Crack Baggies

[Hostile_Dialect]

@Crandolph

At least here on the East Coast I can assure you the crack dealers are (sometimes) selling their stuff ‘branded,’ as are (I’ve read) the heroin dealers.

How? Do they imprint it on the crack rocks? If I understand crack correctly (and I may not, but I haven’t seen it up close and personal), rocks generally aren’t big enough to do that. Or are they putting their brands on the bags? If so, why? It doesn’t seem to make sense to make or brand one’s own baggies. Why spend the time or money? Baggies are legal and untraceable, at least before dealers put their trademarks on them. I guess if they were worried about running into trouble with the law, they wouldn’t be selling crack.

[Hostile_Dialect]

@Little Nemo

I once read an interview where a reporter was discussing these very same bags with a major manufacturer. They are being made by the same companies that manufacture sandwich bags and garbage bags. The reporter asked the manufacturer what he figured the intended use would be for a one inch square bag. The manufacturer suggested they could be used to store beads or fly fishing lures. The reporter pointed out that the company sold several million of these bags a year and asked the manufacturer if he though they were all being bought by fly fishermen. The manufacturer then basically said he was selling a legal product and he couldn’t determine what people would do with it after it was sold.

What is the reporter going to do, move for a ban on 1-square-inch-or-smaller resealable bags? They’re products with legal uses that some people have put to illegal use. Should breweries stop making beer because a lot of people give it to children in violation of the law? Should contractors, painters, etc. not have legal access to spraypaint because people use it to tag? Should lighters and matches be outlawed because people smoke illegal drugs with them? How about straws people snort drugs with and large water/soda bottles that people make bongs out of? The manufacturer is selling a legal product, and it’s not their fault that some people choose to use it to aid in breaking the law. And anyway, if they can’t get a small bag, they’ll use bigger ones. I’m sure it’s annoying to have coke floating around in a big old Ziploc rather than pushed into a neat pile in a tiny one-square-inch baggie, but that’s not going to stop anyone.

[DrDeth]

You see them for sale in sleazy liquor stores in bad neighborhoods.

[Crandolph]

@fetus

How? Do they imprint it on the crack rocks? If I understand crack correctly (and I may not, but I haven’t seen it up close and personal), rocks generally aren’t big enough to do that. Or are they putting their brands on the bags? If so, why? It doesn’t seem to make sense to make or brand one’s own baggies. Why spend the time or money? Baggies are legal and untraceable, at least before dealers put their trademarks on them.

They put logos on the bags, or at least have certain color bags. There’s rarely one dealer or gang in a neighborhood; there’s competition. The coke is cooked in somewhat varied dosages with various substances used to cut it to the best of my understanding. “Quality” :rolleyes: varies and branding seems appropriate.

I wasn’t suggesting a product with legal uses get banned. I was asking if law enforcement uses orders for the little baggies, especially weird ones with logos, as a means of tracking dealers. It occured to me that might make sense.