In the [thread=331641]A $70 value[/thread] thread in MPSIMS, I started to mention about Inositol Powder. I wanted to share the reason it is so expensive.
Inositol is one of the B vitamins and usually taken in pill form if someone needs it. They sell the powdered form for 5x what the pills sell for. The reason they do that is because the only people who buy it are drug dealers.
Inositol powder is the ‘best’ thing to mix with cocaine. I’m sure you’ve heard how cocaine in it’s raw form is too strong to be sold on the street and crappy dealers cut it with all kinds of stuff, baby powder, flour, anything they can get that is a white power. Well the best dealers use Inositol powder because it won’t harm the body and is easily absorbed through the mucus membranes of the nostrils.
At the health food store I used to work in down town Boston, we could tell when a new shipment of coke hit Boston because we’d go from selling none for a month to selling a dozen bottles of different sizes in a week. Anything from 2 oz, 4 oz, or 8 oz bottles, for $29.99, $54.99, or $99.99 respectivly. (A bottle of Inositol pills with the same amount of Inositiol as the 4oz bottle would go for about $10.)
Ocassionally we’d get in customers who were so F’d up on their own product that they could barely speak. “Can I help you?” … “Yeahch… U’mm lookin foah the Ensitoloish stuff. Yah gotch any?” “Do you mean Inositol Powder?” “Uhu, thads it. Homush?” <customer pulls a wad of wrinkled $10 and $20 bills from pocket, spilling them on the floor> “Right this way to the counter where we can ring you up.” (Actually we kept it behind the counter, knowing it would be stolen off the shelves otherwise.)
Some who weren’t messed up clearly were trying to hide why they wanted to buy it. They’d claim that their sister (or mom, or friend) was pregnant and the doctor told her to take it ‘for the babies health’ but she didn’t like taking pills so they wanted powder. Given how many said the same thing, I think there must have been one dealer who had others get his Inositiol for him and told them what story to tell us… so that we wouldn’t suspect anything… Yeah right! (IANAD, but I’ve spoken to many nutritionists who say that any doctor worried about a mothers vitamin intake would reccomend a multi-vitamin and not just one specific B vitamin.)
What was really impressive was this one fellow (wearing several pounds of gold jewelry and diamond studded everything) who would buy FOUR of the 8 oz. bottles at a time, paying in cash and peeling $100 bills off an inch thick wad of them. He fit every stereotype you’ve seen in hollywood movies of the big time drug dealer, including in the winter wearing a full length mink coat and matching hat.
This was over 10 years ago, then I was promoted to manager and moved to my own store in Cambridge where we only sold a couple small bottles a month.
(I’ve already checked with the Mods to confirm that this is OK to post)