really don't like the scare, the fear around crack was something pushed by the white man to justify a lot of these, like, really, really unfair senses. - See, that was based on number one. I mean, remember, it was actually Charles Rangel, the black guy from Harlem. There's a lot of sellouts in the black community. They were responsible for that for the crack laws too, but anyways. - Right, and you know Joe Biden had a part in it as well. - Definitely. - Yeah, I believe he was the author of that law when he was a senator, and then look how comma comes around and now your son who's been afforded every luxury in the world is smoking coke. - That's my favorite thing. - That's just crazy, right? - Oh, God, such sweet karma, dude. - But oh. - It seems like a good time though. - Listen, man. - And he's partying with middle-aged hookers. I'm like, this guy's like a normal guy. He's like you're everyday American. - Right, right. - Okay, but let's get back to this real quick. So, you worked, so that's a really insane amount of money. Yeah, 30 grand a day. - A day, man. - And that's just one out of God, how many heroin spots in the city? Dozens, maybe? - Hundreds. - Hundreds. - So, do you think you were serving, if 30 grand, okay, do you think 200 people a day? Do you think it was hundreds of people that spent that kind of money? - Oh, hundreds of people. - So, times, hundreds, you're talking about like tens of thousands of users that are coming every day. - Easy. - And remember, again, just keep in mind that we talk about capsules. So, the capsules are the easier for users to use. See, when you talk about them cellophane bags and all that, you got pop it open, you got it, whatever. See what a cap? They get this pop it off and dump it down their nose. I've seen that. You know, like, yeah, man. So, it's like, it's instant gratification for them. So, if I'm a trash man, but I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a dope thing. So, I'm like, okay, so what I need to do is, I need to go down there, howling Johnny and him, get me these seven pills, you know, that I can do. I'ma do three of them a day. I'ma do three of them at the work, and I'ma have one in the morning to hold me out, so I can get back to Johnny and I'ma just gonna keep on, you understand? I think, so to get back to our original point that you asked when I was telling about, if I was a rich white guy, with a daughter, with a habit, and I'm in Wyoming, and something like that, right? The thing is that we've seen, the statistics have shown that the panhandle is in Baltimore, right? These are not Baltimoreians. A lot of these people are coming from out of state, so they get stuck, you know? So, now you got somebody like, can I hold the sign? Can I get a dollar, can I get a dollar? But they're from a whole other state who came here for treatment, and then they got caught up in the whole mix of what's actually going on as far as the drug trade. - So, I mean, Cisco's like that, too. - Okay. - Because, and a lot of the laws are really lax around using, so you can get caught with as many drugs as you want, if you're just a user, so what that does is, it brings more drug dealers to the area, like the tenderloin in San Francisco, and it makes the packages better, so then you have junkies and users from all over the country coming into that neighborhood. It's like a reinforcing cycle. So, Baltimore kind of seems similar. - Right. - But anyways, so you've got the manager who's making like four or five grand a week, and then you've got the guy who owns the spot. The guy who's getting the wholesale bricks from the connect. - Right. - And he's-- - Which to put it in your perspective, right? He would be like a, from the wire, he would be like a cheese. - Yeah, a methaman. - Yeah, a methaman. So, methaman would be the guy who's giving the guy who's running the block, you know what I'm saying? 'Cause those players in the wire, they weren't on the block, you understand? They were bosses, the people on the co-op and all that. But those are the ones who was collecting the 30 a day, those type of people, and then they're going back to the prop Joe and to the, you know, to the meetings saying, all right, well, this is what I got to put to the re-up or whatever like that, you know. Also, is the goal of the drug dealer in Baltimore to become a wholesaler, to really be getting, you know, have connects in South America or Mexico, and then just to be bringing it into the city and be invisible, and just hit off guys that have different corners, or do some guys say I want to make it my career to own strips, because that's where the most money is, is when I get these chickens and I fucking put the whack on it. That's a good question. I mean, it depends on the individual. I mean, because in your experience, I guess, like what did you see? What I spoke for me for myself. I was the second example that you gave. I wanted to get, every time that I got a brick, I broke it all the way down to Nichols, Dimes, and 20s. You know, because that would give me, like, such a larger, profit margin, so I'm not selling ounces, I'm not selling eight bars, I'm not selling four and a half, not at that. - Is this Coke? - Coke. - Okay. - Right. - Yeah, I'm talking about Coke. - Yeah. - You know, in particular, hard, ready, right. - Right. - So for me, I would always do that, because it's a lot of peace in the wholesale, because you don't have to deal with the street level sales, and nothing like that, but it's a lot more treachery when you're dealing with other millionaires and stuff like that, who might, you know, just line you up to set you up. You know, like, "Yeah, man, bring me 10 bricks." You know, bring me 50 bricks or whatever like that, but you got it, you got 100 bricks. You know, like, "All right," you know. And then you get there, you know, and something happened, and comparison to, you know what you have, and you're like, "Okay, well, I can sit on this. It's almost money in the bank." If I say, if I have, like, if I take four ounces, and I make out of that four ounces, a certain amount of pills, right. Now, when I say pills for this, they're not in the gel caps. I'm talking about 12, 12s. Like, if you think about little baggies that, like, how the store would sell them, they would be bags that you would put buttons in, and stuff like that, you know. - So you're actually selling crack in plastic baggies. - In plastic baggies. - The 12s. - 12, 12, that's interesting. - Yeah. - That, that-- - So I think in New York, they sold vials. - Right. - This was crack vials. - Right. - Well, we sold vials too, but the thing with vials is they're harder to conceal. See, we used to have pills in our mouth and stuff like that. So we, like, man, I used to be able to have, like, 15, 20 pills in my mouth. They all sealed up at the top, you know. But I got, like, like, 20 dimes in my mouth. And as I'm going to see my, you know, my place, you know, all right, you want three points. Well, you know, it's a lot easier that way than to have a whole thing full of vials that you got to have in your pocket or under your bars or whatever. You know, so it-- - Yeah, it looked like a chipmunk. - You just got-- - You have a mouth just bulging with fucking pills, yeah. - But I'm, you know, for me, it worked, you know. Because the conveyance and remember, I'm not holding these all day. You know, I'm bagging these up, or I got a bag that I'm taking these bags out of, and I'm just going to go see people. So I'm dropping off four here. You know, I mean, seven here, whatever. You know, the street level, I believe, the longevity is in that part. Because when you start dealing with other plugs, other people who got hundreds of thousands and all of that, you become more of a target for them. Like, okay, like, if I put--if you ran out of something like, "Yeah, I got a guy." Your intentions might be to kill my guy and take whatever it is. - Yeah. - Maybe kill me in my guy. - Yeah. - You know? But if I'm just dealing with-- if I'm making 10,000, you know, every two days, just on the street level, just off of heaven, nickel dimes and 20s, that can bring you a little bit more peace. It might sound crazy, because we're talking about selling drugs. But for me, it just bought me more peace, you know, because I know what I'm doing and who I'm dealing with. - Yeah, I mean, and you're, when you're dealing with, you know, 40 bricks of cocaine, right? Like, you're always a target for the feds. I mean, that's a life sentence, you know? Nowadays, you can't really reach it. You can't-- you can only put a couple of points on it. So like, you're risking huge football numbers in prison, just to make like a 40 bricks. You can wholesale them for maybe make 80 grand profit. But you could make that stretching out a couple of keys. - Another sign? - Right. - Right. - Yeah. - Yeah, you just have to be down in the muck, though. - Oh, that's special. - Yeah. And you have the luxury of doing it at your pace. You're scheduled with yours. Hey, I'm gonna be outside