His Parents Were Cops— He Became a Heroin Dealer

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My parents are both police officers, you know. My whole life, I was raised in the police precinct. I think I'm some Billy Badass gangster, and, you know, in their nice, big house up on the hill, think I'm some gangster and I want to walk around strapped up. I wanted to be a professional drug dealer. I have to have a way to get my drugs back to Ellensburg. So I start hiding them in my backpack and having my dad unknowingly traffic cocaine over the mountain pass for me. He goes to meet them. And gets in the car and they immediately pull a gun on him and shot him instantly in the chest multiple times. So the best thing that they can think is to bring him back to his grandparents' house at the time and hide him under the porch. I think 30-some-odd people that I was close to, like, really close to in that life, ended up dead. Have you ever met a gangster from the suburbs? You're about to. Home invasions, kidnappings, coke and heroin dealing, murder. That was the upbringing of Josh Pelz in his quiet suburban community an hour outside of Seattle. Josh was on the ground floor of the opioid crisis, pushing his Percocet and Oxy scripts onto the other kids in his neighborhood before he graduated to black tar heroin. He survived almost a decade as a hardcore heroin addict, shooting five grams a day until he ran out of veins and witnessed as over 50 of his high school classmates died from drug abuse. died from drug overdoses. Josh's story is wild, but typical of so many small town communities who were torn apart by the American opioid epidemic. Josh is over a decade sober now and is an author, business owner, and a YouTuber. Head over and subscribe to his channel where he tells stories from deep inside the game. It's the alpha dog, Josh Pelz, right here on The Connect with Joni Mitchell. It just doesn't make sense that such a small town has so much crime, so much underbelly, like, criminal activity going on, and just from the outsider looking in, you would never even know. And it's not the ghetto. You come from, like, a suburb. Yeah, exactly. We're talking houses on lakes and, you know, on the river, beautiful, you know, high-end homes and high-end people moved out there because there's gunpowder. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Golf courses. You're right at the base of the mountain. You know, you got a lot of things people want to do. But I think it being a major thorough way from—because I-90 goes straight to Seattle. You cut off. You take 18. That goes straight to Tacoma. You have to go right through our little town to move any drugs. So I think that just being a convenient spot and having a lot of money in that town is a big reason that it just— Went haywire. But I come from a town in a neighborhood, you know, northeast Portland, Irvington, that had a lot of money. But none of my friends, most of them, one of them, out of, like, 15 close homeboys fell into heroin, you know, homeless for a while, all that shit. Yeah. But you went to school with, like, what, 50 people who OD'd? Yeah. Between 04, 05, 06, we had about 50 people. All OD—died from overdoses or been murdered or, you know, just different things. Mainly ODs, though. The numbers are insane. And that's heroin. It's mostly all heroin. Some of them were back when it was oxys and stuff. But it's all opiates. Yeah. Without a doubt, all opiates. So what is it about suburban, rural America? I understand in middle America, right, where you lost your job. It got outsourced to China, wherever. Like the coal mines. Coal mines. It's never coming back. You've got no opportunity. You feel hopeless. Right. But it didn't just affect the super rural, deindustrialized places. It affected suburban Seattle, Washington, where you come from. Exactly. Big time. Right. Is it, like, a boredom thing? Is it a— I think that probably has something to do with it. You know? It's very isolated where I'm from, is out in the sticks, in the woods. So you do have that separation from the city. So you got a lot of money and you're bored. Yeah. People are going to start using drugs. But the problem we had was you don't need a cartel when you're slinging pills to bring any drugs in. You have a doctor right there that's prescribing countless, you know, people with hundreds and thousands of pills. So it's right in your backyard. Really, it just takes one good connect and get one person on it and the next is on it and the next is on it. And before you know it, the entire town is taken over by it. Well, didn't you say one of the parents was one of the bigger suppliers? One of the biggest suppliers. Yeah. She was. Yep. And I always found that it was women, funny enough, as most of our connects back then were all women. I think that has to do with the doctors. The doctor shopping aspect of it and kind of, you know, finessing different doctors to get what you want out of them. But you don't—when it was pills, you didn't need to go anywhere. It's at the pharmacy. You just find a person who's able to get a script and you're good. And it was like a dollar a milligram was the retail price. Dollar a milligram. I've even seen them go up to $100 for an 80. Fuck. For one 80-milligram? One single 80-milligram pill. And how much could you get that from? From the doctor for? So, if you're getting it from the pharmacy, you're just paying whatever your insurance costs are. So, really, it's—and depending on your insurance, it could be next to nothing. Right. You can get a whole 100-pill bottle for 20 bucks. Right. And then most of the time, we'd pick them up. And that's where the prices could really vary depending on how much you can get them for because it's just in the eye of the beholder. So, they would vary a lot. But, yeah, I mean, you're able to get them for like $35, $40. And you're turning around and double your money all day. I mean, the profit is insane. Insane. But the problem is if you're a user, your tolerance gets insane. So, you start out using a quarter of that 80-milligram pill and you're sniffing just 20 milligrams of Oxy and that will do it for you for a while. But eventually, it starts to not do anything and then you got to do 40 and then you got to do 60 and then before you know it, you're doing 80-milligram lines. And one single line and then that's hardly doing anything to you. Mm-hmm. So, that's kind of when I branched out and started, you know, getting into smoking them and shooting them and things like that. It's slow progression but it's always in search of chasing that dragon. Mm-hmm. That's the problem, right? And weirdly, you had an excuse like you actually did have real back pain like debilitating back pain. Yes, yeah, since the age of 15 is when my back pain started. I started in the time of jackass, you know, skateboarding, we're jumping off of buildings and doing the stupidest shit and I ended up injuring my back in that process. There wasn't a single incident that I can trace it back to. I just remember my back starting to hurt and we went to go get it checked out one day and they're like, "Yeah, you have degenerative disc disease. You have a slipped disc in your L4, L5. That ain't going away." Mm-hmm. So, you know, my parents were kind of shit out of luck is like, "Okay, well, what's the next step?" And they're like, "Okay, well, the next step is surgery." So, 15 years old, I'm going in for my first spinal surgery and I'm walking out with a giant bottle of pills of Percocets and that was really the start of when I started getting off because it's a time when we trusted our doctors. Mm-hmm. And, you know, knowing what the, you know, what Purdue Pharma was doing and the Sackler family did, this is before all of that. This is when they're raking in money hand over fist. So, the opiate epidemic hadn't really happened yet so my parents trusted the doctors. We trust, you know, our providers and you really didn't, it wasn't on the front page of every newspaper of like, "People dying of opiates. It's everywhere, it just wasn't a thing yet. they're just handing me my bottle of pills and I'm taking them as I see fit. What's up, everybody? A lot of you have been asking how you can get on the show. Here's the deal. If you think you or someone you know would be a good fit for the show, email us. Connectpodcastbookingsatgmail.com. That is the only way to get on the show. I don't check my DMs very much. I oftentimes miss messages on Facebook. So you got to shoot me an email. Let me know why you or somebody you know would be a good fit for the show. Tell us your story and then give us a way to get a hold of you. We check that all of the time and we will get back to you. Once again, it's connectpodcastbookingsatgmail.com and we will leave a link to that in the description of the episode. All right, let's get back into it. Did you realize? Did you realize what you had in terms of profit in that bottle? No. No, it would take a little bit before I even realized what I had. Because I, myself, was, I never looked at them as like a way to get high in the beginning. I was just smoking weed and doing coke. My story actually starts with weed and coke. And that's how Maple Valley slowly progressed into getting worse and worse, is it was almost like a passing down of the torch. All of the older brothers and sisters, they were all like, they were all selling weed and coke, but oxys weren't a thing yet. So, you know, they're just passing it down to their little brothers and sisters. And that's how I eventually got in the game is I had gotten injured with my back growing up. And during that time, when I'm living in Maple Valley, I'm a street skater. So to be a street skater, you got to be in the streets. My parents are just taking me to wherever, you know, Safeway behind Fred Meyer and just dropping me off with my buddies. And we're skating, but we're also shoplifting. We're smoking weed up in the, you know, up behind the, on the hill. And we're, you know, drinking. And I got arrested a couple times for vandalizing a school, you know, just really dumb, petty shit. And my parents were kind of seeing the writing on the wall. It's like, man, if we stay here, this is not going to end badly. Or this is going to end badly. And I'm like, I'm not going to be able to do this. I'm going to end badly. And little did they know, you know, it's, they probably saved my life by doing that. I mean, I still went down a really dark path, but if I was there in the middle of it, I don't know that I would have ever made it. So the town of Maple Valley, just a distant suburb of Renton and Seattle, Washington, that was where all the ODs of your schoolmates would really happen. That was like, yeah. I mean, there would be, they're using in Seattle or something and someone ODs in Seattle because they go. and pick up from their connect out there and they would be there. But the majority is all in and around Maple Valley. Yeah. You could have taken over. I mean, if you had just dealt with your back pain and said, yeah, give me more perks, you could have been a millionaire. Yeah. I think about that now. I was like, man, I really had, I really had the golden ticket of being able to get that script myself. And which I did. I sold, I sold plenty of my pills in my day, but the good ones that 80 milligram oxys or the perk thirties or perk fifteens, I never really pushed to get those, but yeah, I, I definitely, I could have, well, did you ever OD? I have OD'd, um, a couple of times. My first OD I'll go back is when I first started in, you know, selling Coke. Um, my buddy's older brother was connected to the cartel and literally two weeks after getting my license, I'm 16 years old. Um, mom, dad, can I go pick up my buddy Alex? He, you know, in the Valley, I wanted to come over for the weekend and, you know, blah, blah, blah. It's going to be a great time. Sure, honey, no worries. And I'm on a mission. I'm going straight there. And I meet up with Alex and, uh, he's waiting in the garage for me with him, with his older brother. And there's a couple other Hispanic guys in there and they ain't saying much, you know, I'm just, I'd never seen him before, but he's also 16, 17, but he's changed a lot from the last time I saw him. The last time I saw him, it was still innocents there. We're still skating and, you know, they're still fun. But when I came back, it was like a different person. He was a man now and, uh, no time for games anymore. So I, I, I go up in there and I'm just kind of hanging and like, all right, dude, you're ready to go. Him and his brother and those guys kind of take off. And he's like, yeah, let's go. But first, before we go, you want to see something real quick? You want to see some crazy shit? I'm like, is that even a question? You know, piqued my interest immediately. So he goes and clicks the garage door shut and saunters over to the cabinet over there and pulls down three plastic shopping bags, sets them on the ground. And the first thing I noticed was the smell. It was just the whole garage just filled out, filled up with this almost like if you've ever smelt a paint booth or like a really strong chemical smell. From kickoff to the final whistle, trade the biggest moments in football with CalSheet, America's number one prediction market platform. Next Monday, Chicago takes on defending champion Seattle. Chicago is currently trading at 58% to win. A hundred dollar trade pays out $164 if they come out on top. Download CalSheet, use code WIN26 to win $25 when you trade $25. K-A-L-S-H-I. CalSheet. Trade what's next. 18 plus only. Restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. CalSheet products are not available in all jurisdictions. Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see calsheet.com slash regulatory. Yeah, I compare this stench of really good Coke to like a bunch of dirty socks and like some vinegar. Mixed around. Okay, yeah. Kind of nice. It's super potent though. You're going to enjoy it. Make your stomach bubble a little bit. But I don't know what it is because I've never been exposed to Coke like this. I've never been exposed to drugs on this level ever. I've seen maybe some large amounts of weed, but I had done Coke maybe twice before this, but every time it's just the powder movie shit that you see, you know. Yeah, it's garbage. It's garbage. So this stuff didn't even look the same. It was like a different drug. We go over, he's like, come over here. I look down and the bags are filled to the brim with pure cocaine shale rocks. And his brother was a whole- He had whole kilos? So I was thinking about this, you know, later and I'm like, why weren't they in keys? His brother was a wholesaler. So I think he's breaking them up and then people are coming, to meet him. So they weren't in keys, but they're shale rocks, literally this big, the size of my head. And he's just snaps off a big old chunk. He's like, now we're ready to go. All right. And you're 15? 16. I had just got my license two weeks before that. And this is the first trip I'm trying to take. So we take what was probably a half ounce of pure back with us. And I'm like, do you think your brother's going to notice? He's like, look at all this shit, dude. He's going to notice shit. I think he did that a lot. I think he probably noticed. Probably. That's bad. Well, whatever. That's the extras. I think he did it quite a bit. But yeah, so we take off, we head back to my house and we go inside and, you know, say, hey, what's up to my parents? And my parents are both police officers, you know? And I'm like, you know, I was raised in the police precinct since I can remember. I've been, you know, hanging out at, hanging out in the squad car at the police precinct. They're having their cop friends come over. And so I'm. You're a cop family. I'm a cop family. I'm seemingly probably going to be a cop when I'm older. You know, I'm so, it's such a part of my existence. I'm going on ride-alongs from the age of seven, you know? You can bet your ass some of those cops in Maple Valley were, popping perks. Oh, yeah. We'll get to that later. But there's quite a few dirty cops in Maple Valley, I come to learn. But yeah, I was quite literally raised in a police precinct. So doing all this stuff and getting involved in this life, it was complete polar opposite of who my parents had raised me to be. They, I was raised in the church. I was raised, you know, camping and riding bikes till the streetlights came on in the nineties era. In my opinion, the best time to be alive. Yes, it was. Just as technology starting to come just before the iPhone, like that was my time. And I really just took everything they taught me and squandered it. So we go in and we say goodnight to my parents and we immediately go downstairs and he wants to play a game. Like, okay, what's this game you want to play? Like, you got Scarface, right? You know, let's throw that bitch on. He goes, okay. So the game is, is every time Tony does a line in the movie, we got to do a line. oh boy and you're talking about no sort of tolerance to cocaine whatsoever i am i am struggling to keep up pretty quickly alex i mean he is he's surrounded by it every day so i could only imagine he's he's doing it regularly so his tolerance is through the roof he's doing it when tony aren't isn't even doing lines yeah like dude this is act one he's still a dish yeah exactly it hasn't even come into the picture yet but um so you guys are 16 year old boys and you're blowing lines of fish scale yep and obviously that i cannot keep up so he's just going line after line after line and i'm starting to feel a little funny and he notices he looks at me and kind of checks in with me he's like you doing all right brother yeah the feeling kind of passed i'm like yeah yeah i'm good he holds up the plate to do one more line i take that line back and everything goes black i start to hear the movies drift out and i am just in complete and utter utter darkness and i don't know how long i was out but when i come to he's holding my buddy alex is holding my neck i have a wet washcloth on my forehead and i have throw up all the way down my chest and i'm drenched in sweat apparently that one line was the one that did me in i immediately went out i was out for probably five maybe ten minutes and he's sitting there panicking because my parents two police officers are upstairs he's downstairs with their son od'd in their room with fish scale you know so yeah it's like pulp fiction exactly i got a dead bitch on my lawn exactly damn me and my friends were faggots compared to you we were fucking nerds we were playing nintendo 64 and trying to get a chick to give us a hand job right well we're trying to do that too but fucking blasting earthworms that's that's heavy duty buddy yeah yeah and your parents never found out so they eventually did find out about that situation because i told them um i was shortly after that i mean the next day after my overdose i'm sniffing cocaine again i'm struggling to breathe get a full breath and he's lining me up a line and i'm doing it but you liked it though i liked it i i never say that it was peer pressure he was always you know people in my world they always will kind of fuck with you a little bit like come on pussy do it but it was never peer pressure to me it was i was always curious i was in that life as a volunteer i wanted to be there i felt like i belong there you know even regardless of being raised by cops i felt like i belong there so yeah you are my age and we came up in the same era we come from the same part of the country the northwest and from portland oregon and you know i had it just from a socioeconomic level i i come from a even a more stable wealthy family than that you came up in right because your mom was a lawyer my dad was a lawyer my mom was an administrator at a hospital okay you know ohsu and so it was like we were surrounded with affluence and education and uh there's no blue collar people in my family you know right but i was taken the minute that i i put on doggy style i think i think older brothers gave it to a friend and he gave it to me and i was just i was enamored by the street street culture hip-hop black culture yep was that similar but i was i i think back to it now and it was like okay i was i didn't want to be a square like i looked at my parents and their friends in their world get up go to work just the routine and the monotony right as like i i don't want that life i'm right there with you yes okay that was exactly i i was right in that same space is rap music definitely a part of my life but i was definitely played a huge part and i again i don't like to say that things influenced me but i was absolutely fascinated with that life i love i when i graduated that's what i wanted to be i wanted to be a professional drug dealer okay you know what i mean i graduated high school but i had no plans or goals for the future i think a lot of that stemmed back to my back because after that first surgery it failed and i eventually had to get another and in another and when i got back to we can go into that in a little bit but i think a part of me was always thinking i have no future you know i i can't i can't work a job and stand on my feet for hours on end i can't um what am i gonna that's pretty much every job what am i what am i even gonna do so i think a part of me was almost like a slow suicide of some sort is i just cared about myself so little during that period of time and i think that's what i'm trying to do is i'm trying to that i was just a human receptacle you know any drug that came in my path i was doing it anything to get me to escape my skin for two seconds i'm gonna do it because for whatever reason i just always felt this hole inside of me and it wasn't until much later that i realized that opiates were the thing that filled that hole and that's what kept me there for so long for over almost two decades slow suicide that really is what drug abuse at your level right is yeah absolutely i mean how else can you think about it when you're you're doing gram shots of heroin and you know you're smoking crack and you're smoking weed and you're just taking it to the fullest extent just using anything and everything under the sun as i just look back and i'm just like why why you get a full gram and a needle just barely yeah and that's you have to do it with tar because it's so thick and viscous you have to be quick because you have to do it while it's still warm to be able to get it in there but yeah you could fit just about a gram into um you know just the regular size needles that we're using that is wild so you so you get the full draw the blood out yep get the heroin in and bam hit it yeah and people will say you can't it's hard to shoot black tar but i mean you can get any job done but yeah you just you can still see that little bubble fill up and you know you're in and you're off to the races yeah heroin was has always been big in the northwest you know from from skid row and la all the way up the i-5 to seattle and vancouver bc yep that's just a big trafficking corridor yeah and it was big and it was a big deal for me to be able to go to the streets of seattle and be able to go to the streets of seattle and be able to go to the streets black tar heroin you know downtown portland to seattle the kurt cobain grunge era yep you know it's a really rainy kind of depressing place yeah and uh yeah and opioids just kind of fit the environment yeah yeah they were the perfect medication for all all of those people even still i mean you see what seattle looks like now and it is i thought it was bad when i was going to the streets of seattle my goodness once they realized using drugs and selling drugs on small amounts and uh not being able to chase people in high high speed pursuits and all the drug dealers and all the fiends just immediately flocked to that area why wouldn't you worse i've been there in years oh yeah it mainly got worse after kovid yeah um just you know i think everywhere did but yeah that was really the straw that broke the camel's back is during covid um they had the big riots up there they had the pop district where the people cut off parts of the city and that's kind of awesome it was crazy time dude yeah but saying that they don't want these laws they don't want you know police enforcement but they're there with guns enforcing and a couple people end up getting murdered in there and sure um but yeah it was it definitely went downhill quick after so you wanted to be a professional drug dealer while you're doing all these drugs you could have been if you didn't do it you know that's the biggest key to blowing up in the hard drug game yep is just don't do it and you're going to be above you don't do your product and you're going to beat out 99 of the competition yeah absolutely because the profit margins like the profit margins are too insane not to you know like you're you're buying grams of heroin when i was picking up i'd pick up like a qp of heroin i'm getting it for like 12 bucks a gram and i can turn it around and i can turn it around and i can turn it turn around and bring it back to maple valley and sell it for 40 to 50 a gram yeah so you're bubbling like like you would bubble off of a couple pounds of weed just off of four little ounces of heroin so you talk would you see people like we would hear about guys in our neighborhood who had older siblings or knew somebody