The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Baltimore Drug Kingpin Exposes Fentanyl Epidemic, Truth About "The Wire"

Episode Date: May 17, 2026

Carl Johnson grew up in the streets of Baltimore during the same era HBO was filming The Wire — but while the world watched the show, Carl lived the reality. In this episode, Carl breaks down what The Wire got right and wrong, how Baltimore’s open-air drug markets really operate, why the city became such a major heroin and fentanyl hub, and how the collapse of the old street-code changed the game forever. He also opens up about his own past in the streets, his mentor’s connection to the real Barksdale family, the violence that shaped Baltimore’s reputation, and why fentanyl has made today’s drug trade more dangerous than ever. Now out of the game, Carl works in recovery and helps others struggling with addiction through the Baltimore Recovery Alliance. This is a raw, unfiltered look inside one of America’s most infamous cities — from someone who survived it and turned his life around. We all watched The Wire. Carl Johnson lived it. Go Support Carl! Recovery Program: https://baltimorerecoveryalliance.com/ This Episode Is #Sponsored By The Following: Hims! To get simple, online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, Hair Loss, Weight Loss, and more, visit https://hims.com/connect Prescription required. See website for details and important safety information. Sildenafil is the generic version of Viagra®. Viagra® is a registered trademark of Viatris Specialty LLC. Hims is not affiliated with or endorsed by Viatris. Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow 00:00 Meet Carl: From Baltimore Streets to Rehab Counselor 03:45 Intro: The Wire & Baltimore's Unique Drug Market 07:07 Fentanyl Takes Over: Shifts in Baltimore's Drug Trade 13:47 Opiates, Rehab, and Open Air Markets 24:33 How the Drug Game Runs: Corners, Crews, and the Feds 32:14 Baltimore's Changing Landscape: Projects, Gentrification 38:11 This Episode Is Sponsored By Hims 39:47 Abandoned Buildings and Homicide Culture 50:25 Guns, Violence, and Life on the Corners 01:03:41 Life Lessons from the Streets: The Barksdale Legacy 01:11:15 Getting Into the Game: Carl's Early Hustles 01:19:55 Crack vs. Heroin: Insider Secrets, Hustle Hierarchies & Survival 01:34:32 Prison, Probation, and the Turning Point 02:05:31 Rehab, Redemption & Breaking Cycles 02:21:55 Addiction, Policy & Baltimore Recovery Alliance Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My mentor was Dante Fat Tater Barksdale. He was the nephew of Avon Barksdale, who the wire was about. Most towns that have a port, you have direct connection to whatever it is that's coming off of those boats. That's the thing that makes Baltimore unique. It's an open-air drug market. You can hop off the highway right now and pull up anywhere and get something if you ask for it and you got the money.

If the projects don't shut down, it's like a 7-11. You can come here anytime. That's the new guy on the block. Like, oh, yeah, I'm already going to kill them. Just get the stuff together. We're going to open up tomorrow. They're going to be dead tonight. Murder is a part of the business.

In Baltimore, I don't think heroin could even sell anymore. It's all the offense. They're shooting it, snorting it, smoking it. Man, you got people making $30,000 dollars a day. The one underlying thing with Baltimore is that you can die anytime. My guest today is Carl Johnson, a former drug dealer from Baltimore, Maryland, who ran the streets during the same years that HBO was filming their iconic television show, The Wire. Carl breaks down everything that the wire got right and what it didn't,

and reveals how the drug trade actually works in Baltimore, which to this day is still one of the most crime-ridden, drug-infested cities in America. Carl got out of the game a few years ago and is today a drug rehab counselor and helps run a nationwide foundation called Baltimore Recovery Alliance, which you can check out if you have a loved one struggling with addiction. This is one of the most raw, unfiltered insights into the most fascinating, inner city slum in modern times. We all watched the wire, but this man lived it. Ladies and gentlemen,

it's Carl Johnson right here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell. What's up, everybody? It's Baltimore in the house this week. I can't wait for you to see this one. Real quick, as always, make sure to hit that subscribe button and turn on the alert bell, smash that like button, and drop a comment. It's really been helping our videos get out to more people, so I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Now enjoy Baltimore. Carl. So, you know, obviously the wire was like a show that defined my generation, our generation, you know, people that came of age in the late 90s, early 2000s. And it was fascinating. Because I'm looking at a city that in the modern era operates like it's stuck in the 1970s.

Does that make sense? Yeah, I can see that. Open-air drug markets, like people ODing in broad daylight, alleyways, shootings. You're like, this doesn't happen in America anymore in like a northern city, but, you know, you're from there. I can agree with that. I mean, Baltimore is that's why a lot of people, right, if you ever get a chance, check online, a lot of people will say that Baltimore is not a part of the DMV, which is, geographically insane to say because it absolutely is.

But Baltimore itself is its own thing. We're not D.C., we're not Virginia, we're not Delaware, none of that. So you're right. And it's like a time capsule. It's a lot of things we do in Baltimore that a lot of people might not do. You know, and you're right. It is open-air drug market.

And that's what make it unique. This is what I shared before. I learned that most towns that have a port, you have direct connection to whatever it is is coming off of those boats. So there are people far beyond us, way more influential and richer that have multiple things

coming through those ports that we'll never know about. But guess what? They end up on these streets. And the famous words of Nino Brown, ain't no oozy's made in Harlem. You know? So how is it so many guns

on the streets of Baltimore? How is it so many drugs? you know, on the streets of Baltimore. And when I say so many, I'm talking about it's a plethora. It's not your usual, like back in the day, Coke, dope and weed. No, you have at least nine different variants of fentanyl. Meaning that now, right? So in the field I'm in, we have the UA cups where if we have somebody they do a UA,

we'll see the fentanyl in it, right? But let's say John Doe is right here. And we see that he's noticeably high. We can see. But he has one of those variants in them. there's nothing that's going to show up in the cup. The cup can't catch it. But we see them right here and nod and in front of us.

So it's a problem. Just like for instance, desalazine. Dezalazine, so the companies, they had to start making op-v. Op. V is from the family of Narcan. You familiar with Narcan? All right. So usually, so Narcan, when you give somebody Narcant, it bonds to the opiate receptors,

which will stop whatever overdose was about to happen. But the dealers are starting to now mix it with the xylazine, which isn't an opiate. It's a sedative. So it means that I can hit you with 10 narcanes and it's not going to save you because the narcan doesn't bind to sedatives. And it's so much stronger. You know, so it's like, man, they put in so much, so many different things that these people are putting in the drugs that makes it. It's like Russian roulette. at least back in the day, right?

Let's just say like how you were speaking earlier, like, let's say in the 80s, 90s, right? You pretty much knew what you were going to go get. You probably were overdosed because of the potency of what somebody had if you was getting the heroin, not what they're putting in it. You know, that's a big difference. Back in the day, a brick of heroin

would be like upwards of, let's say like, just say like $100,000, right? So it costs to be a dope boy. You couldn't just say, I'm going to go outside and sell some dope. It was a machine. You had to know somebody who had the grams. The grams had to be good. You had to know how to cut it.

Once you had it cut, you had to know how to cap it. Once you capped it, you had to also have a team to sell it. It's a well-structured organization when you're selling heroin. But nowadays, right, a brick of fentanyl is around $7,000. but the profit margin is about the same as if you had the brick of heroin. You understand me? So meaning this, that any John Doe tax time could say, oh, I'm going to go get me some fentanyl. But you're not, you don't have what we call table manners, meaning that you don't know how to cut it.