around this time. You know, you might have, let's say, a thousand dimes, right? You know, okay, that's $10,000. All right, so that's my quota for this next three days, but that's all yours. You know, you don't have nobody breathing out your back 'cause they've done through you something, or you know, then gave you something on consignment, or you selling weight, and you got to make a decision, like, okay, I can sell him this for this, but I can sell it myself about, nope, I didn't have that problem because I know I'm putting everything to the streets. - Right. - You know, - And it was crack. - Crack. - Yeah. - And did you have somebody cooking it for you, or did you have a mix yourself? - So, like a recipe, I guess. - Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah. So, how I found out how to cook, yeah, I found that some people use microwaves, different things. Pyrex amber vision wear was my best friend. - Shout out. - Yeah, man, I had this. - We should be a Pyrex. We should have a, I should have a sponsor from Pyrex. There's a lot of drug dealers to watch this show. - Okay. - But I think crack cocaine ruin the Pyrex brand. Pyrex is just a big cooking cup, essentially. - But, I mean, no, Pyrex-- - It's a pot. - They have multiple different kinds of cookware, so they have pots, they got bacon sheets, they got all kind of, but it has to be vision wear. See, the vision wear was the one that you can take straight from, let's say your grandma, she's making a tuna casserole and the oven, and she put it right into the freezer, and it don't crack, it don't none of that. See, you can go get some Pyrex right now, and that's during the break-on. As soon as you understand, so it had to be the vision wear. - Okay. - And most of the vision wear was amber colored. You know, so it wasn't transparent, but it had that little, yeah, man, but that was the way that I found, you know, the best way, and anytime I was cooking, I've always put, maybe about three grams on every ounce, you know, that would make it that what I needed it to be. You tell me, but when I actually got up to the 10 bricks, I had my own. The gentleman I was getting in front was already cooking. He was a chef. See, I ain't got a chef if you were a chef. - You were buying 10 bricks cooked up into crack. - Right. - Fuck. - Right. - That's a lie. - And what was your price on like a kilo that was already cooked up? He was charging me probably about like 24. - 24 Gs. - Yeah. - And then what can you, and you sell out a key in just dimes, did you sell nickels? - Nickels, dimes, and 20s. - Okay, cool. So you just stretch that bitch out. So what can you make off of one key? - A little more than double. - Yeah. - And then that takes you about a week. - About a week. - A seven day week. - Okay. - About a five day week. - And then how many workers do you have to get that off? - Just you. - Just me. - You were a one man shopper. - Okay. - Okay. - So how would you let-- - At this time that I'm telling about. - Okay. - Remember I'm jumping around a little bit. - Yeah. - At this time, see like when I first started hustling after I got that weed from my grandma of them, I went out to projects like I said with my cousin. That was O'Donnell Heights. That's in South Baltimore. And out there, that's when I said like I was making maybe about maybe $2,500, $3,000 a week or something like that. Which wasn't a lot of money but it was good money for me at that time. And like I said, I had power. You know, and I'm telling you like it's nothing like it. In hindsight, you know, it's like like yeah, you somebody might be making 30,000 a day, right? But you can get worked today. You know what I'm saying? It's just different, man. And it's crazy how in hindsight as a gentleman who's gone so far past that. But when I look back at it, I see the mental illness and how all costless thought and how we think and how we actually move through the streets and stuff like that. It's like a doggy dog world. You know, everybody's lying to Hyenas. And what I learned is if you are a wolf and sheep clothing, you can survive a lot longer than a wolf who can't put sheep's clothing on. Because when wolves just see a wolf, you always a target. But you gotta be able to, you understand what I'm saying? You gotta be able to finesse it and move through what it is that you're looking to accomplish. Well, were you looking to accomplish as an enforcer? Like, were you sticking up big time drug dealers? No, no, no, no. And forse of being somebody, I never was a stick up kid. You know, that was never my thing. As an enforcer, I would just make sure that where me and my guys were at, it was always secure. So I'm out there. I might have like six other guys out there with me, right? Younger guys and they hustling, you know, they all hustling for us and stuff like that. But we all working together to make one pack grow. You know, so as the elder, sometimes when I'm out there, I gotta make sure that even though I'm selling, you know, crack myself, I'm still making sure they're good. So I might only have, let's say, 10 pills on me, just for obvious sake, right? Just make a quick hundred dollars or if they 20s, 200 dollars. Just to put it in my pocket 'cause I wanna go get some weed. Something that I don't even have to do, but I'm out here, the money's coming. They have the packs, so they really working. But I'm just like passively, just, you know what I mean? But my goal and my mission and my job from my big brothers, you know, was to make sure that they're good, you know? And that was essentially my role. Just, you know what I mean? Just play a part, just be a stand up guy. Don't let nothing happen to none of us. Now why did you not get into hair on? Like when you started owning the shop, like why did you choose crack? Because, as I said, heroin takes more structure, you know? And a lot of times when you have all of those employees because I've been a part of a lot of different heroin shops. I've ran blocks, I've had blocks and all that, but those are more people that could potentially snitch on you. - For sure. - You know? And as the culture started changing, you know, I was like, man, look, I'm good with what I'm doing. 'Cause I know I'm not gonna tell 'em myself. You know, all it takes is somebody, even if you're paying them good to say, I'm already on parole appropriation, I can't take this charge, man, it was called. He was the one giving it to me, you know? He gonna come drop off some more packs around three. And now, the DEA, whoever waiting for you, you know? So I'm just saying, for me, I made the most money I've ever made off of crack, you know? I've sold, you know, a lot of dope too. And probably, arguably, when I was in the streets, I probably could cut dope better than I could crack, you know? Because it's crazy, Johnny. And I want people to take nothing I'm saying is to glorify anything. This is just my story. When it came to cutting dope, it was almost like a art form. You took pride in what you did, man. You know, you get a deck of cards, you get you a mirror, you know what I mean? You get you a bonita, you a quinine, you know? When Baltimore, we made it a three and one. Some do two and one. I went to other towns where they only put a man or tall on a dope. And what they do is, like, that dope friends, they got, they call it rubber necking. Hmm. When you come to Baltimore, you won't see people lean. I'm talking about, go all the way to the floor, but they don't fall. Yeah, it's amazing. You understand? The flexibility. Yeah, man, I'm telling you. So, but cutting dope, man, it's like taking your quina and sifting it 100 times, taking your bonita, you know? Sifting it, your blocks, you know, 100 times. Then sifting it together 100 times, you know? Getting your grams, sifting it 100 times. Sifting it another because you want that right hit. That's what it's all about. You want somebody to see in the streets, they say, if they talk good about your dose, they hit and it hold. See, hold me, you know, I'm not going to get sick from it. Hit me. When I sniffed it, man, it gave me that good. It hit me and I got that good drain, a good rush, and all that, everything that I needed. So, now you sift that, your grams again. Then you sift it together. Yeah, it's like bacon, a cake. It's like cooking. Yeah. Whereas, you're right, crack, there's not much to it. It's pretty much just bacon, so tough. Maybe one other element added into it and mixed into the. What you got to know is you don't crack, too, because a lot of people, what they do is it's called whip. Whereas, though, they'll put it together. And it'll be like some some mediocre. It'll burn down, melt down. See, that's how also we learn, too, you know? My big brother, when I'm talking like, whenever you're getting some crack or something like that, right? Because sometimes, somebody might not sell you the powder. But you need to get on because you got people who waiting for it, you know what I mean? So, they're like, I'm not selling powder, but I got this hard for you. But how