across town that like blew up in the game and i would hear that and i would just go like green with envy i'd be like he's he's making his doing this, like that's all I wanted to do. I fucking love that idea. Yeah, and those were the people that over time we started to – our jealousy and envy got so great that we're like, no, we'll just rob them and put them out of the game. Yeah. Because why not? When you're using hard drugs like cocaine and heroin, the line of your morality and what you're willing to do to get money and to get that drug in your system disappears real quickly. Yeah. I had a good friend of mine. He lived catty corner to my parents' house, and his dad was this really prominent, well-respected, super cool guy. He was a lawyer, well-respected lawyer, defense lawyer, but he was having an affair with this fucking meth head bitch on the side. And obviously she's fucking running around with all these other junkies and tweakers. Yeah. They went to rob him, and they fucking put a bag over his head, and they choked him to death and robbed him. Yeah. So a junkie down on their habit, especially with heroin. It's a dangerous thing. Yeah. Very dangerous thing. Yeah, that's why whenever they would send in like – this is not nice, but whenever like – when I was in county jail, whenever somebody that was coming off their – especially heroin high would come into the pod. Oh, it's brutal. They would immediately beat them up so that they would get shipped off. Like we don't want – we don't want anybody like that around us. No. No, it's horrific. It's horrific to watch. People just throwing up, shitting themselves, their skins crawling is the most painful thing I don't wish upon my worst enemy. It's horrific. And you were doing these things to just stay well. Right. You basically spent almost 20 years – Yep, exactly. Doing whatever it took to just not feel that feeling. Yep, yep. Yeah. And that will take you to some really dark places, you know. So you guys were robbing people and – Yeah, absolutely. Doing grimy shit. Grimy shit. And yeah, it progressed pretty quickly. Once I moved over to Maple Valley, I went to work for a big pill dealer there. There was only a few big ones at the time and I went to work for him. And I just – you know, just doing small, petty shit, just running. But he's pretty good. He's pretty big. He's slinging hundreds of 80s and, you know, he's doing his thing. But it doesn't take long for police to catch on to that. And sure enough, they stake out the house and pretty quickly bust one of the people leaving our house one day and get them to turn on him. So they set up this grand plan down at the Supermall to get him. They give the informant about 15 grand to buy a bunch of 80s. And he goes down there and luckily he got kind of a weird feeling from the guy. He gets the money and the guy's just talking really weird. He's talking like you're wearing a wire. Like, you know, all of those stereotypical things of trying to get information that they wouldn't normally ask. And he's like, something's up here. So he pretty much knows that he's going to get – something's coming any minute. So. He just does – he goes and meets his connect. And on his walk back, he throws a Hail Mary and stashes all the pills in a bush. Just, you know, we'll see. They'll probably – they're probably watching this. They're going to see it. Whatever. I'm busted anyways. So he goes back, hops in the car, and the guy's like, you got it? You got that shit? And as soon as he says yes, doors fly open, vans pull up, block him in. Cops are out with rifles pointed at his face. And sure enough, they go through all of the camera footage, all of the people watching the parking lot. And he disappears in the one spot where they didn't see. They brought dogs out. They never ended up finding those pills. So that was a fun night. I love it. Dude, you guys must have partied after that. Oh, my gosh. But the problem is, is now the connect's cooked. She can't get shit anymore. Mm-hmm. She was our biggest. We were our biggest connect. Like, we still have others that we can source through, but this really hit us hard. So at that point, there's just a giant drought, and their drug addiction is progressing. They're doing more and more. Needles start entering the picture. And I'm still staying away from that. I still have my firm line in the sand that I'm never going to shoot up, you know. But this is around the time that we start planning a pharmacy robbery, because pills are just getting scarce. You know, there's money to be made in the street, and we need a good amount, and we need them quick. But this is kind of where the drugs will start to skew your thinking process, is we're sitting there planning this pharmacy robbery. We pick a Leavenworth, Washington, way out in the middle of nowhere. Cute little town. Yep. It's still one of my favorite towns. Anyone can go visit that, Leavenworth Rules. With the fake Stonehenge? Yep. Yeah. Yeah, it's a cute little German town. But, yeah, up in the mountains, very unsuspecting. We figured that's a good place, because there's not—there's just not a big police presence there. So even if, you know, they are on to us, they're not going to—they're not going to catch us. We're going to disappear up into these hills real quick, and it'll be a breeze, really. Well, like a bad movie. I wake up the next morning, and they're gone. I was supposed to go. I'm fucking pissed, because I'm supposed to be part of this job, and they just went off and did it without me. I was going to be the getaway driver. Well, it turns out they go out there, and they do their thing. My buddy goes—one of my buddies goes in there, sticks the gun in the pharmacist's face, demands all the Oxycontin and all the cash in the drawer. And he comes out, and my buddy's sitting in the front seat trying to start a fight. Start the car, and it ain't starting. So immediately, they're like, all right, well, fuck. So they just take off on foot, leave the car there, and just, you know, they're running through the town, running all over. The police instantly track them down, instantly arrest them. So I'm sitting at home, like, it's been two days. Like, what's going on? They were supposed to be back today, when all of a sudden, the phone rings, and it just says inmate. Pick it up. We got rolled, dude. We're done. You dodged a bullet, though. Dodged a bullet. I mean, that was, like, divine intervention. They made that decision for me. What was the closest? Hey, it's Kelly Rowland. You may not know this, but I have eczema. So I get how it can steal your time. But why let eczema take over when you can talk to your doctor about Eblis? Eblis, labrakizumab LBKZ, a 250 milligram per 2 milliliter injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children with eczema. It can also treat children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. Eblis can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you are allergic to Eblis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Eblis. Before starting Eblis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Paid partnership with Lilly. Respect your time. Ask your doctor about Eblis and visit Eblis.com or call 1-800-LILLY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. Closest call to catching like a major felony while you were down on your habit. I would say. Besides dealing heroin and shit. Yeah, so there was this night that I was slinging weed. I had just moved back to the valley and I got a pretty good weed connect. He was pretty big in the game. His parents, I think, had started HempFest. So they were like generational hustlers. He put me on, started fronting me pounds, so I started slinging for him. And at the same time, I get my first PERC-30 connect. And that is through one of the parents of my friends. And I had never had my own personal connect like that. I was always going through someone else. So this was the first time. But I was actually able to get pills at like a really good price. And, you know, so I'm stoked. I instantly pick up a couple gram worth of pills. I got about a QP or like a half pound in the trunk. And back in the days, we used to keep our pills in these little silver. You can still see them at the pharmacy, but they sell these little containers that they have for your key ring. So you're out and about. You want to remember your medicine. But we used to always keep those on our key ring. So this one night I'm going out to drop off just a little dub sack to this guy. And little did I know his house is being washed. So me and my buddies, you know, I just run in there. They're just chilling the car. I run in there real quick, drop off the sack and we pull off, light up a blunt. Well, we're cruising down the back street and I look up in the rear view and I see that. I see those lights that, you know, he's like, those are, that's police lights. He hasn't lit me up yet, but I know it's coming. And so he waits, he follows us a little bit. I'm like, we're going to get pulled over, whatever, and just finish it up. But they eventually pull us over a little bit up the road, and they're instantly asking me questions that I don't have the answers to, and they're getting pissed instantly. So they are pulling me out of the car, slamming me on the hood. Where the fuck is the meth at? Where is it at? I'm like, I'm a weed dealer. I don't know anything about any meth. Well, apparently, the guy that I had dropped off the bag to was dealing in meth, so they had been staked out on his house for quite a while, and they thought that I was his connect. So they pull us out of the car, and they're slamming me on the hood repeatedly, trying to get me to give up the drugs that don't exist. Like I said, I have the half pound in the trunk, but I have my 30s, but they're on my key ring. And the whole time, I'm just watching the cop. He has me on the hood while the other one's going through the vehicle, and they're searching the vehicle, and they're not finding anything. They eventually pull down the back seat and get into the trunk, which I don't even know if it's legal you can do that. It's supposed to be a warrant to get into a trunk, but I always knew these things, having parents as cops. You start to learn how to get away with things, and these little barriers that you put in place, that's the reason I'm not a felon today, I feel like. I'm coming home, and they're telling me stories about how they arrested this drug dealer, or arrested that drug dealer, and what they did wrong. So all along the way, I'm learning what not to do, you know? So they're digging through the car. He goes into the back seat, finds the weed immediately. So I'm like, well, I'm screwed. But I'm just waiting for him to find that bottle on my key ring of the 50-30s. I think it was about 50. It was a couple grand worth. A lot. And that's a serious problem. That's a serious problem. It's a serious felony, because you're reselling medications at that point. So that would have been a weed charge with intent to distribute, and, you know, that, and smoking, you know, paraphernalia smoking. They dig through the car. They find that. But they don't find the pills. For whatever reason, they just—I mean, I think back then, who's going to look at the keys? They're just in the ignition. Something's a little fishy to me with these cops, because they're acting irate and, like I said, slamming me all over the hood. I know good police. I've been raised around police. Going on ride-alongs, I'd see good cops, and I would see bad cops. And just like any profession, there's good and bad of everything. So I started getting a weird vibe from these guys. Was it a real cop car? Real cop car. Real uniforms. Okay. Jackets over their identification. So I immediately asked, because they're taking the weed, and they're going to let us go. I'm like, what the fuck? Let me get your badge number, because the way they went about this whole thing was just ass backwards and completely unethical and really illegal. Let me get your badge number. He's just smiling at me and just shakes his head, gets in his car, and they both just take off. And they just took the weed. Took the weed and left. Oh, yeah. They got that off, buddy. Oh, yeah. So did you ever throw this one out? Hey, do you know my parents, they work for the Maple Valley Police. I have, yeah. I've used that one many times. Did it get you out of any jams? It's gotten me out of tickets plenty of times. See, what I would do is, like, if I get pulled over for speeding, and I'll still do it to this day, is, oh, I should know better. My parents are Seattle police officers. You know, just shit like that. Yeah. But with those pills, they didn't find them. They take the weed. They split. Well, I go back to my house that night, and I go open my pill bottle, because I'm trying to sniff a 30 and, you know, get well for the night and be good. It's empty. The whole thing's empty. I'm freaking out. I don't know what the fuck is going on, because now all my weed is gone, and now all my pills are gone. So I'm quite literally broke at that time. And I found out later that it was one of my buddies in the car that. When I was out, just leaned up, took all the pills and snatched it. And that was a regular thing in the Valley, is if you saw someone doing well and hustling, making money, you're all, like, we're trying to get next to them, or we're just straight up robbing them. You know, working your way in to just take what they have. Yeah, nobody's a friend. When everybody's that high and desperate, nobody's your friend. Absolutely not. That's how Kurt Cobain got killed. You know that, right? Oh, yeah. Anybody who thinks Cobain killed himself. Doesn't know the facts of the case. Yep. He was hit with a hot shot by his friends who were in the house with them, all of them junkies. The two different writings on the suicide note. For sure, for sure. I think there was no fingerprint on the shotgun. Totally wiped off. And he would have had to, like. Use his foot. Use his toe. Yep. Wild. And plus, there's now witnesses that have come out that say they saw him actually get hit. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. Is it Joseph Burns? Oh, okay. Yeah, I didn't know that. People can look the interview up. Full on, you know, missing all of his teeth. Okay, I know what you're talking about. But, I don't know. I watched it and I believed him. Isn't that the guy who was a musician? I think there was an English interviewer. Yeah, Kurt Cobain was the center of Nirvana. Right, no. I'm just kidding. Okay. But the guy who supposedly had seen something. Yeah, they were all like, you know, struggling artists. Right. And they were just leeching off Cobain. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that's fucking wild. But, yeah, no one's your friend. When it's like that, no one's your friend. And I didn't realize that until later. I mean, only through just constant beating down. It's like, no, he's my homeboy. And it just turned out he'd rob you, you know. And I would do the same. You know, I'm no better. I would do the same. And I think once you get to that point, that's all you know. You know what I mean? Well, your buddy was murdered, wasn't he? He was. Yeah. This is crazy. Tell that story. Yeah. So this is much later. This is actually how I end up getting off of heroin. This was kind of the catalyst to just really separate me from that life and, you know, push me towards where I am today. But, yeah, he had moved out to Yakima, and he was slinging heroin out there. And I don't know if you know anything about Yakima. Sketchy. But it's a wild place as well. And, you know, he's pretty big in the game, I'd say. You know, he's definitely slinging ounces. But, no, he's not a kingpin by any means. But he gets a call one day from just a regular junkie, you know, just for a couple hundred bucks worth of dope or something. And he goes to meet them and gets in the car, and they immediately pull a gun on him. They're like, give us your shit. And he ain't giving it up. Put that shit away. You ain't going to do shit with that, you little bitch. I think I was—I remember hearing that was his last words. And they weren't having it and shot him instantly in the chest multiple times. So now they're cruising around downtown Yakima with a body in the backseat, freaking out, not knowing what to do. So the best thing that they can think is to bring him back to his grandparents' house at the time and hide him under the porch for a month. And everyone had thought, like, the cartel got him because he's in Yakima. Cartel is heavy, Yakima, in Yakima. So we were like, it's got to be something like that, you know. He just disappeared. It just turned out to be some low-level piece-of-shit junkie who wanted to shoot him over $200 fucking dollars for nothing and then has the gall in, like, he said—again, it goes back to how skewed drugs can make your mind. He's able to go in each night with a dead body under his porch and go to sleep. And eventually he gets caught because the guy who was in the car with him can't take it anymore. He's just having nightmares, can't sleep, and eventually turns himself in and the killer in. And that's how they end up rolling up to his grandma's house and finding him under the porch. So after a month. After a month. And it was dead winter, you know. Oh, so maybe he wasn't that decomposed. Yeah, yeah. So they were able to— You know, still get some evidence off of him and stuff. But, yeah, that was really the time where I had just had enough. I couldn't live that existence anymore. But I wasn't done with the game. I was still in love with the game. I was still, like, just fascinated by it. Like, I still had things left to do, you know. Yeah, you were fascinated, even though you were sick all the time. Yeah. You were taken by it. Like, you considered yourself a hustler. Yeah. Yeah, but— Where we would never have—no offense—we would never have looked at guys like you like hustlers. Like, we were like, we're the—we're narcos. We're—of course, we weren't. But that's how we looked at ourselves. Like, we're drug—you know, we're real professional drug traffickers. Yeah. You guys are users. Right. And I got to that point eventually, but it had to be outside of dope. Right. It couldn't be outside of dope. couldn't be with hard drugs. OK. So back up. then tell me how it progressed into like heroin and you selling heroin yeah so that goes back to when i was living in the apartment i had just gotten my first weed connect and we're slinging weed out of that apartment and we pretty much took over that apartment complex this is a huge place and we're the main weed suppliers of that place but little did i know there's also multiple other apartments over there that are just filled with heroin junkies and they want weed too so being an opiate addict i go over there and you know first i'm just slinging them bags i'm getting my money but eventually they start asking me if they can trade dope for weed and i start doing it here and there until i'm doing it every day and at this point i'm not shooting up i'm just sniffing it so what you do is we just take a little chunk of the tar and you'd put it in one of those afferents spritz bottles throw some water in there and shake it up until it dissolves and you just spritz it throughout the day so it started with that and um every other day to every day and i'm still using other opiates i'm still using pills and different things to stay well but really this is when heroin took the front seat is after all those pills got taken from me and i lost everything i saw no i was like this there's no good going forward from here you know what i mean i was so down and so low um that that was the first time that i actually shot up is i was just wallowing in my sorrows and uh once i had done that it was like i had finally filled that hole that i was talking about within myself and right then i was off and running and You were like, this is the high. This is the high. Because it made me feel comfortable in my skin. It made me feel like a human. I always felt like, oh, man, I wish I knew what they felt like. I wish I knew what it was like to feel human. And once I did heroin, it sounds completely ass backwards because you're nodding out and you're a complete degenerate. But internally, that hole was filled. And that's what I continued to fill that hole with until the day I decided to call it quits. But when I was in that, man, I started out sniffing. And then I got to shooting. And first, you're shooting with just little half grams. And you're moving up to a little bit more. And before you know it, you're doing gram shots four or five times a day. How did you know what your tolerance level was? I guess you just feel it out, right? Yeah. I mean, you're taking a risk no matter what. Yep. Yeah, you just, you pretty much just take, yep, you just kind of dose it out. You start really small and like, okay, that didn't really do it. And you do a little bit more and a little bit more. But the thing about heroin that I think a lot of people don't realize is once you gain a tolerance, like Kurt Cobain, they're like, he had five times the legal limit in his system. But once you're doing heroin regularly, you're really just staying well. At a certain point, you're barely even getting high anymore. So you can do four grams a day, but you're barely nodding out anymore. You're just maintaining. Could any of your, because obviously you're hanging around with other dope shooters now, right? Oh, yeah. That's it. Like everybody's in the house together shooting up. Yeah. Did any of you guys maintain jobs? Some fiends maintained jobs, but if we were selling, and no one, I was around who was selling, was maintaining a job. I just asked because we've interviewed a lot of drug dealers from Baltimore and they say, because on the East Coast, there was a lot of, you know, China white, Afghani heroin. Yeah. And a lot, believe it or not, a lot of the users were functional. Yeah. You know, they come through in the morning, a bus driver comes through, you know, gets his little $10 bag. Sure. Stays up the rest of the day. Yeah. And then at night, he comes. He comes back and gets another one. But I don't know that black tar was like that. I mean. I think it just depends on the person, really. It really depends on the person and how bad you're in it. Because some people, if you're an alcoholic, you can control it. You can be a functioning alcoholic and still go to work each day. I remember one of my ex-girlfriend's moms, like she would drink almost a fifth of vodka every night and held a job at Boeing for like 30 years. She was a pilot. Like, no issues. So, I think it's really a personality thing. Yeah. But being so young, people had piddly jobs anyways. Right. So, really, some people would, but a lot of times, they're, that's when we start running scams, like you get a bank account and then you're scamming your bank, you know, and just destroying any sort of opportunities you might have in the future as far as jobs. Right. You know? Because your heroin invites sex. Yeah. And so, you know, you start getting money, you start, you're getting felonies, you're destroying your credit, your, you know, every aspect of your life is now starting to have roadblocks, so now you are even more trapped in that life. And I think that's what keeps a lot of people there, honestly, is they see the mountain of things in front of them, and they're not looking at one single thing as a step towards getting out of that life. They're like, I've fucked so much up already, I might as well just stay in this hell. Right. What's the point? Mm-hmm. Right. And another part of that is, I think, the shame that is given to, that is put on people for using drugs to get off drugs. Like, I see nothing wrong with getting, using methadone to get off heroin or using suboxone to get off heroin, but there's certain groups who are so strict about the cold turkey. And, you know, just all or nothing. And I think that's what keeps a lot of hardcore addicts in the life, because they're like, so I could never smoke a bowl of weed again for the rest of my life, or else I'm supposed to be some degenerate? Mm-hmm. And that's kind of some realizations I had to come to once I was out of it, is I smoke weed. You know, I'm able to have these things in my life. Because I know myself. I know that it's not going to lead me down a dark path and bring me right back to heroin. Mm-hmm. But if it did start bringing me to a place where I'm starting to question if I can handle this, guess what the first thing I'm going to be quitting is, you know? Yeah. So I think the mountain in front of people and then, you know, just no sort of leniency as far as the general public on, you know, no, you can, you know, you can still live your life as long as you're a productive member of society. And like me, I was able to get out of the game, get a wife of 13 years, have two kids, get a career. Like, I did that through a stepping stone of getting out of that life. I was on heroin, then I went to methadone, then I went to Suboxone, then I went to Kratom, then I went to nothing, or just using weed to help me with my pain. Oh, you got a ketamine too, right? Yeah. I was more for the mental side of things because four years ago, I had finally decided that I wanted to be opiate-free completely. And because that whole time I was on Suboxone. And when you're on Suboxone, it's, if