I will admit that I have done my fair share of drugs in the past, mostly when I was in college. I haven't had much to do with them since I got out of college and started to be an adult of sorts. I regret none of my decisions as far as the drugs that I used are concerned and I know very few people whose lives were ruined by drugs. On the other hand I know quite a few that had their lives ripped apart by the most legal drug of all: Alcohol.
In all the drug use I experienced in college it never occurred to me to ever become a dealer, let alone be involved in a massive drug ring that supplied hundreds of people with product. The closest I ever came to that was buying some weed in quantity and then immediately splitting it up into smaller baggies to give to my friends who were present when it happened. I did it this way intentionally because if you have a bunch of bags of drugs that are already divided up into certain quantities you are now guilty of intent to distribute, which is a much bigger problem than possession. You will likely end up with something on your record for a long time if you are lucky. If you are not lucky or don't have a bunch of money, you could be looking at jail time.
This is the case for a crew of University of North Carolina and Duke University in the past week.
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The names of the students have not been released to the public as charges are still pending, but according to reports they were all in fraternities at the two colleges and this was used as a distribution hub of sorts for a half-ton of weed and several hundred kilograms of cocaine as well as other drugs including ecstasy and MDMA. I will admit that I have done all of these drugs and my favorite is cocaine. I have not done any of them other than puff a joint here and there for many years.
I do remember that back when I was in college that fraternities were an excellent source for drugs of all sorts and the level of "class" that each frat had kind of determined which drugs they had access to.
I do find it a bit crazy the methods that the drug ring used in order to transport their products. According to reports the drugs were mailed from California to various places and then transported by cars to the various frat houses. Can you think of a stupider way to transport a product than by mail? I once had a package refused at a post office because the item inside contained a rechargeable battery that was for some reason or another not allowed to be mailed. How on earth would these guys be getting tons of cocaine all the way across the country by using the same postal service.
It was because of this method that the ring was busted in California by the DEA and from that point forward the one person who has been charged, Francisco Javier Ochoa Jr, apparently immediately ratted everyone else out for a plea bargain and multiple stings were set up to catch the rest of them.
Now here is one thing that I want people to understand about Duke and UNC. These are rather elite colleges that you need to be very gifted academically or athletically to attend or your family needs to have a lot of money. These are not your run-of-the-mill universities such as the one that I attended in the Eastern part of North Carolina. By attending either of these places your future is basically guaranteed in the professional world.
That is unless you get kicked out of school and charged with a felony. I think the only reason why the names of the students have not been released is because of the fact that the families are affluent enough to use the necessary channels to keep the names out of the press.
When I look at this situation I can't help but wonder why these already very privileged people would risk it all on something that no doubt could have been left to street dealers. I'm not trying to get all high and mighty here but to me, it just doesn't make any sense to me. These kids had a wonderful future basically handed to them on a silver platter and now this could very well screw all of that up.
There is a part of me that actually wants them to get the book thrown at them in court and have them suffer the same consequences that a less wealthy and connected person would have but I think we all kind of know that this is not what is likely to happen.