you would test it out is you would get a piece. I mean, when you get in the brick, you take a triangle out of number one, you know what I mean? And you see what it is on the powder tip. But like, when it came to the crack, you would take a piece, take a lighter, melt it down. If it melt all the way down, like butter, then most likely, you got something good. But if you melt it and it ain't moving, it's not popping in all that, you got some trash and ain't nobody going to bite. So, it's an art to cook and cook as well, you know? Because when you get that old man and you see it start to lock up in all that. I mean, for me, it was always customer service, you know? It was always like, I could stand behind something good. So, if I know, this is my table, man, this is my work. And you come back, I ain't like that. I know you line. Because I just now gave out a hundred teas. You know, I put it together myself. I peeled it, you understand what I'm saying? Like, back in the day, we didn't have access to pill presses. Like, you know, like when you put the gel caps all in it, and you just dump it on there and you slide the cart and it fills them up and then you put the tops on them. Now, we had to use the hand tapping. You know, take the bottom part of the pill, tap it in, put the top on. You know, I mean, have a mask on whatever, because it'll get in your sister. I know people who actually died from that, you know, at the table, but they don't have no mask and no gloves on. It gets in your pores, man, you know? And you can OD, that's what happened. It was an unintentional OD, you know? So, just ask your question. I prefer to sell crack because crack, it was easier. And you always got more time at that time for like her one, because the overdoses was going up, you know? But, to your other point, the reason why they was smashing us a lot with those crack laws was because in the eyes of the government, just some sort of scientist that you know how to take this powder and turn it to this. That's what they was trying to say. Wizards. Yeah. Like, how do you know how to do this? You are threat to the whole community, because you can keep doing this and crack is doing this and, you know? Did what's the difference between the flows and bolts and more of the movements between crack spots and dope spots? You know, obviously, dope fiends, they need it all day, they need it before work. You know, it's literally a medicine to keep them from getting sick. Crack is more mental, but did you feel like there's more opioid, heroin junkies in Baltimore? Or is there more stimulant cocaine addicts? Or is it about even? What do you think? I'm honest to say it's probably about even, because nobody has a block where they just sell dope at. You're selling a crack, too. Okay. I was going to ask you that. Yeah. So there's mixed. Yeah, it's mixed. But what we would do is we would never have our header who's selling the dope, selling a crack, too. You'll have to money up, it'll be whatever, so you might go in the hole to go get the dope, but when you come out and you say, "Hey, I need some ready, too," but you would let us know. So by the time they get past one or the corner, man, and they like, "I want a one and one." That's one crack, one dope, you know, so we already know when you're going to home, get that one, whoever got the crack, who hitting that, they're going to have one ready for you. So it's just like, you want to have a one-stop shop, honestly. Right. So most people that have corners or streets, blocks, they're selling both? Yeah. Now what about we? And we, I was going to ask you that. So I said one-stop shop. Okay, so we does get trapped, like it's a hard narcotic. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a lot, well, nowadays it's a lot of smoke shops, pop-up shops, or through Baltimore and Maryland. I haven't smoked weed like it's so long, right? I didn't realize that other states didn't have that. I thought it, like, so I got a buddy who down in Florida. He said that it's not, like, you still got to have a marijuana cart in Florida, or whatever part. I think he was in, I forgot what part. I'm not sure if it's Florida as a state of what it was the city he was in. But in Baltimore, police could be right here. You could roll a blunt right in front of him and smoke it right in front of him. And no charge, no nothing, like, but it wasn't like that originally. Yeah. Here's a goal when I was in the game. Man, they would smash you. Like, you'll have a nickel bag or some weed on you, and they'd take you to jail. Right. It was crazy. You said, uh, you went to jail quite a few times, which is normal, right? Any corner boy, kid manager that's out on the block. Right. Yeah, the cops are just posted up. It's not a big secret what's going on, so you're going to, you're going to catch some, some tickets. You know, you're going to catch some charges. How many times did you go to jail when you were working, when you originally started working for your cousin? Um, uh, that's when I was getting locked up the most house rate after house rate. Right. Um, maybe about like 13 times. Yeah. Just in and out. Yeah. You said you would get it. I never did no long bits. Right. But I was constantly getting locked up and stuff like that. Yeah. And you said you would get out, and sometimes you'd be back working. Same day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got people who, who wait on me, you know, and, and the worst thing, it's just like this, like if we opened up a piece of shop, right, on the corner, and we got some good pizza, right? And then like, let's say we, we're, we're open for a week or two or something like that. People loving us. And then we just don't open one day. There's people who's looking for that piece of, like, where's that, where's that Johnny piece of that? It's the same thing with drugs, you know, um, and then sometimes people just prefer to deal with you than somebody else, even if they got better drugs. So for me, um, yeah, uh, every time I locked up, I, I looked forward to getting back to selling drugs. Yeah. The reason you didn't do it in prison times 'cause you're a juvenile, and are these just possession charges? - No. - How does it work in a city that where everybody, where drugs are rampant and everybody is always getting caught selling them or using them? How much do you need to fuck up before you get like real jail time? - I think I was just lucky, man, because none of my charges was juvenile. My charges were all adult, but I would get probation before judgment. I would get, so I would sit down on the charges eight months, nine months, six months, stuff like that. But ultimately, what would happen is I would cop out. I would plead guilty to it. You know, and I would constantly just keep getting, I've been on so many different probations, man. You know, so that's really what happened. But the last time I got booked when I was up, when I had a lot of Coke and stuff and I had a real good lawyer, he was like, man, he really broke down my record to me. He was like, you know, realize, man, that every time that she was taking them probations, you was fucking your record up. He said, man, he said, you got double distribution and all this stuff. He said, yo, your record is really, really bad. But I didn't think so 'cause I'm like, "What, they keep letting me out?" - Yeah. - You know, I'm keeping probation. I can't be that bad, but him as the professional, he's like, nah, man, I'm telling you, like, nah, you have a really fucked up record. I remember I was gonna take my, I was, it was crazy, right? So, at court of city and the county charge. So now I'm sitting over, over MTC. That's much a pilot in transition, transition center. That's the penitentiary and Baltimore. So I'm sitting over there and I got a city and the county charge. So I did, see, these are things that I learned, you know, through the years now, like in hindsight. So anytime I went to court for the city, they will always say, we got a week to see what the county do. So I didn't know that Annapolis being the capital of Maryland that meant that the judges and Annapolis word rules over every other judge that's in that state. So, they kept telling me, like, so, so I will go to the city, they postpone it till I go to the county, the county postpone it, then I go to the city. So you talk more, almost like, like 13 months to just keep on going, postpone, postpone, postpone, postpone. So I told my lawyer, I said, man, you know what? I said, man, I'll stick it a trial. So now I'm in Annapolis County and I'm sitting there and Annapolis County is a predominantly white county. And as I'm sitting there, I got my suit on all that, but I'm booked, I'm not going to court from the street, I'm already still locked up. So I'm in there and I'm, we stop picking the jewelry. So, these two white guys sat behind me. And they like, him? Oh, he's guilty. I don't care what they say. I'm pleading guilty. Well, not pleading guilty. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm saying, you overheard that? Yes, they, they like, like, it's closest to wall, it's behind me. Oh, he's guilty. And in my mind, I'm like, man, I got my head cut, I got, and I, you know what I mean? So, and I start, you know, 'cause they tell you look full, but I don't be looking at the jewelry and all that. So I'm like, I'm like, man, so a lot of white people are here, man. So I call my lawyer, Roland Brown. I'm like, they just said, I'm guilty. They don't care what you say. He said, man, what you, he said, he said, you on the navel. It's what you think. I said, oh, no, man, no, no, no, no, no. We ain't, we ain't gonna do this one then, you know? But this was my blessing in disguise, right? The judge that was overseeing my, my case. He was like a, a 30-year judge. And he was retiring in like the next like 45 days. My lawyer went to him and said, Mr. Johnson might've got caught, you know, with these drugs, but he, 'cause they gave me a large amount. You know, it's like a kingpin' judge. Okay, so you got rated or what happens? Is when you're working with bricks now. Right. Of crack. And what do they find on you? When they rated my house, they found fentanyl weed and cocaine. Okay. And how much, and how many, it was already bagged up? It was already bagged up. So my guy hit me and we was gonna go up North East Baltimore. It was the street off of York Road. He had caught me. We had already been dabbling, dabbling up there. So I'm living in South Baltimore this time. And he's like, man, we've been going up there every so often. Like, a couple of times in the past week, just giving out some, you know, some pills of crack and some boy, boy and girl cracking dope. Just saying what it's like, right? And when we got out there, we seen that we had a good reception. Okay, we can get some money up here, like, okay, 'cause he was kind of from up that way, like, oh, York Road. So the night that I'm bagging up, he hit me, he like, yo, we're still doing what we're doing this morning, right? He hit me like around five. I'm like, yeah, now hit me like around three. I'm like, yeah, my dog get kicked in like around six. So I'm still, I'm like, yeah, I'm saying I'm putting it together now. So I'm at the table, like, like, you know, like when I'm standing up there with the Tomas, so I got it laying across my coffee table in my living room. But I got everything separated, it's on strike. I got weed, I got the reddy, I got the boy. - You were fentanyl? - Yeah. - Okay, anywhere you mixing out with the hair on? - Well, there was no hair on that time. - Okay, I'm just fentanyl. - Okay, so you were actually sold fentanyl. - Yeah. - I didn't realize that. Okay, and you were selling it in powder? - Yeah. - Okay. So fentanyl comes in a powder. Fentanyl is. - Right, but I mean, I don't think it's sold in powder much anymore. - Yeah. - Still, you think it's still sold mostly in powder? - Yeah, how else do I come? Tell me, put me back. - I mean, it comes, I think it gets pressed into pills in Mexico. And I think, the drug bus I see, these big, big fentanyl bus is mostly pills. - Okay. - That's what I see. - Right, right. - But what year did you catch this charge? So we're talking about, like, 2018. - Okay, that's still pretty early into the fentanyl phenomena. You know, fentanyl really hit about 2014, 2015 is when Choppel. - So it was still kind of early. - Yeah, yeah. So 2018 is still pretty early. And I think that's why you saw a lot of overdoses because people, it did come in powder. And Coke dealers were put in Coke and heroin and people didn't know and they were dying, you know. I knew people in fucking Hollywood, California, white people who were sniffing Coke and had fentanyl. And they kicked the bucket. So I think what the cartel started doing is pressing that on the Mexico side into pills. - Okay. - So it's colorful. So it's clear. You can't just chop it into white cocaine or heroin powder anymore. - Right, right, right. - Right, it's a way to actually, it's smart. It's a way to, like, keep people, so many people from dying. - Right, no, I've actually heard of that too. But yeah, and Baltimore, no, it's all powder. - Give it to this day. - Yeah, wow. And at that time, I was just receiving this powder, 'cause it was no more heroin. heroin in Baltimore was probably over in, like, like, 2015, something like that. - So that happened quick. - Yeah, I mean, like-- - I happened quick. - 'Cause when the fentanyl came in, it just took over everything. - It's cheaper, so the dealers want it, but same margins heroin, and the users, cheaper. - So if I already got a block that's done 30,000 a day, right? I just don't have to get the dope no more, but I'm still making humongous, I'm making more, 'cause I'm not paying as much, you know? Who is your plug? Who are you getting your fent from? - It was a homeboy. It was actually the guy who hit me that night. It was his friend, you know, you know what I mean? So it was like, I don't know. It was just, it was a fishy situation for me. - So you never had, you always, your plugs were always like black dudes from Baltimore. You weren't working with Mexicans. - No, no, no. - Okay, you didn't have like the plug plug. - Oh, no, no, no, no, got it. - Yeah, I wish, at that time, you know, but the guy when I had, at this time, I was still dealing with my guy when I was getting the Tim Bricks. So his plug most likely was, because this guy, he was, he was hitting a lot of people, you know? He was hitting a lot of people, you know? But you know, when you're in the game, the less you know the better, whatever, like that, you can't ask the guy, who else you serve in a round here, whatever, you know? Long as anytime I hit you, you got it, and it's good, you know? And when I need more, you got it, we're more kind of asked for, you know? Sure, he could have been the one who put the police on me for all I know. - Right. - So somebody had, somebody knew where your spot was. - Right. - And this is a, are you, was this like your main residence or just your spot where you bagged up? - So this was my main residence. But I never did it before. That's what made it so, you understand? That's the bad part about the game kids. Somebody could tell on your own, you know? And unless you take it to trial, you know? But again, see, remember, so I'm telling you back or so I did take it to trial. To them boy, the white boys behind me started saying, oh, he's guilty, whatever, like that. That's when I was like, man, look, we ain't doing this. And then, so that's your question. So they kicked in my door while I was bagging up to go take over the spot of North East Baltimore, you know? So I had packs, everything was already packed up. And it was a joint sheriff task force to kick my door. So like again, and the wire, they call them knockers. And Baltimore, we call them knockers. That's the name of the. undercover police, knockers, knockers. Boy, the knockers coming, watch out. Not knockers. We've never said knockers, so always knockers. So if the knockers were the came kick my door and I'd have been gone, you probably would have never met me. Because in my living room, as I'm at the table, probably maybe as far as where to wall it, not right here, but the where to wall it, I had a floral book bag that had two bricks of cocaine and a 40-calibre pistol in it. You understand? So I never bagged up at my house because I always would go to a local motel, do it up and be good. Then I was distributed in the cars that I had parked around the projects. That way I never have nothing in my house. I never bagged up my house. I might have money in my house, but money ain't a charge. You understand? It's a charge you got over a certain amount. But no drugs. I could not get a motel room for no reason. Not a hotel. I always use a motel. I couldn't get no room for no reason that night. So that's why they say, man, don't break your rules. I had a rule and I broke it. So I bagged up my house because I'm excited about going to take over this spot. And then they kicked in my door. But the blessing was they didn't find the gun in that. I swear on everything-- And was you sitting in a bag? And in a backpack, it was zipping up. But they never even touched it. Because when they came in, they was so happy. But what they'd seen that was right here in front of me. Because whatever tip they got said, it was drugs in the house. They kicked the door and it was drugs in that house. And they were happy, man. And I'm like-- and I played it cool. Because my baby mother at that time-- my baby mother and my two sons was in the house. So of course, they go up stairs and all that other type stuff. See who else in the house and whatever, whatever. But they didn't really search the house. So they bring them downstairs. And I'm like, look, y'all got everything. It's right here. I'm not going to resist the rest. I just don't want to upset my family anymore than what they already is. So you could just take me out here now. And it ain't going to be no struggle or nothing. And the guy who was in