you're taking it properly, it gives you a stable life. It doesn't, I'm not taking my medicine early. It has a plateau effect, so you can't take more than a certain amount. You can't take other opiates. When you're on it, because they fill up your receptors, so they're instantly going to not do anything to you. So it kind of puts those barriers in front of you to not use again. And it wasn't until I made that decision to get on that, that I really took off. But when you're taking it for 13 years, you're like, I think this is also negatively affecting me. Well, you can abuse anything. You can abuse any one of those things. Like I had a friend who got addicted to Kratom really bad. Right. And like he had to go detox and he had to go to a full on like 12-step program to kick the thing that heroin addicts use to get them off heroin. Right. You know? Yeah, I think. So it's tricky. It is very tricky. And that's where I was kind of saying is like everyone is so different and to have a one size fits all for all of society. It's not going to work. Especially with the more hardcore addicts. Yeah. You know? People who have lived in the streets doing those kind of horrific things to people and doing horrific things to themselves. That's a whole different level of addict in my opinion than an alcoholic. Because when I went into rehab, I didn't want to hear shit what an alcoholic had to say. It's like you've never been on heroin. You've never been in the streets like putting a gun to someone's, you know, putting a gun to someone to get… Pills. Like, maybe. But it's very few and far between. So I just felt that… I couldn't relate to those type of people. And really, if I wanted to get help, I had to get advice from someone who's been in my shoes to really give me the roadmap on how to get out of this. I see that you still have, like, I think I see them on your arm, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I still have some scars. Damn, that's fucking wild. So you shoot in both arms? Do you have a favorite arm? Yeah, there's this bad boy right here. But, yeah, both arms until they were both gone, and then you start going to your legs, and then you start going to your feet, your neck, and then your femoral, eventually, which is in your crotch. I was going to ask you that, the big old vein. Do you actually put it in the shaft? No, you go right in the wedge of where your leg and your shaft are, your balls, right in the wedge. But, yeah, I mean, it's a giant vein. But, yeah, once you deplete everything, that's all you got left. So that's how it gets real grimy. And you got to that point. Yeah, absolutely. Fuck. When I finally decided to leave my buddy's house, who I was living there and I was slanging, when I finally decided to leave, I had been put on. I was getting fronted ounces of dope. I had a good connect. I was making money. I was still using, so I was making a ton of money. But I was maintaining gas in the gas tank, food in my belly, buying some clothes here and there. I'm good. You know, I got my dope. I'm good. And you go to Seattle to re-up? Yeah. Or where's the connect? Seattle. Always Seattle. If you're going to get it for any sort of good price, that's where you're going. Okay. But I have the dope fiend's dream. I have everything in front of me. And I have a needle filled with dope, and I'm trying to shoot up in my neck. And I can't get anything because all of my veins are gone. Everything is gone. And I have. I have the drugs, but I can't even get them in my system. That's how far I've gotten. And I'm just on my knees bawling like a little bitch. And that was the time that I finally took my parents up on their offer of, when you're ready to come home and change, we'll be here waiting. And that's when I finally decided to go home. Eblis, labrakizumab LBKZ, a 250 milligram per 2 milliliter injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis, that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. Infections can occur that can be severe. Respect your time. And that was it? That was the last time you used? No. Oh, okay. Nope. Nope. I still had more in my system that I had to get out. That's fucking. So what do people that don't have good families and they don't have any veins left, do they just start skin popping it? Yeah, you can muscle it. Jesus Christ. And when you're muscling black tar, that's no bueno because it's so thick and viscous that you'll start getting abscess under your skin. It won't dissolve into you. Boils, right? And then those things will bust open. I've had friends lose limbs. My buddy lost half his ass. His cheek from muscling in it. Yeah. Yeah, it gets real dark. Did you see anybody from your old neighborhood as a teenager that you started off with doing pills and doing coke and smoking weed? Did you see any of them like later on just like you? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I would see a couple of my buddies. I remember seeing my buddy. I hadn't seen him for maybe two years or something. And he was, you know, a known heroin addict forever. But he had messed up his body so bad that his legs were literal balloons. Right. And I come in and he's still trying to shoot up in his legs. And he ends up having to get one of them amputated. Yeah. That is dedication. Yeah. Tell me about it. It's just so fascinating as a city kid. Like, we knew that this kind of culture and addiction existed. But it was always like in Portland, it was always people living. It was always people living under a bridge, homeless in downtown, but that's just like a fraction of it. It's people in these ancillary communities living in apartments, you know, living in regular neighborhoods that are doing this. Yeah, absolutely. And you think about it, it's like all of those street people had to be somewhere prior to that. A lot of my buddies ended up there. One of my best friends ended up homeless on the streets of Seattle. And he would do good for a long time. I would be regularly in contact with him. He'd get a job and work in as a firefighter. But then he'd fall off again and would be homeless again. And he'd do good. And so just years of begging him to get better once I'm out of the life. And this is just one situation. Just constant phone ringing. Oh, another one's dead. To the point where it ended. And I think 30 some odd people that I was close to, like really close to in that life, ended up dead. And then 50 outside of that from classes 04, 05, 06 is just a whole generation of kids just gone. A whole generation of Americans. Yeah. Because you're talking about the whole country. Yeah, absolutely. And this is before Narcan. Yes. It's before we knew about it. Like how to revitalize somebody ODing. Yeah. So they would, you just, you know, guppy up like a fish that just got hooked. Oh, yeah. We had a buddy. We had someone OD in my house one time. And we're talking like 15, 20 minutes. He's not waking up. And we are freaking out to the point where we pick him up. And we're like, we got to go to the hospital. His lifeless body. We pick him up out from our apartment and carry him down the stairs in our apartment complex. And I don't know. If you've ever carried dead weight before, but it ain't easy. And we get him, finally get him in the car and we're going to the hospital and we're just going to, you know, just drop them off on the curb and take off like you see in the movies. Right. And as soon as we pulled under that covered part to those front sliding doors to the hospital, he pops up and like, yep. Back from the dead. But okay. We're good. Yeah. Let's get back to it. Just circle back to the apartment. What do we do? Go back and shoot up more dope. But were there any droughts? Yeah. What does a junkie like that do in the drought when there's no heroin? So mainly the droughts would be with the pills. So it was always the pills were the drought because a connect would get busted or someone would lose their doctor or something like that. That was always the droughts. And I'm sure you know about the weed droughts. We would have that as well. Heroin, there were droughts, but really it never went away. It was always available. The difference would be the price. The price would just go up. So, you know, it's never gone, but people have made some real good money in those times. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've told you about the book that I just finished reading, The Fort Bragg Cartel, and it's a bestseller last year and it's about special forces soldiers, Delta Force specifically. Right. And these are the biggest killers, the most black ops group unit within the special forces. And basically these guys for years, after we went into Afghanistan and ran the Taliban off during the late Bush years, these guys were fucking bringing pure heroin from the Kandahar Air Force Base in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan and flying with it back to North Carolina. Yeah. That's wild. And then when they, a couple of them end up just getting murdered because they threatened to like, you know, the military fuck with them. Yeah. And so they're like, oh, we're going to go, we're going to make this public about what's happening. And then they just wind up with their fucking wig split. Just disappear. And then the FBI goes in as the military police are investigating this. They march into Fort Bragg and they start ripping out. All the hard drives, wiping all the computers. Whoa. This is all fact. So this is, they, they knew at a much higher level. Like a general. So yeah, they're. Like generals and people high up in the military. They're playing damage control. That's right. So just, and if I would have heard that 15 years ago, I'd be like, nah, that's bullshit. It's just a couple of bad apples. But now with what we saw with the Epstein files and they're flat out, Kash Patel, head of the FBI is refusing to release the file. No, you just totally believable. Totally makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. After saying he was going. to for months and months. And then you get in there and there's nothing. Well, they passed a law. Right now, they're breaking the law by not redacting and releasing all the files. Yeah, it's wild. And I think things like that have been going on a long time as far as the government's complicity in drug trafficking. I mean, you go back to Frank Lucas and Barry Seale and all of these different situations where I think Barry Seale, he had a Clinton's number in his pocket or something when he got hit, something crazy like that. But yeah, I think they've been playing a much bigger role in that than they would ever like to admit. But then we also have the legal market of the big pharma, which are the ones that flooded our streets with this to begin with. Right. And no sort of repercussions to the Sackler family for what they did. They made hundreds of millions of dollars. Billions of dollars. Yeah, billions of dollars and just have to pay a fine, a little slap on the wrist. And I'm talking about 30 of my close friends are dead. And this is all mainly the oxy era. So this is all around that. And to think that doctors also didn't know what they were doing when they were prescribing those hefty opiates is, in my opinion, ridiculous. Because doctors are trained to know what opiates are. They're trained to know what different milligrams and the strength of different things are. They know. And to think that this is some new opiate that's less addictive is what the wording they put on OxyContin is a less addictive opiate, which is complete bullshit, is 10 times more addictive, is we're just looking at legal drug trafficking right in front of our faces. And no repercussions for them doing that. You give it away. You give it away. You give an 80 milligram Oxy to a 15-year-old. Right. And you expect them to not go off on the path that I went off on. All the pain issues aside, it's going to happen. What was it about the rest of your friends? All these 30 friends who died, they didn't all have back pain. No. What was it? It's something about the emptiness, the meaninglessness of the suburbs. That's my theory, is that the suburban America, for generations, has just been driven by consumerism and there's no unifying culture aside from just buying things and making money. There's no public spaces. You can't walk anywhere. I don't know. It's just a theory of mine, but I think- Yeah. I think there's definitely something to that. I think also just being so rural, lack of things to do, and boredom really took hold. And then having lots of money, having parents with lots of money, and that's kind of the perfect storm for a kid. If idle hands are the devil's workshop, you're going to get into some mischief. Right. And