See, back in the day, right, you used to had to get, you know, your materials, cut it up, put it together. You let it sit. Then you will put it out. and real heroin had an expiration, meaning that you had to sell it within a certain amount of time or it was going to go bad. Fentina don't go bad. If anything, Fittinol gets more potent over time.

So now you have John Doe, who's never sold dope enough enough like that, but he sees that the value of dope is everywhere. It's like, okay, I can get rid of it. I know people who get high or whatever. So he doesn't know how to cut it. So guess what he does? This is what they do.

They'll get a sandwich bag, put the fentanyl, put the cut in it, zipping it up, and just shake it up. And they'll sell it. Now, that inherently is very, very dangerous. Because now you're not giving it a proper sift, which means that it's hot spots in it. Meaning that you and I could go get the same dope, and I die from it, and you don't.

Because where they peeled my part of it up was so potent with fentanyl because it's not cut. You used to have to have sifters and stuff like that. You know, you're running it through. You sift it 100 times. You sift it a hundred times. You sift you cut a hundred times. Then you sit if you're cutting your dope together a hundred times.

You know, it was a process. You know, that's the era that I grew up in. You know, actually knowing that it was certain things you had to do to be successful at this game. So now these people are just, it's Russian roulette. So is the dope being sold on the streets of Baltimore? Is it technically still heroin, but just? just cut up with a bunch of fentanyl, or is it actually the fent or the junkies just going straight to the fent?

It's all fent. I don't think, I can't speak for other towns, right? But in Baltimore, I don't think heroin could even sell anymore. You have to think the fentanyl is several times more potent than heroin. So it's like, okay, we were getting double cheeseburgers for a long time, but now we got steaks. This is the mind of the user, I'm saying. Okay.

So with this steak that I'm getting now, which would be the fentanyl technically, I would never go back to a burger. This is holding me longer. It's stronger. And that's the most important thing, that it holds them longer, meaning that they don't have to chase as much. You know, like I said, traditionally with heroin, it's an early morning thing. That's why we always had big rushes in the morning because everybody who work and do dope, they had to get it before they go to work. You know, so. Unless they get sick.

Yeah, less they get sick. But now with the fentanyl, it's not like that. You know, the fentanyl will hold them longer. But the flip side of that is, the fentanyl is doing a lot of physical damage on the inside that we don't know about. You got to think heroin's been out for a long time. So if I grew up a dope fame, but my uncle was a dope fan, I pretty much know the 30 years he's been doing dope.

I already know what the ailments will be, you know, and I know what to look out for. But with the fentanyl, it's kind of comparison to the vapes. Like, okay, if my mom smoked cigarettes forever, right? Okay, I know cancer, I know this, I know that can happen. But the vapes are still kind of like a gray area. You don't really know what that's doing to you. So that's the thing with the fentanyl. It's not really, it hasn't been out long enough to really say definitively what it's doing to people.

But what we do know is the overdose rate is crazy. It's crazy. Are the junkies, the fiends, which I know is disrespectful, but that's just how we talk, right? the dope fiends, are there any more old school, traditional hair on, you know, old black people going to cop hair on? Or is it, has the Fent created a whole new market of like young users, like users our age and younger? That's a very good question.

So, number one, nobody's looking for any heroin anymore. And the opiate crisis didn't really begin until people in middle America started really getting hooked on to it. See, long as it was in the ghetto, it was fine. It was fine for poor people to die from it year after year, day after day. But when people who are judges and doctors and lawyers, when their children started dying from it, that's when this whole initiative began. That's when it became, oh, we got to do something about this. You know, because let me give an example. So this is how it works. So let's just say, let's say Wyoming, right? Let's say I'm a rich white man from Wyoming and my daughter has an opiate problem. It might be one program in Wyoming.

And the wait list might be three years for her to get some help. So I start doing some research. Where can I get help for my daughter? Okay. I find out that Maryland has a plethora of programs, right? Okay. So I'm like, I can get her there this week and she can get help because they have programs geared towards opiates. Okay, so we get her there, right? And she gets there, she starts getting help and all of that. Remember, I'm wealthy. This is my daughter. So she's not a brokey coming to Baltimore.

So then what happens is this. She finds out once she's in the atmosphere that what she's been paying $1,500 for is $3 in Baltimore. You understand me? And that's for like a perk? No, no, that's for a pill of dope. You understand what I'm saying? See, you have to understand. The markets fluctuate depending on where you are.

That's the thing that makes Baltimore unique. It's an open-air drug market. You know, Johnny, you can hop off the highway right now and pull up anywhere and get something if you ask for it and you got the money. But in other towns, you've got to know somebody to know somebody to know somebody to get something. Okay, so you're saying because Maryland, Baltimore offers so many opioid rehab centers, outpatient clinics, inpatient clinics, that's what sends all these users to the area and they, in turn, just leave the outpatient treatment and go cop dope. You understand me. Oh, it's fascinating. Right.

Okay, because that's what I was going to ask you. How long has it been that way? Because according to the wire, what I saw on the wire, just my perception is that Baltimore is traditionally been an opioid town. Yes. Is it even more than crack? Yeah, I definitely will say so. And why do you think that is?

Because of that reason? Or is there something in like the working class bones, just backing up a little bit, right? Like back to like the Melvin Harris days, you know, Melvin Harris was his name? You're talking about Lord Melvin. Little Melvin, yeah. The Harron King. Yeah. So that was also in the liar.

Right. He played the deacon. Yeah. And that was amazing how, again, life comes full circle. You were doing something at one time that was destroying the community. But you came, because he did a lot of time in jail. Just like, you know, I have Bodie Barksdale, Avon Barksdale on my shirt from the Don Diva magazine when he was in the article. you know, these guys came home and they started doing better for the community once they had gained knowledge itself.

So, yeah, man, like, Lord Melvin, Melvin was, is Melvin Williams, by the other. Loven Williams, okay. So it was great to see him on that. Definitely, definitely. But do you think that there, what do you think it is about Baltimore, the culture that drives people to use opioids, hair on and now fentanyl more than, say, like cocaine? we go back to those boats. It's coming right off that boat. So it's right there.

If you remember, if you ever seen any interviews with Lord Melvin, he said his plug was last name Salisbury. You know, so that was a high-ranking gentleman who was not of the black race, who was, you know, his plug. So when you got people, again,

at that height, that's pushing it into the communities as a poor, underprivileged youth, right? right, you're going to look at it like this is a great opportunity to make money, man. I'm tired of having holes in my shoes. I'm tired of this. I'm tired of that. But to answer your question, I think it's because – and also, let me tell you this.

So I've trapped in different states and different towns, right? And one thing I know is when it comes to the mixture of the heroin and stuff like that, and we're going to – So to answer your question, Melvin was from the 60s and 70s and stuff like that. So this was an updated story that they kind of made the wire out of. So the wire isn't about modern times. They just modernized the old story, you know. So for them, remember traditionally in the black community, cocaine is a rich man's drug. When you're talking about powder cocaine.

But when the cocaine epidemic, the crack epidemic happened and they started making ready rock, you know, the rock out of it, that's when black people started or just poor people, period, started having access to cocaine. Before that, man, you had to be rich to have cocaine. But heroin was always there, the heroin, the bulls, and the weed. You know, so I say that to say that that that story of, like, Lord Melvin and Avon and them is from the past. But they were already selling heroin for years before Coke ever came in a picture. That's why Baltimore has such an atmosphere or like a legacy of opiates because of that. Because they were already selling it before crack ever existed. And poor people couldn't buy coal because it was too expensive.