charge, he was like, I can do that. We got everything. This was the easy one. He was cocky about whatever. So they took all the stuff. But they never checked the bag. So now I'm locked up. Now fast forward to now I'm in anapolis. And his white boy's talking about, no, he's guilty. So they remember the judge about the retire in 45 days. So my lawyer go tell him like, he's really a user. And he's like, he's kind of big to be a user. [LAUGHTER] Well, this is recent fact. Like, I used to be a small speaker. I used to be a lot smaller. So the judge's like, well, we can get him a program then. So now we dismissed the whole trial part of it. So now we're not taking our drawers no more. The judge has agreed that I can do a drug program now. So I'm like, OK, all right. So because I was facing, I think it was like 16 years or something like that. You know, that's what the charges that came up to. And they were like, well, if you do a drug program, you got to do six months inpatient, six months outpatient, and you know, finish up whatever little bit of time. So at this time, I'm sitting like almost two years. You know, just fighting. Just going back and forth in court. I didn't even get it. I didn't even-- I was not even convicted of anything. And I sat for two years. Just fighting just back forth. So Baltimore City did not want to hear that. So this is what I was saying earlier, I learned something. So the judge and Baltimore City, I believe his name was Joseph Peters, white guy, right? I go in there, my lawyer like, yeah, Annapolis. Because he kept on saying, this is not personal usage. He's a drug dealer. Look at his racket. My lawyer like Annapolis gave him a program. He was so first up because that's what I said. That's when I learned that no judge in the state of Maryland will supersede a judge that's Annapolis. So by him saying that, it was done. So he had to bang the gavel, and he had to agree with what that judge said. I don't think he had to agree, but I think it's very uncommon for judges to go against each other, especially when it's a higher court judge. So then I got into the program. Wow. What luck? Because yeah, you've had so many, so many charges already for drug dealing where you pleaded guilty for drug dealing, right? Right. Those skid bids, those weren't for usage. That's for-- CDS. Yeah. CDS is what? Control danger substance. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I mean, that's a blessing, though. Just definitely a blessing. Now, I'll look back. Yeah, back. Yeah. I was ready to take into the trial, you know? So did that wake you up like because a lot of people look at this and say, wow, shit, I was facing 16, and I'm going to be out in a year. I'll just get back to it. What happened changed you this time when you were in the inpatient? So I never had been to a program before. As a drug dealer, I always thought if I didn't see somebody that I used to serve, that they even found something better. They were dead or they were in jail. I never knew people took time to get themselves together. Never. I mean, bro, never in my life did I ever think that, oh, if I didn't see John, John then went to the program to help himself. So now that I'm in the program, I'm learning more about addiction. And remember, my mom died when I was four. She old deed while I was still a baby. My dad was never really in my life because he had his own addictions. You know, so all I know is addiction is affecting me. But I don't even understand it. All I know, I'm just some knuckleheads selling drugs because that's what everybody who get money do. So when I learned from being in the program, that addiction is primarily made up of two key components. Obsession and compulsion. If you add those two things to anything, you'll be addicted. It don't matter if it's shopping, eating, gambling, sex, you know, booze, or drugs. It doesn't matter. Like I know people who will literally, you know, take the television off the wall while their family is watching it to go shoot dice because it's in them like, oh, this is going to be the big, I'm going to hit this time. I'm going to get it on the slot machine. Oh, the jackpot, I'm going to get it. I'm going to get it the whole time. They might not do drugs or alcohol, but it's got addiction. So when I learned that addiction is more than just people who just get high and drunk, like, hold on. So you're telling me shopping is an addiction? You know, people got carts right now from Amazon and whatever it is. You know, fire, gama, whatever it is. And they're ordering things that they don't even need. Ordering things they might not even wear. They might got a closet full of shoes they wore one time, but they still ordering new stuff. It's an addiction. So once I started to learn more about addiction and being in the program, I actually seen people that I used to serve. Wow. Yeah, that was eye-opening. They see me, they like, and I see them, I'm like, what you doing in here, you know? And then the thing was being so I got drug court from that judge out there in Annapolis. What happened is, so now, so remember I said I was at MTC. That's the city. So now that the city has went along with what the county has agreed to, now I'm done my city bed. I'm no longer at Baltimore City jail. They shipped me out to Jennifer Road. That's to jail out of Ann Arrondo County. And then from Jennifer Road, they put me on ordnance road. You know, so now I'm out here in these county jails, but I'm just counting down my time until I can go to the program. So now, so remember, so now I've been locked up for like two years now. And this is the longest I have ever been locked up at this point. And I'm like, when I get to the program, there's no barbed wire. There's no correctional officers. It's not, it's just a house. And every day we wake up and we do grouping all this up stuff. So psychologically, I'm like, I can walk out here any day. But in years that I'm backing up, they gon' smash me with it. And Judge Peters from the city already told me, boy, you ever come in front of me again. I'm gonna give you everything that I can. So I'm like, I can walk out, just do it any day and go do whatever I want to do. But of course, I got two sons. You know, and they great, great, great kids, man. And they are part of the reason that I do this. Because they're at the age 17 to 18 that I was already outside. I was already like, oh, I ain't getting no job. I'm not doing, you know, whatever, whatever. And I had other young kids around me who was shooting and killing and robbing and everything else that we were apart of this group. So it's the youth that I had to like really like sit back and like, man, like I'm an official Baltimore guy who been through a lot. And another thing is, this is the polished version of me. You know, like when I say Baltimore, right? That ain't how we say it, we say Baltimore. You know, so when people see these enemies, they like, they like, he says Baltimore, he's not from here. No, I just learned how to move in these rooms around people to get the funding and stuff I need for this nonprofit, to be able to help change lives, you know? So it's like, and like another thing when we say dog, right? We don't say that in Baltimore, we say Doug. You know, like I'm gonna go get a hot dog on a bun and get some mustard on it, you know that's how we talk. But when they hear me on these interviews like dog, they don't understand that I've been through what they've been through and you can't go in these meetings and trying to help people with people with power just talking hood or being, you know whatever, you gotta present yourself, polish yourself up and be the best version of yourself. That's how you succeed in life. That hood stuff takes you but so far, you know? So to answer your question, when I went out of there and the boys behind me was like, oh, he's guilty. And it won't be straight up. I'm talking, I had a three piece suit on all of it 'cause I still had money, I still had money. I still had cars so I'm booked. My babe mother, she got access to all of this stuff. Like I had so many different cars and stuff like that. And I always, I didn't know about real estate and stuff. I didn't have anybody around me to say, hey, go buy a house. So I used to buy cars and stuff. And if anything got to happen, go and sell a car. Get 3000 for that and whatever. And it would just be some sort of passive income. And I was happy to be in a position that when I was gone, she could still provide for the kids, even though she was working, you know? - Wow, so you completed that? I mean, it really changed your life. - Absolutely, in a huge way. And not only he didn't go back to crime, but you started, you know, your whole business now is helping people get clean. - Right. - It's amazing. That's what you can do. That's the ultimate is like acts of service like that. - Absolutely. - Do you think that one of the good things that have changed about Baltimore since you were a young man and what's gotten worse? - Hmm, one of the good things have changed about Baltimore. - Start with a hard question first. - Yeah, I said the high rises are gone. See, if the high rises would have still been up, I don't think my grandma would ever move. 