I don't necessarily know what it was about my friends that caused them to go down that path. I can't speak for them on that, but I do know that that had to have played a part. Is boredom, always played a part in mine, is a lot of my drug use started out of boredom, started smoking weed out of boredom. Just not having any sort of structure in my life. I just was never a team sports kid. So once I got into skateboarding, it was a very solo thing. So I guess time goes on, people just kind of find those things about themselves that they don't like, and they try to bury it with drugs. I think another big aspect, and I didn't realize this until I left the Pacific Northwest, and maybe you can speak to this as well, is being in the sun regularly. I never realized how much I was fighting depression, seasonal depression, until I was actually out of it. You can vacation all you want, but until you live outside of that, you just don't understand. So I think maybe that also has something to do with it. It's ingrained in that environment up there. Yeah, totally, totally. People in bad weather, cultures in bad weather either invent a lot of stuff, like Northern Europeans, they say it's because they're stuck inside nine months a year, so they're coming up with electricity. Or yeah, you're drowning your sorrows away in booze and heroin. Your parents, I mean, God bless them. Did they ever, did you ever get arrested and they had to come bail you out or anything like that? Or did you keep your business separate from them? So after I moved out, it was very separate from them. I never got arrested after becoming an adult. But when I had first started selling cocaine, I was bringing a couple ounces of coke back from Maple Valley to Ellensburg, where I was living. And Ellensburg's a college town. If you can't get coke off in that town, you have some serious issues, or any drug, really. I started out doing that, and the kids there had never seen anything like that coke before. Were you getting that good shale coke from your boy? Yep. I was getting that shit and bringing it over. Killing them. And I'm letting them get little bumps off the good shit, and then I'm cutting it and selling them some cut shit so I can stretch my mind further and make more money. But yeah, eventually, things are running. I got my little operation going. I think I'm king shit with a little digi scale and a couple ounces of coke slinging. And one night, I meet my connect. He actually drove out to meet me in Ellensburg, and I pick up my shit, and I go to my buddy's house because I was already starting to learn to separate things. And don't keep my drugs at home. So I got to find some place to keep it. So my buddy was holding all my shit for me. So I would always, at the end of each night, after going to meet my people, I'd go back to his house, and I'd drop it. Well, one night, I go back to his house, and he's like, "You want to come in, kick it for a little bit?" "Sure, what's up?" I go in, chop it up, and we just start tossing back some drinks and smoking blunts and hit a few lines. And I'm like, "All right, man. I think I'm going to split." So I decide I'm going to go home and figure it's a good idea to drive after doing multiple lines and pounding back a bunch of drinks. And I take off into the night, and I'm on a country back road, and it's an icy back road in the middle of nowhere. And I don't know how it happens, but the truck just starts fishtailing. And I'm in my parents' brand-new Suburban they had bought maybe like six months earlier. And before I know it, that bitch is, boom, up in the air, and I'm flipping down the middle of the road. Probably four times, I end up in the ditch. Yeah, so I come to, and no scrape on me. I have no idea how. I mean, I guess being drunk, they say, helps. But I'm in my parents' brand-new Suburban, and I'm in my parents' brand-new Suburban, and I'm flipping down the middle of nowhere. I'm booking, but I'm just running on pure adrenaline. And I eventually get maybe like a half mile down the road. And I'm like, I can't go anywhere. Like, where am I going to go? I can't do anything. So I do the best thing that came to mind, and that was to call my dad. Like, maybe he'll get me out of my bad decision making. Maybe he'll, you know, I don't know. I don't know what I'm thinking. I'm drunk. I'm high on cocaine and drunk at 16. Just not thinking clearly but he comes down there and I gotta hand it to him man he he really he struggled for a minute he wanted to take it away from me and be like okay I was the one driving you know yeah um I'll take the blame insurance will cover it we'll get the car will get taken care of everything will be good but he saw me in my state and was like no no I can't I gotta let you ride on this one. So he literally sat there, called, he called the police and sat there and waited for the police to come and arrest me. Good. Yep. Good man. Good man. Yeah. So they come and arrest me. I don't have to do any time in jail really for that, but I'm still not done. I'm still trying to feed my clients back in Ellensburg. So they, they keep me on a short leash for a little bit. I'm just chilling at home, but eventually I conned them into letting me go back to Maple Valley and get right back to it. But my dad's going to work each day. See, he's commuting from Ellensburg to Seattle, which is like a hundred and some odd miles, like a long distance. So he's commuting and he's just, Maple Valley's on the way. So I'm just like, hey, you know, he just starts dropping me off there every weekend, every Friday. And then every Sunday on his way, you know, once he's done with his shift, he comes back and picks me up on his way through. Well, I don't have a license because mine got suspended and I have to have a way to get my drugs back to Ellensburg. So I start, yeah. So I start hiding them in my backpack and having my dad unknowingly traffic cocaine over the mountain pass for me, you know. It's perfect cover though. You can't be that mad, dad. You're a cop. He taught me how to get away with it. In his cop car? No, he didn't get to take the squad car home, but. But yeah, so really pushing the limits on where I felt like I could operate. But that eventually reaches ahead because one night we're partying at my house when my parents are off at work. I have some people from Ellensburg over and we're up at my house and we're sniffing lines and we're drinking. And I get into my parents' safe because I want to carry their gun around. I think I'm some Billy Badass gangster and, you know, in their nice big house up on the hill. I think I'm some gangster and I want to walk around strapped up. So I get their gun out and, you know, I'm just chilling at the party. We're doing lines. We're knocking them back. And a couple of girls who are there get a call and their ride's here to pick them up. So they're going home. And my buddy finds out who it is and he's immediately irate. He is going crazy like, Oh, bring that motherfucker out here. What are you talking about? He's down there. Let's go. Let's go down there right now. So we go down there with the girls. The girls are like, You know, we don't want you to come. We just want to leave. So we get down there and the guy's waiting for him. Well, it turns out they have major beef, him and my friend. And in my cocaine-fueled state, I'm sitting in the truck watching them yell at each other. And he's like, get out of the fucking car. Get out of the car. And the kid's not getting out of the car. So I grab my gun off and I go out and I put the gun up to the window. I'm like, get out of the car. And immediately he just slams on the gas and takes off on me. And I'm like, okay, well, I guess that's the end of that. Wrong. He went home and told his parents. And they immediately called the police. And I had the police at my doorstep the next day. So we concoct this whole lie, me and my buddy, about how it wasn't a gun. It was a cell phone. You remember those old Nokia cell phones that look, it's just a brick. It's like, no, it was a cell phone. I was holding it like this to try to intimidate him. It wasn't anything. Like, that's not what happened. And so he's going to go along with the story with me. And I think he's going to hold up his end because his family's, he grew up in the foster system, but his family was, like, connected in Seattle. Like, gang members. My dad is arrested. He's arrested his dad before because he's so well-known in that area. His dad's, like, a local crack dealer. So my dad's literally arrested his family members before. So I think, like, he's going to have my back. This is going to be nothing for him. He's going to hold his mud, yeah. Yeah. So we get my lawyer in to kind of run through what we're going to go through in court. And he immediately folds. He immediately folds. Like, yeah, yeah, he had a gun. Yep. He had a gun. And I don't know. I didn't have anything to do with it. And just immediately throws me under the bus. So I have to face the music on that. What's the charge? So my lawyer was able to talk it down to unlawful display of a firearm in the second degree, I believe is what it was. So a very minuscule charge. I think it bypassed a felony. It was still, you know, very low level. But now I was on probation. And, well, I was on probation from my DVR. And I had violated now my probation with that gun charge, you know. So I'm just getting into all sorts of trouble just back to back. And now I'm quickly coming up on graduating. And after that, I have no plans. Like I said, when I graduated, I wanted to be a drug dealer. And so the first thing I do, I turn 18 and I go back to Maple Valley. And I start my life there. That's where the heart is. Hey, it's Kelly. Kelly Rowland. Respect your time. Hustling began. Yep. Damn. Shocks some, but more people didn't get shot or killed. Me too. Yeah. One of our main connects, he ended up getting shot. Someone, or he wasn't our connect. He was one of the other main hustlers in the town. There was like three or so, but yeah, someone, again, just didn't like that he was making money and went to his house to rob him one night, knocked on his door, and the guy, he wasn't giving it up, ended up shooting him a couple times in the chest and took off, and that murder has still never been solved. Damn. Yeah. And older, like I said, it was kind of a passing of the torch. Yeah. And prior to me even getting in the game, one of my close friends' older brother disappeared. He apparently had owed a bunch of money to some people from Maple Valley, not any sort of gang members or anything, just some low-level hustlers again. And they find his car one day in a school parking, the Chinook school parking lot. There's like a half-eaten. There's an Egg McMuffin in there, and it's just his wallet's in there, and just everything's laid out there, and they never saw him again. Never found him. Never found him. His name's Austin Renshaw. They're still trying to solve his case. They've had the news cover it, and yeah, they desperately want their boy home. Well, he's gone. He's not coming back. But just some sort of closure. They want some sort of closure to it to know what happened to him. I mean, they can kind of piece it together. They know he was involved in drugs. They know he was involved in drugs and the people that he was involved with. But yeah, that stuff was happening in this tiny little nothing town. Right. That reminds me of like the movie Alpha Dog. Absolutely. Like that's based off a true story. Right. And I think there were like Orange County, you know, suburban shitheads. Alpha Dog to a T, brother. Right. Like white boys didn't need to fucking carry on with any of this. They should have been going to college, but they're wearing wife beaters, and they're like thugging. Yep. And they fucking kidnap a guy and then, you know, you've seen Alpha. Everybody's seen Alpha Dog and they fucking murder him. Yeah. And now everybody's doing life. Yep. And that main guy, I forget his name. I think his name was Johnny too, maybe. But he goes on the run. He gets out and he goes to like Paraguay for like five years. Right. You know? Right. Yeah. When you're involved at that level, man, it can only end one of two ways. Or I guess three ways. You either OD, you get killed, or you go to prison. Or you're like me and you somehow get killed. You somehow find your way out. Yeah. But I think that kind of, you know, being willing to take it there and you're not like involved in a cartel in Mexico. Like you're willing to take it to fucking murdering a guy over money in a leafy suburb like Maple Valley. It's, you're making a choice, but you're posing. Exactly. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, you make, everybody makes your reality. Your reality is what you make of it. But poor, poor choices. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. But yeah, eventually I found my way out because my back was still fucked up. You know? I ended up going to rehab. I, the first time, my first stint in rehab really didn't work. I ended up going right back to Maple Valley and getting right back to it. My second stint in rehab was my choice. And I went to a place called Teen Challenge. And I was supposed to do a year in Teen Challenge. It started on the East Coast, I believe. But it's a really good program because what they do different than other rehab facilities is they have your day more structured like your day would be if you're a normal contributing member of society. Right. So they own different businesses. Teen Challenge does. So you're going to classes in the morning and then you're going to work for an eight-hour shift. And then you're coming back, you're doing your, you know, your other classes that you need to do. But it's really to try to get you into what everyone else is doing. As you live on the wrong side of the law for so long, you're just, you don't even know how to function in society. Right. So I end up going to Teen Challenge, but it doesn't last very long because I'm still dealing with a lot of back pain. And while doing that, I go to a chiropractor one day in Teen Challenge. And they hook me up to this machine and it's this new technology. And it's this new technology of like a decompression, and they're pulling, they wrap this thing around my waist and they're pulling on my waist and I just hear this loud pop and the most excruciating pain after that, that I've ever felt in my life came and I was instantly in tears, didn't, you know, didn't know what to do. There was no way I was going to be able to stay at Teen Challenge and not, you know, take medicine at that point. Um, so my parents pulled me and they're looking. in every single option Because I got an MRI and they saw, okay, yeah, I know your disc is completely ruptured and it's bone on bone. God damn. And you're a teenager and we really don't want to do surgery on you a third time is pretty much what they were telling me through, you know, not telling me. They're like, well, you could do a fusion, but really it's going to be painkillers for the rest of your life. My parents were just not willing to accept that. And that's when my dad just went on a research bender and ended up finding that Germany had been doing complete disc replacements for years prior to that and had had great success with it. And it was looking like that might be my only option. Of course, we were going to have to pay out of pocket and it was going to hurt, but they were willing to do that to give me my life back. And they did exactly that. I went over, I got my surgery. And the whole time. I'm still a fiend. So I'm getting my pills from the doctor in Germany and I'm going to the kitchen. I'm like, you guys got any foil in here? And they're like, they don't even know what I'm saying. Like the foil. I'm like, oh yeah. So I get some foil from them smoking my pills and I'm stealing needles out of the hospital wing, stealing dirty needles and shooting up my pills when I'm there. The couple of weeks that I'm there. And this is after heroin. This is after heroin. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So surgery goes great. I just didn't know it yet because I was still so high on pain pills all the time that, you know, I didn't give myself a second to get down to actually feel what my base level pain was. So I get out and I get out and that's when I find my doctor and I get on, I get on methadone and that helps me for a little bit. But again, the junkie in me just goes right back to doing it and I start shooting up my methadone and I start abusing that medicine and really just going right back to all of the stuff that I had just spent forever trying to climb out of. So at that point, it was kind of, I was reaching, a lot of things were coming to a head. So my doctor was starting to put. He put it in my head, like, maybe you should switch to Suboxone. Suboxone, I think, would be much better for you. I think you would fare much better long term. I think you could start getting a wrangle on your life. And I wasn't trying to hear it at that time. But eventually, I, again, just like going to rehab, you have to want to change. And I was ready. And I knew that that was going to be the first step towards change for me. And it truly was. Because as soon as I got on Suboxone, my life took off and I was able to actually, you know, do some things. That's when I started my weed operation in Ellensburg. I was finally not wasting all my money on pills. And I get a call one day from one of my junkie buddies and he's like, you trying to come up on a little lick? I'm like, what are we talking about here? He's like, you don't got to do nothing. All you got to do is be the driver. I'm like. Okay, well, you know, what are we getting? He's like, I know where I get a 10 grand and a bunch of guns. I'm like, say less. I'm on the way. So I go and scoop him up and we go to his girlfriend's house, who he's been staking out. Oh, fuck. Yep. She's like, parents just left. Yep. The house should be empty. So he goes in and gets everything, comes out. And he's still a junkie at this point. I had just switched to Suboxone. So I'm starting to break away. I'm starting to separate myself from these people. So he gives me my half, man of his word, gives me like five grand and gives me half the guns. I take my half and I buy a QP and I sell off all my guns. And in that, I just was sleeping on the couch at the college. And like I said, it's a college town. If you can't sell weed, there's something wrong with you. So I just start working my way up, you know, just selling, you know, just little dubs and work my way up to ounces. And before I know it, I'm able to, you know, I'm selling, I'm up to like five pounds. It's still very low in the game, but I have like four people working for me. I'm dropping off pounds. Well, he, that guy finds out that I'm slaying in weed now. And it's been a few weeks since, I mean, it's been a couple months since we did the burglary. And again, if you're making money, people are going to hate. So he calls me out to. Pick up a QP one day. And I drive way out into the country to meet him. And it's down this long, I'm talking the middle of nowhere. And I just see this lone truck waiting for me. I'm like, okay, this must be him. So I go up and immediately he's acting weird. He gets in my car and he's just kind of not getting to business. He's just like, just smooth talking. I don't even know what he's doing. He's just talking about nothing. So I'm like, okay, well, you got the money or what? And as soon as I said that, he reached over on my lap and grabbed the bag off it and jumped out of the, jumped out the door and took off and jumped in the truck. And before I can even think of what I'm doing, I'm out my door and I'm sprinting after him. I jump on the back of the truck and they just take off. We're flying like 35, 40 miles an hour down a gravel road. And I'm barely hanging on because my feet are dragging this whole time. I finally pull myself up just enough to look. I'm over the tailgate and I just see a 357 pointed right at my face. His hands through the window pointed right at my face. And I'm just like, and I just let go and just, ow, yeah, took a tumble. But what's really funny is the driver of that truck was the same kid that I pulled the gun on years earlier. So talk about karma coming full circle in the end and really coming back to pay me a visit on my doorstep. Did you ever go find him? Did you ever go see? No, I never saw him again. He called me a couple of weeks later and apologized probably because he was withdrawing and was like, I got another big lick we can do. Come on, man. I'm like, dude, I'm slaying it. I'm making good money. I was like, I don't need your fucking little licks now. I was like, I'm making money. You go do that shit. You know, I never, I never saw him again. I'm sure he'll see this, but if he's alive, yeah, if he's alive, but yeah. So I slowly build my business up in Ellensburg, slinging weed. And like I said, I get about four workers. I'm picking up for about three to 35, and then I'm selling them. I'm dropping them off on front to my people for about 45. So I'm just, you know, it's all on front so that I can get away with making it a little bit more expensive. But it's selling no problem. So I'm easily able to grow really quickly and pretty much take over Ellensburg. I'm sure there were some other people out there, but I had my little area on lock. And I start squirreling away money, and eventually I'm doing pretty good. I stash away about 20, 25 grand. At this time, because I've sold those guns, I start buying and selling guns on this website called seattleguns.com. And it's almost like the Lord of War situation or War Dogs situation where they would just cruise the government sheets and try to find the low deals that no one wants to deal with. And that is like no one's. I'm looking at these. But you can really get, you can make some money if getting a bunch of those little ones together. So that's what I do. I just look for people selling an AK or an AR or, you know, a 1911 or something for a couple hundred bucks because they're desperate, scoop it in because they'll go quick, and then just reselling them. But at that point, I became the gun guy. Whoa. So people are all bringing, you know, people are bringing me stolen guns. Yeah, and it's Washington, rural Washington. There's guns everywhere. Again, if you can't get rid of guns, like, there's something wrong with you. And you know all the junkies still bringing you guns. Yep, yep, yeah, exactly. You know, people doing burglaries and, you know, bringing me shit. But how long did you do the gun thing for? So I ran my operation, you know, all the way up until I met my wife. And I was probably doing it about a year. I was selling weed and selling guns. And the gun thing was like, I suggest it to anyone, you know, because you can still, you know, make some pretty good money on that, of going to gun shows and just buying and reselling. So, you know, if there's criminals like me who didn't have any idea of what to do, you know, of once you get out of the life, you know, there's things like that. And that's kind of where I started to lean into. So did these guns have serial numbers on them still? Stolen ones, no. And you were still able to sell those on Seattle Guns? No, that is a different, that's a different person. I would have to go to my, like, We Connect or someone else to get off. All my stolen goods. So it's only a felony. It's only illegal if you're knowingly buying it from somebody and you know it's stolen. Right. Or accepting stolen property, I guess, right? Yeah, but I think you could still get into some, I think that you would have a pretty good argument right there. That's what I mean. They could arrest you, but it's murky because they would have to prove that you knew for sure that it was hot. Right. Because you're operating only off a bill of sale. You're not, it's not like I'm doing a background check on these people. that I'm selling the gun to or they're doing one to me. I could be a felon. picking up guns. They have no idea. So it does operate on a bit of a trust barrier because what I would do is just a bill of sale that lists, I, you know, so-and-so sell this gun with this serial number to this individual for this amount. Now, were you worried about the ATF? Like, does your name go into a system when you post a gun on seattleguns.com? Not that I know of. Because these are already, these are resold on the private market. It's not like you're buying them from the gun store. Right. So I wouldn't think, I wouldn't think so, but the ATF, I'm sure they want any bit of information they can get on anyone. They probably peruse those websites now. Yeah. Yeah. But it's really, that's the beauty of America is that you can just buy and sell guns like that, in my opinion. I think that, I think the second amendment is one of the greatest things that has ever- It's a good amendment. Yeah. I like the, I like the, what's my favorite amendment? Yeah. I like the fucking one where the troops can't come in and sleep in your house and bang your wife. That's probably my favorite one. So you met your wife and then you just like skated off into the sunset, more or less. More or less. Yeah. She, she really got me to start thinking long-term because I had never really, I had had girlfriends and, you know, things like that, but they weren't women. They were all just junkies and, you