Yeah, but heroin was expensive too, right? Yeah. But I guess you, if you could cut it down to a 10 bag. Come on, man. Yeah. See, you're talking about a buyer. Now, if I'm a buyer, yeah, it's expensive if I'm trying to get bought. But as a dealer, I mean, you got to think back in those days, man, these guys was getting heroin that you can cut 60 times, 70 times.

That means you taking one and making 70 out of it. So much money. So much money. Yeah, man. Yeah. The Greeks, this is a big part of a big storyline in the wire. They were a couple of very, very low-key Greek guys that worked at the docks, the ports. And they were bringing in the shit.

They were bringing in Harron straight from Turkey or wherever it was coming from in East Asia. Did that really happen? Or does that? I assume it doesn't happen now because fentanyl's basically made heroin extinct. But was that, did you hear about plugs, like plug plugs back in your day when you were hustling? Did you hear about people? getting it through the ports? Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, the thing is, that was the, that's the pinnacle where you can get somebody who getting it straight from there and it's not really tampered with. It's the same thing like having a cartel plug. I mean, these are essentially cartels, but just not Mexican cartels, you know, but I'm pretty sure even, you know, the Mexican cartels utilize ports as well, you know, but it's not just the drugs. It's the guns. It's the human trafficking, you know, all of that.

Everything comes through that, man. And they said that fentanyl was created by China. You know, so you got to think that that's a great way to utilize the ports as well. Like, we ain't making it. It's coming from somewhere. But yeah, man, you have people who have plugs like that who, who, of course, they would never share those plugs. You know, these are the people that would just be on forever because it's a system. So when you got somebody who's a heavy hitter like that who's actually looking out for you,

You're not going to jail. I mean, let's say, you don't even have to snitch or none of that. The point is, you're going to have the best law, because they need you. Imagine that. Imagine you have all these cows that you want to make into burger meat, and you got a guy who got a restaurant, but now the restaurant got a rookie leaf, a leaking roof, right? As the guy with the farm, you and say, I'm going to make sure his building is always in pristine shape. You know, so these are the guys who went on from that era that you're talking about,

who own a lot of land, you know, that they most likely into politics and stuff like that nowadays. You know, because those plugs, man, they, it's generational. Even if my dad had that plug, if my dad dies or something like that, it's a family thing. You know, because this is building generational wealth in the community, you know, even though it's the wrong thing, but this is the type of business that these people do. And these are black guys. Yeah. These are black families that have generational wealth from that heroin money.

From that type of plug, yeah. Wow. Absolutely. Did you have anybody in the game at that level, like any family that was super high up like that? No, not me personally. My story is pretty much of coming from the projects, right? So my mentor was Dante Fat Tater Barksdale. He was the nephew of Avon Barksdale, who the wire was about.

And Dante, he had did, I think he did about 10 years in prison or something like that, he came home, he got himself together. We have an initiative in the city called Safe Streets. Okay, Safe Streets is a community initiative of people who try to keep the streets safe from violence. So they hire people who were formerly in gangs or stuff like that. Because who knows the game better than people who actually influenced the streets. So Tater actually was like a supervisor in that organization. So when he came home and he started, you know, like teaching me like, boy, look, I ain't hustling no more. I'm showing you the blueprint.

I remember one time he told me he was like, yeah, I got to go down to the courthouse to get some paperwork or something like that. It was something that he had to do. But me coming from where I'm coming from, anybody who goes to the courthouse, you got to take everything out your pockets. You got to go through the metal detector. being a state employee, he just walked around it. Like, he showed his, whatever it was, his back, you know, and that was like a level to show, like, man, change is possible, you know. But for me, my guys, before I actually started making that transition, I mean, at my heyday,

I had maybe about 10 bricks of coke, you know, and when I'm from, one brick of Coke, you're rich, you know, that's enough change your life. So I had came across a plug before I actually went to prison and got my life together, he had it. He had some good work, and I was in an area where I can actually get rid a lot of it, you know, really stress-free.

You're from the east side. I'm from the east side. Lafayette Projects. That was the largest housing project in Baltimore City because we had the most high-rises, the towers. See, the wire says towers, but we call them high-rises.

So in the projects, we have high-rise and low-rise. Are those still there? Do they knock on? on. The wire was accurate with that as well. They had an initiative to get rid of those towers. Well, a lot of projects because they thought that it would make the community safer and all that. But all you did was send those same individuals into residential neighborhoods now. So that's how a lot of beefs happen because, okay, I'm from the projects, but now you move me up on, let's say, Preston Street. That's a residential neighborhood. But I'm still hustling. I still got guns.

I still got drugs. They have to be sold. The projects are gone. So now it's like, I don't respect you guys up here. You know, so I go hard. I have 10 bodies. I'm just speaking for somebody, an individual who might have came from the projects when the towers were destroyed and how their mind might have worked.

This is my income. I got however much drugs, I got to sell. You know, so I'm in a new area, so they still got to be sold. So either we can figure something out. Or it's get down a laydown. You know? And that's, and that happened all around the city because they tore down Lafayette projects, which was the towers.

They tore down Murphy Holmes projects, which had towers. Lexington and Terrace. So they, but Lexington and Torres and Murphy Holmes, that's Westside. That's what the wire was really about, those projects. But the tower that was on the wire, that still exists. That's there today. Yeah, that's, that's, that's, uh, that's, uh, that's, uh, that's, uh, that's, uh, that's, uh, uh, that's, uh, uh, What's that?

I forgot the name of the project. But it's over West Baltimore. It's right off like Dolphin Street. And do they get money in those projects or is that like off limits? You know, where are these trap spots? Are they in vacant, abandoned row houses, like townhouses? Or do they still trap out of those big high rises? No.

I mean, there's Baltimore. So people are going to hustle wherever they can. You know, but predominantly it's on corners. It's everywhere. they're still selling dope on corners. Everywhere, yes, sir. They're not working off cell phones like it's 2026. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They use the cell phones, but the cell phones are usually, give him three out. He'll come around the corner now. You understand, that type of thing. Like, you know, or text matches something, you know, or that nature. But yeah, it's still street level sales. Is that because there's so many people buy-in that it just makes more sense to just go to a place? because you're, say you're a 14-year-old kid working a pack for an older guy,

you might go to jail, but the junkie's got to get high, you know, on a Tuesday, and he's in jail. So does it make more sense economically to just have it run like that, as opposed to just, hey, I need heroin, you're my dealer. Like I do with my weed guy in Austin.

I call you up, hey, I need some weed. Right. Like, I call you up, hey, I need some heroin. Can you come meet me at McDonald's or wherever? Does it make more sense to just push these mobs of people to an open, an open-air place? That's a good question.

I'm trying to help them out. Yeah, I hear you, man. You sound like you're the man of the people, man. But the thing is, right, that's probably, that's what's happening now. And that's why so many arrests, that's why I so many ODs. Because for the older,

for the people who really know how to get money when it's coming to selling dope, They still have a very good operation. So you will never really be successful selling dope hand to hand. You're going to get hot. The police are always watching, you know, so you have to have an operation. So it's always best if somebody's walking up and they say, Johnny, I need four of them. I need 10 of them, whatever it is, right?

You're like, all right, go around the corner. Now you might call me, all right, Blue coming around the corner. He gave me the money. Give him 10 of them. You understand? You don't want to have the drugs with the money. That's the bigger charge. See, having the drugs on me, that's just possession.

Having drugs and money, that's a possession with intent to distribute. That's a bigger charge. So you want to always keep them two things separate. You don't want to get everything in one shot. Police is watching. They're like, oh, we see him. They pull up on you, you got drugs and money on you. You're going down.

