I grew up in Lawrence Massachusetts, the most corrupt and Heroin ridden city in America. It wasn’t always like this though. In the 20s it was one of the richest cities in the U.S, but by the ’70s there were so many drugs flowing through the city and so much violence, that the National Guard was called in…that didn’t solve a fucking thing though.
By the 80s it became a stronghold for the Dominican drug cartels. They used Lawrence as the central logistics hub to distribute Cocaine and Heroin throughout the rest of the country. Fast forward to today, and Lawrence is now the Fentanyl and Heroin capital of North America. It’s easier to get Heroin here than weed.
It’s so fucked up here that there are billboards in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico advertising that if you come to Lawrence MA and work for the cartels, they will subsidize it and allow you to live for free.
Growing up in this drug-ridden and corrupt environment was a death sentence. I blame Lawrence for killing my mother. She overdosed when I was 8 and my dad was never in the picture, so my older brother and I moved in with my Aunt and Uncle in Andover MA, about 15 mins away from Lawrence.
Lawrence was so dominated by the Dominican cartels that the school system was communicated entirely in Spanish. Moving in with my Aunt and Uncle provided my brother and I with better opportunities and allowed us to go to much better schools in Andover – one’s that would actually teach you in English.
It didn’t matter though, growing up in Lawrence desensitized me and virtually everyone I knew to drug use. That’s why when I started smoking weed and cigarettes with my older brother and his friends when I was 11, no one even batted an eye. By the time I turned 14, I was regularly dropping Acid and taking psychedelics with my friends.
Drugs were always around me, and going to school in Andover while growing up in Lawrence and having connections there made it really easy to get drugs for whoever wanted them. There was always demand and my hometown was where anyone within a 100-mile radius got their supply.
I remember I first started dealing when I was 14. I was pretty young at the time and wasn’t really sure what I was getting myself into, so I kept my operation small and only sold weed and acid. However, that changed fast.
Around the same time, I started to get into EDM and music festivals, which were essentially just drug festivals. I would go to them, bring a bunch of weed and acid, sell out in no time flat and go enjoy the concert. This made me realize that if I ramped up my operation and improved my supply, I could start making some real money.
This initial thought was all it took
By the beginning of my sophomore year, I was supplying my whole high school and put all my focus into dealing. The only reason for going to school anymore became exclusively to sell drugs.
I would wake up, go to school with a pound of weed, and set up in the cafeteria. When I finished selling all of my weed, I’d hop in my car and drive to the nearest concert or music festival and bring Ketamine, balloons of Nitrous Oxide, a couple of blotter sheets of Acid, MDMA, Percocets, Coke, and Heroin. I was selling pretty much everything.
My operation was making me anywhere from $3k-$11k a day and I was just 15 years old.