'Cause she'd already lived there for so long, you know? But being out of that atmosphere and environment, taking me somewhere else and my, 'cause my grandma raised like four of us, her grandchildren. I think the high rises, the projects themselves it just brought a certain mentality out of people, you know? That going to a residential block and saying people who have, you know, cars and, you know, you know, they sweeping that front, we got a backyard. Listen to the projects, listen. In the projects, the projects I'm from, the originals, we didn't even have a shower. I'm not talking about my apartment didn't have a shower. I'm talking about no showers and none of the project. It was just tubs. - Oh my God. - So to move somewhere and you got a shower now? Like, that was a big upgrade now. That was huge. So it's like, you know. - A grown man taking a bath. - Come on man. - You're selling a fucking, you're doing 30 grand a day, sell his hair on and then you gotta go take a bath. - No, no bath, yeah. Yo, that's crazy, right? And that's what I'm saying. That was every apartment. - Yeah, it's real slum stuff. Have it, have them projects? They're like prisms, man. - Right. - Like, I guess they thought this was a good idea back after World War II. When they built these gigantic cages, just putting people in, yeah, just like rats, like a bringing green in Chicago, you know. I went there, I was there in the 90s before they knocked it down. You can't believe human beings live here. So yeah, so they knocked those down which even though created a lot of street beef amongst the drug dealers, it probably beautified the city a little bit, for sure. - Yeah, because what they put in this place, like what's there now? - About to say that. The exact place where Lafayette Projects was, they actually have town homes there. Because Lafayette Projects was literally five, 10 minutes away from what was city hall. - Wow. - Like literally, like downtown, it's downtown Baltimore. So that's a one real estate. I'm talking about like literally, man, like right there. So imagine how the town are coming and soon as you get off of 83, you just see these large towers and this poverty and this, you might hear gunshots and all of that. So they have since revamped the whole area, it looks a lot better, you know, but it's the poverty mind though, man. It don't matter where you put somebody who doesn't believe in themselves. Don't see the beauty that they possess. They don't wanna do anything better for themselves. You could put them in a mansion and guess what? The mansion will dilapidate over time because it's about the individual, it's about the mind. See, behavior health is the bark of the tree. The branches is substance abuse and mental health, but behavior health is the beginning of it all. So we have to address those things. Like it's people in the community right now, right? That people might say, oh that's crazy Melvin. He just liked that, man, it ain't been crazy his whole life. You know, Melvin just has undiagnosed mental health issues. And if he had the proper help, he might can be an obstinus citizen and society. But if we don't go and address these things, what happens is the trauma, the hurt and everything else, it just keeps on breeding. You know, we pass it on to our children and everything else. - That's right. - You know, so we have to break those things in order to help people, you know, actually be better people. Don't just put people in jail. Like we've seen the stories where somebody might be autistic or something and cops show up and they shoot them or something like that. Like we have to be able to de-escalate these things. It takes longer to become a beautician, you know, than it does to become a cop. - You feel me? - Yeah. - Like the go to, you know, to be, you know, it takes a part about a year to be, you know, ascetician, whatever go through, you know, the whole process. It's about six times a month to be a cop, you know what I mean? So it's like, we have to address these type of things to be able to help the people who need the most help. But of course, Johnny, we know this isn't a mistake. This is by design. Because every time somebody goes to jail, a jail is just like a hotel. Those beds have to be filled. They build these places with the intentions of every bed being filled. You know, so when you go to the music, like you said earlier, when the music influences the youth to say, hey man, go shoot your gun, you ain't, you ain't hard if you ain't shooting your gun. And you know, go pop them perks, go, go, go have sex. You know what I mean, it's, it's gonna, you just keep on hearing it on the radio. And guess what, somebody's gonna listen. And there's so many single-parent homes, no matter if it's just a dad who raised the kids or just a mom. These kids are influenced by the things they hear and they see. Like, oh, my favorite rapper got a chain and a Bentley because he talking about this same stuff. So, what he's gonna think, if he do it, he's gonna get rich too. - Yeah, so do you think the fentanyl, do you think that the fentanyl crisis in Baltimore is markedly worse than the heroin. - Oh yeah. - Can't even call it a heroin epidemic, it's a tradition. Do you think the fentanyl crisis is made a lot of these areas just like zombie land? - Yeah, man, I definitely do. And the thing is, like I said, it's not only that, it's the stuff that they cut in the fentanyl weather. Like, for instance, the Zalazine, man, I used to work in the medical, in the medical field. Outside of what I'm doing, I used to work in a hospital, right? And the Zalazine, man, for the people who actually shoot, it eats people down to the bone. I'm talking about like, it's been a spike in amputations. You know, because it lands in the body where it wants. So it's not the injection site. Let's say shooting in your neck. It might land in your hand. Might land in your thigh. I'm talking, I've seen people with like, down to the bone because this is what it does. It's not for human consumption. This is poison, but it gives such a good feeling. And that's the thing I want people to understand that addiction is not a choice, man. It's a disease. If you had heart disease, you would go see a cardiologist. So it's the same thing with addiction. If you have the disease of addiction, you need to go get professional help. Not destroy this person in jail. Not discard this person or minimize what they're going through. These are still people, man. You know, and I'm telling you, I've seen them, man, feet. It was a lady who was pregnant. And she had, what was it? She had to get her leg amputated because she was shooting, she was shooting dope. But the doctors had to make a decision. Do we breach the pregnancy for her to have the baby before we cut it off or do we cut it? They had to think about the welfare of the child. Like, if we cut it, it might be too much trauma, the caregiver, whatever. But if we might have to like breach the birth because she wasn't not much, she wasn't full-term yet. So it was like, what do we do? So it's these type of stories that are unheard. These type of people who are unseen. That's why at Baltimore Recovery Alliance, and Baltimore Recovery Alliance is not just for Baltimore. You could be somebody anywhere. If you need help, I have the resources for every state. It might be a program somewhere that you don't even know, but it's in your state. And you give a call or email whatever it is. And I might connect you with that. You don't have to come to Baltimore to get help. If I can help you from where you are, I'm going. doing. That's what the team is for. So shout out that out again, the name of the program. It's Baltimore Recovery Alliance. As Baltimore Recovery Alliance.com, we want all socials, Baltimore Recovery Alliance. Yeah, man. Yeah, and we'll put a link to that in the description, we'll give it a nice plug. Before we get out of here, just a couple more things. Do you think that these open-air drug markets, the ones that we've seen in Baltimore, but also L.A., Chicago, Kensington and Philadelphia. Do you think? Let me just, because you said, Cabrini Green in Chicago, right? I don't know if Chicago has open-air drugs, too cold for that. No, no, no, no. What I was going to say is Dante Boxdale's other uncle was King David of Chicago. Are you familiar with David Boxdale? David Boxdale was from Chicago as well, and he was a big figure in Chicago. So Dante used to fly out there to Chicago to help with the peace initiative. Like I said, in Baltimore, we have safe streets. Shout out to Brandon Scott, because that was a very good move to take people from the, because people don't respect the police. You can't come tell me what to do in my community. I remember back in the day, the police used to be up the community, you know, but now you people are coming from 10, 15 