It's going to be a problem. Right, of course. I mean, the feds don't need that. The feds consider you to pretty. for life with no drugs. Absolutely. That was part of the, one of the biggest pieces of bullshit from the wire that I did not appreciate was that, you know, season five, the finale, they put this huge case on the Stanfield crew.

Right. They get them with like, I think like 50 kilos of raw heroin or something. And it's the state police. It's like the Baltimore cops had taken down. That's a Fed charge. All day. How often do you see federal busts in the city of Baltimore? Or is it usually, does that usually happen like on the outskirts where like the kingpins live?

No, it's fed bus every day, you know, and they work in conjunction with the state. So what you said, you're absolutely right. That would have never happened in real life where it was just the state police. With that amount of work, it definitely would have been a fed charge. With the type of bodies, everything, the feds would have been took that over. and that whole McNulty crew and all that, that would have been, you know, to the side at that point. But, no, the feds are very, very heavy in Baltimore.

Look, man, just a couple weeks ago, maybe a couple months ago, we just had, like, 30 overdoses at one area. One area had 30 overdoses from fentanyl. And then, like, I think, like, a week or so before that, it was like 14 overdoses. See, this is what, this goes back to my original point, that anybody is selling it.

There's no honor in the game. compared to how it used to be. It used to be like, okay, you can stand behind something that's good. I know this is good. I put it together myself. And again, in Baltimore we had what's called testers. I think Cavario spoke about that, about the alley. You're giving out tests and stuff like that.

Because, so a tester, for lack of a better term, is a sample. So you make up a certain amount so you can give some out for free. It's free promotion. You know, nothing works better than a dope game than word of mouth. You know, so you got crowd. I mean, man, I had a seen what looks like a school full of people just waiting, you know, for the right dope to come out. Now, this one dope was dope. And you might, you might got some dope, you know, and you're like, no, I'm good, y'all.

Come on. Come get it from me. No, they're going to wait for who they're waiting for. And they don't care if you start trying to, if you're selling $10 pills and you say, man, I get it to you for a dollar. They're not going to buy it because they know what they want because those testers let them know, I need this. And remember, nobody wants to be dope sick. That's one of the worst feelings.

You know, you're sweating. You have diarrhea. You're throwing up. Body aches. What they call it is heavy. Like they come out selling, man, I'm feeling heavy, man. I need a hit, man. I feel heavy.

You know, and for me, when I was selling dope, I would always make sure that nobody was heavy. Because the loyalty of the people would determine your success. you know like like if you man it's been people crack people outside the head because they got a dollar short you know what I mean you know bust somebody upside the head

but this person will coming to you every day religiously for the past month and I come with a short once and you just you know you can't win like that because they will snatch on you they will tell you know yeah man look man like it's dumb down there think about your man Bubbs

yeah remember Bubbs just going to put the hats on people and all that, just because of his homeboy who got beat up by the boys in the low rises. You know, so this is real. That actually does happen. Cooperation is at an all-time high, especially with these computers that we have in our pocket. Those phones, might be two blocks away, zooming in. That's Johnny right there, you know, and go show somebody, you know.

And now you're looking at a whole indictment or investigation you didn't even have an idea about because of somebody who you didn't. didn't want to give a free pill to. Right. You know, like, that, that sucks. I mean, it's a part of the game. I would say that. But this is the game that's been played now.

Like, back then, like, you had, it was more boots on the ground, but now somebody can fly a drone over you. It's crazy out here, man. Well, that's why it's so crazy to me that they're still selling really big-time federal amounts of drugs, fentanyl, in the middle of the open air,

where they can't identify you from any which way. You know, like that's, When you go up to New York, you go up to Harlem, you go up to the Bronx. You don't really see that shit. Everybody's behind closed doors. You've got to go through a gate. You've got to have a referral. You got to pass money through a little slot.

Like the Carter, like, they don't know. Exactly. It's like the Carter. And that's actually good for the community. Right. You know, like that's where policing does help. Like, the drug war has failed at the top because you can't stop. You can't stop people when they're motivated by so much money.

The product's always going to be getting in. Where policing does help in the drug war is by like cleaning up the streets. Like, because that's what affects the community the most. It's not the fucking Mexican guy bringing in a hundred bricks. It's a bunch of little 14-year-olds, you know, beating up dope fiends on the corner when kids are just trying to walk to school. Like that's what affects the quality of life the most. So, but you guys don't give a fucking Baltimore. Let me, I can give you.

Let me get. Let me go a little deeper for you, right? Since the game has changed, right? This is the problem. This is what it really is. There's no order. There's no structure. You have people who are selling, let's say, crack to go buy percocets.

See, when I was coming up, people wanted to be fly. You wanted to have money. You wanted to women. These guys are selling drugs to buy drugs. They're drug addicts themselves. They're drug addicts themselves. That's so pathetic. So there is no order or no structure.

Listen, when you come to Baltimore, I'm going to take you to a place. It's called Lexington Market. It's downtown Baltimore. When you see this, Johnny, you're going to be. And what I'm going to tell you is this. Everybody down Lexington Market is buying drugs, selling drugs, doing drugs. And it's wide open. There is no, like, discretion at all.

Would you equate it to, like, Kensington in Philadelphia or, like, downtown L.A., like Skid Row, these places? Very similar. Okay. Very similar. But what I would say is it's more unique because the difference is this is an all-day, everyday thing, and it's wide open. And it's not just like Kensington is more like people using and stuff like that. This is people hustling. Like wide open.

I'm talking about people got the design X, whatever it is, you know, methadone, all that. Like we got what's called spitback, right? You familiar with spitback? No. Okay. Spitback is this. Spitback is if I'm in a methadone program, right, and I go take my methadone. But what I do is I hold the methadone in my mouth

to I'm out of the place and I spit it back in the bottle and go sell it to somebody. You understand? People want to get high that bad. Wow. You know, so it's, and that's why my initiative is what it is, like the Baltimore Recovery Alliance, because I see that people need,

help. People with addiction don't need jobs. I mean, they don't need jail. They need rehab. You know, don't put me in jail because I get high. Help me. It's so tough, though, because people have been trying to clean up the streets and the community for decades. And it doesn't seem to do any good. In fact, it's like a blowback. As you say, let's open up a rehab center in Baltimore. And then we'll get all these junkies to come to this rehab center and then they'll just leave and it creates a bigger pool of drug addicts in the city. And this is what I wanted to ask you, sorry to cut you off. Like in, do you think there's corruption in the rehab industry?

Because like, for example, the homeless industry in California, in L.A., right? They'll give billions of dollars to a developer to go build up free housing for homeless people and drug addicts. And if it does get built, it costs way more money because it's not. It's free money. It comes from the government. It comes from taxpayers. And so they'll build these giant nice buildings for homeless people, and they'll be empty.

Right. Because obviously they have to piss test these people. They have to be clean to stay there, and they all piss dirty. So it's just, you know, or maybe they go check in. They get high and then they leave. It's a fucking mess. Do you think the rehab industry actually perpetuates drug addiction more than it helps? Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, very, very good point. So what I'll say is this, number one, right? Just to speak on what you're saying in L.A. That happens because you're right. It's already a plan to not have those people in those buildings. And that's because they are not addressing the one major aspect. That's behavior health. See, it doesn't matter.

See, it's like the chicken of the egg. That's what we learned in this. What came first? Was it the drug abuse that led to the mental health issues or was it the mental health issues that led to the drug abuse? And if you're not about that, if you're not focused on that, you're not helping anybody. All you're doing is lining your pockets. Now, to answer your second question, yeah.