know, just complete degenerates. So I, she was really the first woman that I actually dated and pushed me to think past what I was doing. It's like, really? You're going to be a drug dealer forever? Okay. Like what, you know, how is that going to, what's going to happen? Do you want kids? Do you want, you know, started really just opening up my eyes to like, if we're going to be together, then you can't be doing this. And she really didn't even know the full extent of what I was doing. I didn't, I didn't apprise her of, it's like, I'm just going, oh, I got to go meet my buddy and pick up money. It's like some of the first times she's coming to hang out with me, I'm just going to pick up from my four people and just picking up envelopes of cash. So she's, she knows something's going on, but she didn't know the, to what degree. Same with my parents. My mom found 20 grand buried out in the, in the garden one day. And so they knew that I was up to no good, but I wasn't a junkie. They knew that I wasn't using heroin. So at that point they were kind of like, let's just see where he goes. And that's around the time when I got a gunsmithing degree. I went and got a gunsmithing. I was like, this might be a future for me. This might be a job that I could focus on and actually have a life outside of this. So I did that. It went great. But when I got out and I started applying for jobs in the gun industry, a guy really did me a favor. He's like, listen, man, gunsmiths are kind of a, it's becoming really few or far, far between. He's like, really, everything is just so streamlined now. He's like gun salesman. Absolutely. I could, I can give you a job today, but he's like, I just don't see this. You know, it's not what you're looking for. You're trying to build up a career and a life. And I really think that you might be better kind of looking in a different direction, which he actually did me a favor because that, I mean, that is kind of true. That is kind of how the gun market went. But after that, man, I was working a minimum wage job. I had taken all the money that I had saved up and I paid a year's worth of rent and I bought a car and had to swallow my pride. And I'm going from dropping pounds off and picking up envelopes of cash to making minimum wage jobs, you know, minimum wage job. And my supervisor's getting mad at me. For taking my break too early or, you know, some dumb shit like that. So I think that was actually necessary for, to humble me and to bring me back down to a base level of, no, this is where you start. You have to start from the bottom. You, there's no free rides, but I was still looking for a career. And that's when one day my wife's like, you shot up for years, right? Yeah. And she's like, so you're good with a needle? Like, yeah. I'm like, shoot up my femoral. And I was like, dude, pretty good with a needle. Yeah. She's like, why don't you go become a lab tech? Go to school to become a phlebotomist or a lab tech and draw people's blood for a living. Why don't you do that? So I did. And I thought, you know, after so many years separated in the streets away from school, I thought it was going to be tough for me to relearn things. I thought I had completely destroyed my brain for a while. You know, all the drugs over the years, but I got into that class and took off. I got a 4.0, graduated with honors, ended up getting a job immediately after that with the place I did my extern at and worked there for over a decade. So I get how it can steal your time, but why let eczema take over when you can talk to your doctor about EBCLIS? EBCLIS, Leberkizumab LBKZ, a 200% 150 milligram per two milliliter injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. EBCLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you are allergic to EBCLIS. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated, with EBCLIS. Before starting EBCLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Respect your time. Ask your doctor about EBCLIS and visit EBCLIS.com or call 1-800-LILLY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. It's amazing, man. And now you're out in the Midwest, out in Oklahoma. Tell us what you got going on now. You got kids. Yep. Got a great wife. Yeah. So actually, prior to this, we were in South Carolina. We decided it was a real struggle to get weed out there. And at this time, THCA and hemp, you know, all of those things are getting bigger and bigger. So we decide we can do, like, there's really no one out here doing it well, and we can do it better. And we do. We end up getting a hemp bank account and doing, you know, coming up with a complete business plan, bringing it to the bank. They were super impressed. And, you know, we're going to do it. We're going to do it. And we took off on starting to sell hemp. And all of this operates through the mail. So you literally can buy pounds through the mail and have them mailed directly to your door. Right. And you're not faced with the same taxes that the medical or recreational marijuana industry is. Right. So you're really able to start as, like, a mom and pop operation and scale, which we did. Almost immediately, we were making a profit. We were earning a profit. So you're getting pounds of weed. Essentially, THC is just weed. Yeah. With a low, very, very low THC count. Yeah. But then when you burn it, it turns into THC. But it's just this silly loophole. Yeah. And so you're getting pounds sent to you in the mail. And you're you guys have like a brick and mortar shop. So at first we started I just use my trailer because I have a camping trailer. So I just deck that whole thing out, put a counter in there, but, you know, got everything to package everything up. And, you know, we got the stickers, all our packing devices. We did that at first. But then we wanted to move to a brick and mortar because we that's that's how you make the money is the people are going to see it through traffic and just driving past every day. We end up finding a great location. This really cool old guy who's just down with it. We told him what we were doing because it's going to come out eventually. And he's like, man, I really like this. I thought for sure he was going to have an issue with it. But really cool. We signed the lease on the shop. We started getting that thing decked out when all of a sudden raids start happening all across the upstate. So we're like looking into these raids like what is going on? All of these people are operating under a legal guideline. They're doing everything that they're supposed to be doing. I'd look into these places and it's like, no, I'm doing it the same way that they're doing it. And why are they getting raided? So it turns out that all of the raids, they're citing that the weed is over the legal limit. So 0.3 is the legal limit for THC or THC. THCA can be as high as you want it because that was never included in the bill. So that was kind of the the loophole. But. Yeah, we're like, what what is going on? So we see that they're citing weed is over the legal limit. So I'm like, OK, well, we need to retest our stuff because if you know anything about weed, that the curing process over time, then THCA is naturally going to convert to THC through heat, through light, through, you know, multitude of different factors to what's naturally just going to push that up. And I was really good about I keep my stuff refrigerated completely in the dark. And we send in all of our seven strains and I shit you not, every single one of our strains came back over. So I'm like, pull the plug, pull the plug, we have to. Yeah, because you go to prison for selling weed still in South Carolina. It's like, yeah, it's no different than it was back in the 90s there. That's a trapper's dream right there. That's what I mean. You get your pounds out there, you bubble. Yeah, even to this day, like, you could still make a pretty penny. So that's why. So they're doing this big crackdown, the hemp ban. It's because of the taxes. What you just said, that solidifies it. You were saying that you don't get taxed like recreational weed or medicinal weed. Correct. So, yeah, that's why they're—because they want to control it. Yep. Yeah, and big alcohol was the one who really led that fight because less people are drinking or people are smoking and using cannabis, and they couldn't have that happen. No. And there was a split in the alcohol industry where some people would just join them, buy some of these places, and just get involved in it. So you did see that. Right. But with— With the hemp industry and the recreational and medical cannabis industry, there was always a lot of infighting because of that tax as well. Is—we're paying, like, no tax, and they're, you know, paying tax out the wazoo. Right. And barely are able to keep their doors open, and they're, you know, they're moving tons of product. Yeah. So it's got to be frustrating. I get it. Yeah. There's—I don't know. It's so stupid to me. It's so—it's just indicative of everything that's going on in this country. It's just a fucking mess. Yeah. I agree. So plug Sweetleaf and plug your YouTube channel, man. Yeah. You're a talented writer. I've seen your videos. You're—it's really creative, and I want people to go over there. Yeah. Thank you, man. So you can find me on YouTube, Josh Pels, two L's, P-E-L-L-Z. And then on Instagram, you can find us at sweet underscore leaf underscore co. And I'm dropping content about every—once every week. Every two weeks. And right now, what I'm focusing on is I'm telling my story in a narration form. So I'll just do a cinematic video while I do a narrative voiceover. But then I'm also interviewing some of my old buddies who have made it out of the life that are still around, who have wild fucking stories. You should definitely catch a couple of those. But yeah, so right now, that's my focus, is just building that up. I eventually plan on writing a book and doing a documentary on my little hellhole of a town, Maple Valley, and really diving more into all of this chaos that was there at that time and still to this day. I'm still getting calls of homies dying. So is fentanyl now replaced a lot of the heroin? Yeah, heroin's non-existent anymore. I've heard that there's certain places where you can still—it is still a thing because fentanyl is like— you have some old-school heroin addicts who are like, they ain't fucking with you. Right. Because it's so potent. Yeah. I'm just grateful I was never in— Right. Got out of the game before that. Yeah. I mean, we always—we came across fentanyl, but it was always like the fentanyl patches. We're cutting them open and eating the gel inside. Shit, bro. Oh, my God. You could just do a podcast, just—I know it's anonymous, but just filming a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. Yeah. Just hearing those war stories, man. It's just— Oh, for real. It's fucking wild. If you want to feel grateful for your life, even if you're not an addict, go to one of those meetings. They're fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. Make you feel good about yourself real quick. For sure. Wow. What a journey, man. Congratulations on your new life. Thank you, bro. Josh Pels, go check him out on YouTube and go fuck with Sweetleaf. Hopefully, you guys can reignite the hemp. Yeah. Maybe you get the company going again after they figure out the laws. I think right now what we'll do with Sweetleaf is we'll just keep— we'll just keep it as an apparel lifestyle brand and keep that up because I still have a bunch of apparel that I have to sell off. But eventually, we'll probably phase it out. So get it while you can. But yeah, it would be cool to still have some sort of involvement in the cannabis industry because that industry is— cannabis is what really saved my life. It's what keeps me going today. It's what I treat my pain with today. It makes me be a better husband, a better father. I feel. And like I said before, the moment that it doesn't, guess what the first thing I'm going to quit is. But as it stands right now, it's only helped me in my path and journey. It's fascinating. All right, you guys. Josh Pels, thank you so much, man. Thank you for watching, you guys. See you next time. Peace. Observe the North American dad, 50s, great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana. An offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, Dang, that's a good offer. The highest form of approval. No haggling. No hassle. No one called him boss. He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today. On Carvana.com. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task. Unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into. Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com. her.