miles away. You don't know what's going on here. So the fact that he's taking people from the community and putting them in positions to actually help, but nobody's perfect. Some of these guys were still involved in certain stuff, but that doesn't mean all of them was, you know, and they are making a difference. We'll go to the open-air because it just dawned on me. We said earlier, Cabrini Grains, Chicago, King David, Boxdale. That's interesting. That's interesting for sure. I mean, should these drug addicts, right? Like, forget about the dealers are there because the addicts are there, right? You know, obviously, when you've got a package, the dealers are the chicken and then the egg comes, which the users, but the dealers are there because the users are there. Do you think not to put them in prison for long stretches, but do you think they should be off the street? Like, they should be physically removed and placed in, you know, clinics and rehabs that are perhaps run by the state, but it's not, you know, it is incarceration, but it's not prison at all. The whole thing is dedicated to programming, to cleaning you up and giving you mental health services, right? Because what good are you doing allowing a pregnant woman to shoot dope in her leg? But, yeah, we're not going to take it to jail because that's, that would be like, you know, racist or that would be over prosecution. Like, she should be in jail. If it's, you know, a jail dedicated not towards punishment, but towards like, help. Right? Right. I don't know. What do you think about that? I think that, number one, I think that individuals who are going through that, I don't think it should be state run. I think it should be independent operators, people like you and me, who have a passion for recovery, you know, because when you put things in the hands of the state like that, it does become prison. It does become, you know, a monopolization. It's like, okay, now we're going to make sure that everybody that we find who's doing these type of things, they're coming here, you know, and it becomes a kickback type of a thing. Yeah, but they, you have to, the state is there, how are people going to go to these private, they have to be forced? I mean, some come around to it, of course, right? But, you know, how many people on the corners in Baltimore, what was that open air market? You were talking about some to market. Yeah. How many of this one of many? One of many. So how many people out of the hundreds that go to just one open air drug market in Baltimore every day? How many of those are actually putting their hands up and saying, you know what, I'm going to go, I'm ready to go seek treatment. Probably a really low percentage. This is a very low percentage, but to your point, right? Remember I shared with you, people will only get clean when they're ready. So if you force them, that's still, let me give you the example. And until your point, I also think that there has to be, and should be, is something I'm working on, a rehab for dealers as well. Because the money is very, very addictive, man. Yeah. You tell me, I have a seventh grade education, and I only can go work for pop-pies or something like that. And you want me to give up getting this 3,000 a week? I'm running the block. Like, I'm not a hit enough. I'm getting 3,000 a week. And if I want to quit from hustling, because I ain't never stacking up enough. I don't have nothing going off of myself. I got to go to Walmart and be agree to something like that. So there should be something for hustlers as well to help them reacquaint themselves and adjust to society. Things like resume build and the things like that, you know? But let me give you an example to your point about the state run facilities. The problem with that is, this will be the problem. There are people in prison right now who've done 5, 10, 20 years. Remember, being clean does not mean that you're in sobriety. So I could do 20 years in prison and the day I get out, I'm going to go smoke some coke or shoot some dope. So just because you put me somewhere, I don't mean that it's working. That's really nice. I gotta be ready. And there's also a lot of drugs in prison too. You have to stay? Yeah. Yeah. So box in and K2 and there's no shortage of drugs. Very, very dangerous way. There's no shortage of drugs in prison. But you see my point? Yeah. So let's say that person isn't using it all in prison. But as soon as they get out, they go do that drug of choice. Yeah, well, I get that. I'm not saying the prisons now are the way they should be. You know, like we used to have mental hospitals where, you know, they were maybe less than ideal conditions, but it was an alternative to prison. Like somebody who's shooting trank or what do you call it? This trank there. Trank in their legs. That person is mentally ill. So they should be in a hospital, but you have to use the monopoly of violence, which is to say the government. You can't have vigilantes. You can't have private hospitals going and arresting citizens arresting drug users. You have to have the state remove them. Right. Because it's like you can't tolerate that shit at a certain, like you're tolerating it. And I do think it's by design. I agree with you. I think it's on a societal level. We tolerate people killing themselves. That's what you're doing. And so you have to say, no, we're going to be adults here. You can't do that. Right. You can't do that. You can't do it on the street. You can't be preyed and do that. But you got to find a happy medium. You have to give them help that's not the brutality of prison. It can't be forced to, I need to never work. If you don't allow a person to go amongst their own free will, what happened is it's going to backfire. It's been proven. That's why I just gave the same example about people who are in prison. Now, I might be in prison because, you know, whatever, you know, it's not violent. It's not whatever. I'll be home and you know, maybe 11 months or something, right? Well, you're cleaned. You're act up. You were forced to be in a program. Right. But it wasn't prison. You weren't on the yard with a fucking shank. Right. But you were arrested and forced to do this thing that changed your life for the better. And now look at you. Because I want it changed, though. But you wouldn't have known it if you hadn't been physically taken. That's my point. You have to be taken. No, no, John. You can't. You can't have a society for normal people. What about the normal? What about people that want to move to Baltimore? Like normal people that are like our entrepreneurs. They've got college educations. They want to, you know, open businesses, which helps people. It raises the real estate, which will then make people buy more. It's a self-fulfill in prophecy. But they can't because there's their drug addicts everywhere on the corner. Like what about their rights to live? But a lot of times those same individuals have substance abuse issues. We know it's not just the ghettos to have people who've got, you know, drug problems. Fair. This people at every level of life. We just talked about Hunter Biden, who's the president, the ex-president of the United States. Come on, I just mind this, Mitch. He went to Harvard. For sure. But he's not, again, though. And this is going to sound fucked up. But rich people doing drugs behind closed doors, doesn't. It eats away at the fabric of their soul and their families. But it's different than being on the corner, shooting up. It is because that is directly affecting the quality of life of the other people who live there that are civilians. I don't think anybody's denied. I don't think any serious person can deny that. Like there's people, it's why ladies, civilians on the block in Baltimore will pick up and call the police. Because I don't want 15 drug dealers on the block. But you know what happens? Because she's already had her own experience with it. She might see her son, her loved one, who went through it and them. Addiction affects us all the same. So even if I'm rich in Hollywood and I'm snorting coke, and guess what? It's only a matter of time. It doesn't matter. Johnny, addiction doesn't discriminate. So when you're talking about these entrepreneurs who can make jobs and all that, listen, the statistics show that one, and every seven people have a substance abuse issue. You do the math. That's a lot of people. And that's this substance abuse. Now remember, but I just explain. explain to you about addiction. Addiction is addiction. So you might not be sniffing cocoa and drinking booze, but that's why you're tricking all the time. You know what I've got to get paid, but you're going to get some booty. The kids don't know why the lights out. - Right. - You feel me? Well, you gambling. You've got to give 'em all. - You understand? Come on, man. - Gambling is probably the worst addiction in America. It's probably gambling, man. - But again, where do you draw the line? Because you know what really exploded that phenomena of gambling? - Paul A's. - Exactly, legalizing gambling. - Oh, yeah. - You know, I promoted on my show and I will continue to promote it. 