And Maryland specifically, look, the corruption was so bad that the state, they put a moratorium on opening new programs, meaning that in Baltimore City and Baltimore, well, it was the whole state, but now it's down to just Baltimore City and Baltimore County, that you can't open any new program because it was a lot of fraud. This is what the fraud looks like. Okay, Johnny comes into treatment, right? Johnny leaves after three days, right? But we're still billing your Medicaid for three months. You've been gone three months, but we're still getting that money for you, like you're in here.

You know? And, man, the money on these programs, they make a lot of money, man. It is buchu money. You understand? But so the corruption is always there as long as bad people are involved. Let me give you another example to build on what you ask. So think about this. Let's say you are and John, right?

you John and I, we got some money. We're like, man, let's open the program is a way to make some money. But we're not clinicians. We don't have no true passion about helping anybody. So that means that when people come to our program, we're not really helping them.

We're just scanning them, you know, to get that insurance money. And you leave, you leave, okay. So then you get a bad name. Then you got people, you'll take anybody. So now people are overdosing, whatever, but you're still collecting money. So they put the moratorium on

because it's the same way as if a conglomerate open a restaurant. Nobody's a chef, nobody's a busboy, nothing. It's like, hey, we could just make money off a restaurant. People like to eat. But it's no passion about it. We don't even know what's on the menu. That's the same thing, like, as far as these people opening these programs, they don't

really care about the people. And when that happens, it's always going to lead to relapse and everything else. But for me, if I have 100 people, and out that 100, 5, I'll succeed. That's a win. Because what we learn is this, man, when these people who come to these programs, they are the backbones of their family. So when they're doing bad, the family's doing bad. But when they're doing good, the family's doing good.

So it feels good to be able to help people reconnect with their children. You know, it feels good to be able to help people get out the slums, get out the bandos. You understand? Like the whole key is that you're still a person and you matter. That's what we have to perpetuate. That's what we have to project to people. Yeah, you got a needle in your arm right now, but guess what? You're still worthy of love, respect, and redemption.

So, I mean, some of the most famous people had some of the worst drug habits. For sure. You know, but a lot of those people, they had the type of infrastructure that just kept them going. Like, man, no, you know, like, think about somebody like Charlie Shane. You know, Robert Downey Jr., these people were, you know, very famous, you know, infamously known for drug abuse. And they got through. Well, what they had was money.

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Is there still a lot of abandoned property around Baltimore? It's more abandoned, man. It's ridiculous. Still? Yes, very, very much so. I mean, it's so many abandoned buildings in Baltimore. It might be more abandoned buildings than there is actual buildings. It's where people living in there.

You know, I'm talking about whole communities, just abandoned buildings. And are there still, since heroin is no longer. a thing, are there still shooting galleries? Oh, yeah, absolutely. So people are actually shooting the Fent. Yeah. That's rock and roll. Smoking it, you know? You know, yeah, man. The Fentonauton

is terrible, man. And remember I originally said it's nine different variants. So in every degree is worse. So yeah, man, they're shooting it, you know, snorting it, smoking it. You know, and the thing is, you have people

who have pill presses, who are making these fake percassettes, you know? Yeah. It's called like M80s, right? Or something like that. And the thing is, back in the day, you used to be able to see the difference between a prescription percassette and one somebody made.

But they're getting so, just like in everything else, we know how it goes. Technology always improves the fraud. So now they look so good that you wouldn't even know. Man, I know, rest in peace, man. I know three kids, man. They were all under 21 who died from the fake perks within like the law. last two years, you know, because it looks so real. So people, basically what it is is people want perks.

Perks is a whole market, you know. I think a lot of young kids too, right? That's what I'm saying. They're influenced by rap and shit like that. And so they think they're getting a perk, but it's really fentanyl. Right. And what's the point of doing that? Because I guess a dealer can get fentanyl cheap, whereas it's more difficult to get real

percassettes? Correct. Okay. Right. Remember, percocets generally only come from a doctor, this prescription medicine. So if I can fool the market to send it, hey, I have, you know, a stockpile of these percocets, you know, combined for me. Because it used to be like dollar per milligram. So if you get a perk 30, that's $30.

But now in certain places, it's double. You're paying $60 for a perk 30. But this is the point, though, Johnny, what I'm telling you, that these kids don't realize that that's still an opiate. Lean is an opiate. Perkinsets is an opiate. Heroin is an opiate. Morphine is a opiate. Fentanyl is an opiate.

So what happens is, I know some people who, they were on like three per 30s, I mean, five perk 30s a day, right? That's $150 habit a day. Okay. That money starts to get low. And guess what? What they find out is, I can go get a pill of fentanyl for $3. It's bigger. It's stronger.

It lasts longer, and guess what? You're never going to do a perk again in your life. Now you're officially on that side of the tracks. You know, so everything that you thought that you wouldn't be, the same people you were laughing at, oh, you're a dope thing, this, this and that. No, bro, it's the same thing. You know, so even with the lean, man,

promethazine is an opiate. So you are going to, you know, you're going to feel the same roughness as somebody who's just doing heroin or fentanyl. You know, it's the same exact thing, just a different form. But that's my whole key to inform these kids. It's the same thing.

So before you pick it up, understand what you're signing up for. Because like you said, these rappers, they tell you, oh, yeah, I got my double cup. I'm mixing my sprite with the lean. I got the purple, you know, all that, no, man. But a lot of these people are going through a lot more than what you realize, you know. And like you said, they can afford to go to great rehabs. Def Jam or Columbia Records will put them somewhere nice, but whole time where you're at in a band, though. So it does sound like a lot of the youth, like really, like young kids are becoming addicts.

Yes, sir. At an alarming rate. I just thought when I was growing up, you know, I would see crackheads and dope fiends like in Portland, you know, under the bridge or whatever, downtown Portland. And I'm like, okay, well, we all know now. These guys are strung out. They're addicted. We can't help them.

But once they're gone, like the new generation will see clearly this is, you can't do this. I was so naive. I was like, oh, yeah, heroin will just die. Right. It did die, but because of something much worse, a much worse villain. Yeah, that's really sad. Yeah, it's like a bad guy in a movie. And then you say, oh, God, he's actually, we missed that bad guy.

Right. This guy's even worse. Way worse. Yeah. So, I have so many questions. And they're going to be out of order. But let's talk about the abandoned buildings. Right.

the season four of the wire, Marlowe and his crew are killing dudes and dumping them in the abandoned buildings. Did that ever really happen? Yeah, that was a real thing. Yeah. I mean, now, I'm not going to say based on the names from the wire, I'm not saying that the real Marlowe Stanfield when he was on the street, because he is a real person, that his crew was doing that. But no, yeah. I mean, it's so many vacants, yeah. I mean, and also, you get a lot of people OD in these vacants that nobody ever sees again. You know, until a city worker goes to board it up or something, they get a stench, and they're like, oh, it's bodies in here. It's that simple.

Look, think about this, Johnny. Again, they don't have any structure to what they're doing. They just got the fitness and all mixing it up. So, let's say five people went all to this one place to go get some dope, and they all went back to the band or the door, and they all overdose off it. Who's there to call the police? That's five bodies in that building. So five people could just die like that. Right.

and their bodies will be decaying when they find them. Right. Now, you talked about, like, when they knocked over the big high rises, it caused a bunch of people to be jammed up. It basically caused a whole migration of drug dealers to go to other people's turf, right? Whether it was boulevards or avenues or alleyways. How does that get resolved?

Like, do you own a spot? Like, if you're running a crew and you say, okay, this is my corner. Like, do you own it? And then what happens? If one of your guys gets killed, do you step off or do you go to war? Or is it organized in the way that we saw it in the wire?

Where they're like, this is a Stanfield corner. Yeah, it's just like that. But it's more of an open-air market, whereas though it's not really just names. But, yeah, it happens just like that. You've been right here for however... You grew up on this block, this avenue.

You grew up here and you've been hustling here forever. Everybody around here know that to get it from you, only people who can come around and hustle is people that you bring in. But now I came from the projects and I moved in the house down the street and I got a whole bunch of project guys with me and everything else and we're looking at this block. We like, bad, well, this is the new spot we're at. So yeah, unless, because some people are so infamous that they might already know each other

because what brings people together also is jail. So even though I'm not from your neighborhood, might have been over to jail with you, you know, and like, okay, all right, um, that's a little man mad at them. Okay, Johnny, come here, yo, all right. That's what you was at? Yeah, bro, blah, Bob, that's my man. You know, okay. Now, I might got a supplier that's way better than yours. So a lot of organizations come together, like the co-op on the wire. Organizations come together, they copped together, and they strategically, you know, take over other towns and knock off, well, take over other arias and knock off a smaller players.

You know, so it works like that a lot of times. But sometimes it's, you know, I'm a hardcore killer from the projects and you just somebody up here getting money. See, remember, it's a difference between a hustler and a killer, you know, like, or, you know, and a gangster. Because you could be somebody who hustles, somebody who just outside getting money, whatever. You could be a killer, somebody who, people just pay you to knock people off. But then you could be a gangster, somebody who's organized, like, you know,

what? I ain't got to do none of that. I know exactly what you just put the piece. It's just a chessboard. And now everybody who's out there is now gone and you just move on in. Whereas though your thumbprint ain't on anything. It's just now this is my territory. My drugs are better. My hours are better. And that's another thing too. I'm glad you brought it up is that people on avenue streets and stuff like that, residential blocks. They normally have a cutoff time and the time that they start. The projects is 24-7. So now whoever moved there from the projects, they out there all day, which means that it's more money all day. That means that it's more crowds all day, which means that it's hotter all day too. Because the police probably was used to the block being shut down at a certain time.

Like, all right, Mike and them gone, you know, okay, whatever. So now the flow who normally come through this is up there now, whatever. But now that these project guys are here, oh, it ain't no shutting down. Because the projects don't shut down. It's like a 7-11. You can come in any time. So now it's a whole different atmosphere on the block, you know, and that's what usually leads to, you know, a lot of murders. Because, number one, okay, I want this.

You know, I got 10 bodies, you know, you might not know who I am, but it's probably best for you to leave. You grew up around here, you know what I mean? Okay, you know what I'm not saying this to you. This is what I'm thinking as the new guy on the block. Like, oh, yeah, I'm already going to kill them. You know what I mean? Just get the stuff together. We're going to open up tomorrow.

They're going to be dead tonight. And if you heard people talk that casually about, Yeah, murder is a part of the business. You know, hurting people is a part of the business. Oh, man. It's just, it's just a part of the job, you know? And the thing is, what I learned is, man, it's easy to hurt somebody. I mean, just think about it.

You got soccer moms who drive the whole van into the lake with their kids in them. You understand? She just caught four bodies and killed herself, you know? But it takes a certain mentality to be able to live with what's happened. You know, and that's where a lot of people crack and tell because they're getting haunted by, you didn't kill somebody and you just keep seeing their face every night or whatever like that. No, you got to be, you got to have the mental fortitude to know that whatever goes on,

I can handle it. Yeah, I mean, it seems like you guys are so, just the whole Baltimore City is so desensitized to death. It really is. From the guy, you know, shooting somebody to death on the corner to the city worker just, oh, smells like shit. We got five dead ones in here. Like, it's just nothing. It's nothing.

You're right, Johnny. You're right. Let me build on that for we move from that. And that's what keeps Baltimore very respectful as well. Let me get an example. Because for the true G's, you could be coming into the store, right? And I'm walking out. I'm going to hold the door for you.

If I bump into you, I'm going to say, excuse me. Because the one underlying thing with Baltimore is that you can die anytime. You don't know who's a gangster. You don't know who got it on them. None of that. So you always want to be, unless when it's go time, it's go time. If you say, if you say, Carl, these guys down here on our block, blah, blah, blah, we got a mission. We're going to do it.

That's that's that. But what I'm saying is just in everyday life. It's a certain level of respect that Baltimoreians have for each other because we always know there's a chance that you can die. You cut somebody off in traffic. Somebody might shoot your car. You step on somebody's shoe, somebody might blow your head off. So it's always a level of, you know what I mean? Like, like real gangsters don't.

It's like prison. Yeah. J.L. in prison really like that. It's like, hey, are you using the phone? You know what I'm saying? Because I can go after. No big deal. Like everybody's like, because you try to avoid that shit.

Right. Because it can pop off in an instant. Because it's going to be that easy. And of course, remember, Maryland isn't an open carry state. You know, so it's different than other, you know, states to have open carry rules. No. So you don't know who got it on them. You know, it'll be the old man in the chicken box spot.

You don't want to weigh an old man, but the whole time, here, old school gangster. And he'd been waiting for something like this to happen from one of you young knuckleheads to try him. You know, so it's just those type of things to happen in Baltimore. So gun dealing is an industry. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because you can't have it on you. Right. It's like New York.

So you can make money selling guns and shit. Yeah, man, the switches and all that thing about it. We went from back in the day, let's say in the 60s and 70s that you had to fight somebody. to like seven and 80s, 70s and 80s, you might have to stab somebody. The knife was, you know, the bigger thing. Then you had your 38s and stuff like that. So now they got glocks. You know, then you're like, okay, you got a glock, right?

And let's say you got 17 shots. That's a lot of shots to do something when you went from having six shots. Now they got not only the 17 shots, now they got the drums on it. You know, and now not only the drum, they got the switch on it. So now they're just making ways for you to kill people and kill each other even at a faster rate. And a lot of these guys shooting with their eyes closed. They're not really, you know, so that's why a lot of innocent people actually get hurt. Because there's so many bullets and ain't nobody really got, and everybody's high.

Yeah, everybody. You wake up down the bookings, because you know one of the side effects of Xanax is that it could be temporary memory loss. so you can wake up and not even know, you know, you over the bookings, charge people slide under the door, you don't woke up, you look at the child, I killed six people last night. There must be some mistake. It got to be. Check the security camera out.

You're like, I damn sure did kill six motherfuckers. You feel me? Dude, that's fucking crazy. So do you think that Baltimore also, because speaking of everybody getting high, I mean, you know, when we were growing up, meaning like the 90s and the 2000s, like it was not cool to be a drug user. Like the, and I got that from rap specifically

and like hip-hop culture. It's like we sell drugs to these losers, these old school guys that started getting high in the 70s and 80s, those are the junkies and we're the fly drug dealers. And we smoke weed and we drink and we have bitches, you know? But it doesn't, it seemed like that, that missed Baltimore.

Like Cavario, for instance. You know, Cavario, who's been a good friend of the show, talks about when he went to Baltimore in like the late 90s, and to try to get on selling Coke, he went to a club, like a nightclub. And there was like this like hot black girl, like a bunch of these like hot black girls with like, you know, their club dresses on looking all sexy.

And they're like nodding from heroin. Like, Baltimore. I think that's kind of like unique to Baltimore, don't you think? Yeah, I mean, Baltimore, that's, we have the title as the heroin capital. You know, even 50 cent, he had a, what was it called? My, I forgot the name of the song. But he references Baltimore as like the dope capital. Something about his love thing.