'Cause I'm about money. I don't have character or principles, but value is like you, Carl. So that's my whole thing where it's like, I don't know, we might, it's I think I myself just rethinking this idea of make everything legal, and then the black market will go away. It'll solve addiction. I don't know. - It worked for Amsterdam. Amsterdam, they legalized drugs, whereas though the government provides drugs, you go to a place, you walk in, I'm not sure if it's free or how, if it's insurance or whatever, but they'll give you, I say you do heroin. They give you a bag of heroin, you go use it there. You leave. - What you're gonna do that too? - You leave everything there. What it did was it dropped the crime rate. You know, it did a lot, it did a lot of good. You know, so I understand. It's just one of those types of things, it's so complex. - It is difficult, especially in this country. - Yeah, man. Because you know, I was going to have people say, no, that's not going to work, then there'll be people saying it might do, you know? So, yeah. - Well, you're right, they do give out, yeah, you go to clinics and you get like synthetic opioids. - Right. - Fentanyl synthetic. - Yeah, fully synthetic. - But I think if you're caught like selling drugs in those countries, you're still going to go to prison. Like they still have drug interdiction teams and stuff like that. So it's never like a one size fits all and it's never black and white. Like it's about finding something, some kind of like middle ground. - Absolutely. - Which we just are so bad at. - Yeah, man. - This country. - That's because people are getting paid off of the misery of others. That's a lot of the rich stay rich. Like I said, man, look, you got all these. - Sackler family, the Purdue. I mean, go back to, they're the biggest criminals. They're the ones responsible for, it starts with that. It starts with pharmaceutical companies. - Oh man, nothing's bigger than big pharma. There is no industry. There's no people richer than big pharma. - Did you see because you dealt with thousands of drug addicts, personally interacting with them over the years. Did you see any like suburban people, like they probably started off taking oxys and perks, you know, that they were getting from their doctor and then just saw them. - Johnny, that was a part of the plan. That's why what you just now said about pharma, yes. It was people who came with a spring ankle or something like that. And they were given perkessets, right? And the perkessets ran out, but they already had that addiction now. So now what they do, they're gonna find the next best thing. And I'm talking about, I've met those type people in droves, you know. - Like in cheese lines, waiting to cop. - No, no, I'm not just saying, I'm just saying like, what I'm saying is, I've heard that story that I sprang my back. I was in a car accident. They kept giving me the perks. The doctor just kept writing the script. Just kept writing the script. Even when I ain't one, they just kept writing the script. And then they cut me off. I can't function without this, you know. And then what they do, they go ahead and go get the dope. And now they do, so you're right. What you just now said, I swear. I've heard that story so many times, Johnny, that I started off with just percusses from a doctor. They kept feeding me, kept on writing the prescription. And I already got this addiction now. I, you know, and I'm not getting any help there. It's not like when they cut me off, they say, hey, you can go ahead for help for it. No, they just left me dry. Now and every morning I wake up, I'm going through withdrawals. I can't even drive my car. withdrawals are one of the worst things in the world, Johnny. See what we learn is, see, people feel like they're dying from opiate withdrawal, right? And some people have, it's a very small percentage per capita, right? But benzo and alcohol, you will absolutely die without, you know, withdrawal management. That's why if you're on, let's say, benzos, it's recommended that you go to a doctor or to a program so they can give you the medicine to win you up. You waking up with the DTs from the alcohol and stuff like that is recommended that you go somewhere to get, you know, the medicine to make sure that you get hydrated. You get hydrated. And it's medicine that give you too, yeah, man. Like you will die from Benzo and alcohol with drug. Benzo being for the people who don't know. Benzo is Xanax, clonidins, you know, all of those type of drugs. Anything that's in the Benzo diet, I forgot the big word, in the Benzo family. You've got to actually get help with that. So tell the people what it is your organization does. Like what can you do for them? So Baltimore Recovery Alliance is dedicated to helping people with substance abuse and mental health issues. That means, and it's a nonprofit organization. So what we're looking to do is to help, you know, provide housing, you know, peer support, you know, whatever you might need, like people who might need services like food stamps, you know, resources like TDAP. Anything that a person might need, we have a reentry program. That's one of the biggest, you know, file ups of the system. If somebody just came home from doing five, 10 years, and soon as they leave the door, they don't have nothing. No resources. So what we do is we help provide housing whereas though somebody can come from the system into a house, we help you get a job, help you, you know, just understand what's going on in society. Because a lot of times we come home and everything has changed. A city can change in five, 10 years, man. Your friends, everybody dead and jailed, whatever. You can't find whoever. And now you on the street and guess what? You're most likely going to repeat the cycle. So that's our whole goal to help break the cycle of addiction and mental health homelessness and really just, you know, help anybody who needs help. And it's not just in Baltimore, as I said, you could be anyway. You can call me in here in Chicago. If I can connect you with somewhere that can help you, help your family, help yourself, I got you. That's what we're here for, man. Everybody lives matter. But the disease of addiction tells us, right? That nobody cares, can't nobody tell, don't nobody know. It's just, you know, it's just, it's terrible. And now that I'm on this side of things, I just want to be able to project and be the change I want to see. You know, I've sold a lot of drugs, Johnny. I'm telling you, I didn't end jail, I didn't jail. You know, I had a lot of great times, had a lot of money. But I can honestly say, I've never felt good about selling drugs. I've never sold drugs, I'm like, yeah, you know what I mean? No, but without you now, man, I feel amazing. It feels great when I go somewhere. I walk into the mall or something. I see somebody who's a ex-client. Like, Mr. Carl, I knew that was you. How you doing, man? I got my kids back, you know, I'm driving now. I work up here, man, you understand what I'm saying? It's so fulfilling, man. To be, you know, a part of building the community up after I helped destroy it for so long, you know? So that's what Baltimore Recovery Alliance is about, man. It's about helping people and meeting people where they are. And accepting people for who they are. You know, like, 'cause a lot of times, man, we'll try to make somebody into what we know. This person is who they is. People, you're gonna accept them or reject them, but you ain't gonna change them. They can change themselves. So that's what it's all about, man. Just, you know, trying to be a better person and being the change I wanna see. - That's it, man. That's amazing. That's amazing. I really respect it. Last question. What ever happened to those two keys that the cops didn't find? (laughing) They assume they got to their proper place. They made it to that destination. - Well, Carl, thank you so much, man. Go use them as a resource where, again, we're gonna plug, we're gonna plug the Baltimore City Alliance. Baltimore Recovery Alliance. And I look forward to, I'd love to come to Baltimore and if you could show me around, that'd be great. I'm gonna have to cop something, dude. Become a client of yours, get strong out. (laughing) Shout out to the wire, shout out to Baltimore, real friendly people, and don't even magazine, man. Look at that, dude. You really are a representative of the city. It was really, you really have an encyclopedic knowledge of it. And maybe we'll do it at a bonus episode. Maybe we'll jump over and we'll do it. You wanna stick around and just chat for a little longer? - Yeah, I wanna ask you some more just fucking wire questions. There's a lot to talk about. So, thank you guys so much. Jump over to the Patreon. Patreon.com/deconnectshow with the one and only Baltimore Carl right here on the Connect. We'll talk to you guys later. Thank you. (upbeat music)