I forgot the name of the song. It had come to me. It's a Baltimore. It's a love thing? Yeah, because he was talking about dope. Right. You know, but yeah, I mean. But is just, they're just not that stigma.

amongst like, you know, like young black men, like teenagers. No. You know, they just don't have that. No. And it's largely because of the music as well. You know, remember, you got these rappers talking about drinking the lean all the time, you know, pop in the zanny and the perk and all that. And Baltimore has that type of, Baltimore is a city full of people who are followers. You know, now we have famous people from Baltimore, right?

We got Javante Davis, you know, Tank, shout out to him. We have, you know, Tupac came from there. We have, you know, we have a lot of different people who made that way, right? But as a rapper, we've never had somebody on the level of a JZ, of a Little Wayne. You know, no superstar rappers have ever came from Baltimore, you know. But we had a lot of people who were actually, like, on their way up, but then they got killed. And that's like, we have this whole. thing, like, it's the crab in the bucket.

Once somebody's about to get out the city, another crab just pour you down. But nonetheless, it's a city full of follow. So all of these trends that go on, no matter if it's in the Bay Area, if it's in Atlanta, if it's wherever it's at, Baltimore, absorb at all, you know, like that kid who wants to fit in, you know, like, okay, that's what they're doing there, that's what we're doing. You know, but the difference is Baltimore also has a culture of homicide, which a lot of lot of these places don't. So when these guys getting high and they party in, these guys getting high and they're killing. You know, so it's a difference. So, and I only mention the music thing

because it matters in the aspect of identity. So it's like, oh, they popping perks in Atlanta and drinking lane. Well, we're going to do it more than them. We're going to pop extra perks. We're going to drink extra lane. We're going to show them that. Because it's a lot of successful drug dealers in Baltimore. You know, I know that's oxymoron, but I'm just saying like it's a lot of people who are making a lot of money who are not famous, but they got rapper type money, but not rapper type fame. Right. So they feel like they got ahead of Christian Dior's. They got ahead of the Hubello. You know what I'm saying?

And they can afford it legitimately, but illegally. You know, so it's that type of mentality. Yeah, Baltimore lacks an idea. identity in like a legal lane. You understand? Like the wire put the city on the map, but it's only known for really bad things. Everywhere I go, Johnny, they say, is Baltimore really like the wire? Let me hear you say, do, two.

You know, yeah, this is how we talk. It's fascinating, even how the accent came to be. I mean, you're only, you're north of Washington, D.C. Like a half an hour north of D.C., but it's a city that, feels and operates like it's the South. Yeah. And also I think, don't you think the lack of gentrification, like, you know, all these cities, D.C., Atlanta, New York, Chicago.

I mean, they still have their hoods, but the downtowns have been revitalized by young white people going to, you know, strike it out and get cheap rent. And why does Baltimore not have any kind of flow? You know, like Austin is like, you know, it's a place where like people, young people are going and there's no optimism in Baltimore. But it's around all these cities that have really been revitalized. I think it's by design. You know, I think that some of the politicians who are on top, maybe not like the mayor

or the governor, but some of the people, I believe it's by design. Remember, people get paid off of the misery of others every day. So it's no mistake that these drugs are in the community. these guns, these homicides. You know, I believe that if the government help address four things in Baltimore, and I think this model could be addressed across the nation, joblessness, homelessness, miseducation and mass incarceration. If those things are addressed, things can change for anybody.

Listen, in Baltimore, there is gentrification. It's a lot. A lot of neighborhoods that used to be just straight hoods, no, we have Johns Hopkins. We have Johns Hopkins. We are the home of Johns Hopkins. And it's Johns Hopkins all around the world. Arguably one of the, if not the best hospital in the world. And they bought up a whole area of the city.

It was called Dickeland. And it's nothing but like buildings and hotel. They got, I think it's a marriott or something right there on Wolf Street. So it is happening. But you also have to understand this, that we have a lot of hoods that are full of poor blacks, Hispanics, and whites. Like a neighborhood like Highlandtown, a lot of poor whites,

Middle River, Dundalk, you know, these type of places, they have a lot of different, you know, and remember, these people are voting. So certain things are happening to people because it's a design. It's not a mistake. So I think it's somebody

or some people who are making a lot of money off of the misery of Baltimore and they don't want it to change. And that's why the nature has been that for so long. You know, I mean, think about, man, we have beautiful colleges there. And like I said, we're not far from D.C., Virginia. Maryland is a very rich state. Think about it. Montgomery County, I think, is like the richest county in America.

Because you have all of these federal, you know, employees who live in Moco. That's short from Montgomery County. So it's a lot of money flowing through Baltimore, but it's not a lot of opportunity. It's like being in high school. If you're not in the cool click, you ain't going to get no money. And most of us are struggling, so you're not going to ever even get to meet somebody

who can actually put some money in your hand or give you an opportunity to change. So that's why for me, with the wire being what it was, right? Because people don't believe this. But when the wire was brand new, a lot of Baltimore guys wasn't watching the wire. We seen what was going on around the city because it's always movies being shot in Baltimore.

But a lot of times, they'll shoot in Baltimore and say it's D.C. You know, like that type of thing. You know, like when they shoot movies, they'll say, you know, you get my point. But like, we didn't watch the wire. Not like we was anti-wire. We didn't know what was going on.

Like I said, it was a guy next door to my uncle who worked at the, on the show, he worked for Stringa Bell at his print shop. And he would come home with like Polaroids and stuff like that from behind the scenes. Like, yeah. But we didn't know what was going on. We young streetnickers trying to get money. We like, man, all right, well, I'm glad it's, you know, whatever, you know, acting.

We ain't worried about showing up on no set. We worried about selling this dope. You know, so I say that to say that after the fact that I got to watch it. And because, like you said, HBO had a run, man. They had the wire, sopranos, game of throne, Oz. Remember Oz? Oz really started. Yeah, right.

So it was just like, once I really got into it, because the name Barksdale means a lot in Baltimore, you know? Right. And then I'm like, I talked to my big brother, you know, Fat Tater. He's like, yeah, man, that's about my family. You know what I'm like? You know what I'm like, oh, yeah. And then, but at this point, Fat Tater had already changed.

his life. You know, so I was blessed to have somebody who went through something on a major level to be able to help me pivot some. Like, so while he was in jail and still bumping his head, I was still outside, you know, making my own name and doing what I was doing, you know, doing what I was doing. But it helped to have somebody who was like in that atmosphere of change because he was growing, man. He passed now. But he was, he was growing like, into a political figure in Baltimore. Wow. So you didn't come up under him in the drug game.

Right. Okay. So you just knew him after he had already changed his life. No, so I knew him in the drug game. Oh, God. You know, so what I say is this. He had went to prison. He had came home, you know.

And so I knew him from as a little boy, but then he went to prison. Then he came home. Then he started to get his life together. but it was still a time in between. And even with him exited in the game, he still had the knowledge and experience. So I was in the street,

you know, because he's older than me, of course. You know, so he would, like, boy, look, if that's what you're going to do, and I'm going to tell you, when you're cutting that like that, make sure you do this like that. You know what I mean?

Boy, look, if you're going to do this, then you understand what I'm saying? It's like he didn't want to see me fail because he knew that what he gave me, I would give to somebody, else. Like right now he will be so proud. Am I you sitting with Johnny? You know what I mean? Like boy you were you doing interviews because he wrote a book. He actually has a book. I'm going to get you a copy of it. It's called Growing Up Barksdale. You know, he talks about everything, you know,

because the why didn't put everything in there by his family, of course, you know, because those police and the news reporter, they were doing credits. They were working together and they were doing cruddy stuff. See, that's what they didn't put in there. They weren't working, I mean, even if you think about the show, think about Minnawit. He was doing a lot. All of them, they was doing cruddy stuff. And legal things to acquire certain information and everything else. So he was exposing that and he would talk about that. Like, yeah, man, like, they making it seem like they were just doing that job. But now in reality, they were doing a lot more, you know, the police. The police. Yeah, who are super corrupt, obviously, you know.

in Baltimore. Yeah. Did you experience any of that? Like blatant police corruption when you were hustling? Every day. We used to call them the Cruddy Whites. You know what I?

Like, man, look, what? Like the Gun Trace Task Force, the disgraced Baltimore City Police Unit. Which they also did a show about. Yep, yep. What was that? John Bergenthall, right?

Yeah, he's a great actor. John Bernthal, yeah. Berenthal, right. So they didn't depict all of the stuff that they was doing, man. These guys were like some of the worst or the worst, but that's the nature of police, though. I mean, I think there's so many police, you know, units that still operate in the same way that they are all across the nation. It's just that they were so corrupt that they got caught up for it.

But yeah, man, what? Well, they were robbing, were they robbing drug dealers? Robin killing, doing hits for people, so it would work like this. Okay. One of them, they come to me, right? They come shake me down or something like that, right? and they say, they put me in the car, something like that, like they're going to take me to the jail or something.

They catch me with something. And they say, hey, Carl, we see you out here making money. Now, remember, this is a police talking to you. We see you out here making money, you know, but you ain't got to go to jail tonight. I got a deal for you. I got two bricks of coat. Just sell it and give me my part, you know,

and I make sure that it keep coming. You'll have protection out here. And anybody who against you, you know, we'll knock them off. So for somebody who that sounds good to, they're going to be like, all right, Johnny down the street from me, he got them big 30 pieces. You know, I need him gone. Guess what? Johnny will never be heard from McGandy. Yeah, man, he was murder for hire you, man.

Was police way? They were making people disappear too? Yeah. Holy shit. Yeah. That is gangster shit. That is fucking gangster shit. So let's talk about.

your ascension through the street, when did you jump off the porch? I jumped up the porch. I would say, kind of late. I was a late bloomer. And what kind of family, too? Did you have family selling drugs, hooked on drugs? What was family home life like? So I jumped out the porch when I probably was about 16.

Which is late. Yeah, late. In relative times. For Baltimore. Yeah, for Baltimore, right. Come on. I have friends outside of 11, 12, stuff like that. So growing up, my mom, she had passed from drug abuse.

She was a heroin addict. And she had actually, and she shot needles. So she had OD'd and my grandma had found me in the house like two days later after she had already passed. So then my grandmother raised me. My grandmother, she was a hustler. Like my grandmother, she actually, like, sold loose cigarettes, hot plates, frozen cups. candy, whatever it was. So I grew up in a house that was essentially a store. So it taught me supply and demand, you know, how to count, you know, because somebody can come with a 20 and they want

something that's, you know, a dollar in 70 cent. I got to make sure that that changed right. I can't give them more. I can give them less. You know, so my mom passed. My father had a history of addiction. My grandmother had three kids total. My mom was the oldest and she had a daughter and a son, They both had their own addiction issues as well. So coming up in the house, I just learned how to hustle, you know, like, and that could be applied to anything. My first plug was my great-grandmother. She gave me, like, three pounds of weed. Now, the thing with the weed was this.

She had had a flood, right? I think she had about three floods, and it was in a plastic bag. And I think it just sat and just kept, like, you know, like over, I don't even know how long. I remember what she told me. She said, I got this weed. Do not tell your grandmother about it. I'm in high school at this time, right? You know, and she like, because I'm like, you know.

How old is your great grandmother at this point? Who knows, man? 40. I'm just kidding. Maybe 50. I don't know, man. She was old school. This was back when grandmops.

Most people have never met their great grandmother. Oh, okay. She's the plug. She's putting you on. Yeah, man. And I took the weed and I'm talking about, I don't know what happened to this weed. I know what she told me. But I know it was no THC on it.

And I knew at that time I smoked. And I had smoked massive blunt to this and it would never get me high. So I don't know if she had it for years or whatever it is. Because it wasn't as if like I was working for her. It was just one day I was over our house and I was just like, man, I'm in high school. I'm like, man, I need some money. Blah, blah, blah.

And, you know, she just came with an idea. Well, look, I got this. If you can do anything, you could take all of it. If you can do anything with it is yours. Don't tell your grandmother, though. My grandmother wouldn't have went for that. So I took it. I did what I could.

I talked to some of the OGs around the way. They said spread with some alcohol with some Jack Daniels, actually. I did it. I sold enough of it just to be able to cop like an ounce of weed. You know? Remember this back when Reggie was out, you know, mids. It wasn't no zai or nothing like that. It was just regular weed, you know, especially on the East Coast.

I know on the West Coast, they always had hydroponic weed. We didn't have that. We had sticks and seeds and shit now weed. But anyway, so I get it. I did what I had to do. And it just taught me something, you know, and that breath, like, because remember, I was a late bloom. So 16, 17, that was like the first time that I ever actually sold anything that wasn't stuffed that my grandmother had, that was like frozen cup, cigarettes and stuff like that.

But I already knew supply and demand. So I'm like, okay. So as time passes on, I'm in high school, I get better weed, I'm selling that. You know, I graduate. Then I didn't get into the streets. You know, so I always had a big cousin who was always in the streets, you know. And when I got to a certain point, I actually went with him where he was at, which was a whole different project in South Baltimore.

and it was kind of like coming a part of a family. He already had a whole setup. All I had to do is go and be a stand-up guy. You understand? As long as I never displayed any weakness, I wasn't a sucker, I didn't make them look bad, I was good, which is fairly easy for a stand-up guy. You know, like, just don't be a bitch.

You know what I mean? Don't snitcher nobody. Don't steal nothing. You know, look out for your brothers, want for your brothers as you want for yourself. So after becoming part of that, that's when my life really started to change on the criminal aspect.

And at this time, this one, Fat Tater was still in jail. You know, so I'm not around him at this time. But I'm learning the game. And as I'm learning the game, I'm excelling. You know, and in hindsight, I wasn't making like tens of thousands of dollars. But what I did have that I think a lot of people never had was power.

You know, I had the power from the people I was with that I can make anything happen as far as violence. You know, like, it's people that I know who sell a lot of drugs and all that, and they got to pay somebody to do something, or they just, or they just chumps. You got, you could put $10,000 on somebody here and get them gone, but you're settling for whatever it is because you're a coward at heart. But I, on the other hand, I was in a position where, so I might not have been making the most money, but I had power and influence.

What was your function in the organization? What was your role? An enforcer. Okay. You know, and a hustler. You know, so. So how many people, like, describe this operation, like, a typical, yeah, a typical hair-on spot, a typical dope spot?

How many lookouts? How many pitchers, runners, people counting the trap, checking the stash? So. And how much do they get paid? How does the payment work? That's a very good question. So when you're selling dope, man, especially in Baltimore, you're talking about, man, you got people making $30,000, $40,000 a day. You know what I mean?

Easy. But I'm talking about then. I don't know what the fentanyl is doing it or not like that. And I'm not in the streets. But so let's just say, but it will be weekly pay. All right. So this is how it works. All right.

Let's say we made $30,000 a day, right? The spot. The spot, right? It would be a weekly pay. So that means at the end of the week. So whoever block it is, they take whatever they're taking. I'm going to tell you from the hierarchy down from the guy who actually has the block, whose stuff it is.

Okay, so the guy who run the block, he might be getting maybe about, let's say, like, $20,000 a week. You feel me? But out that 20, 10 to 15 is his money a week. Five or 10 of it goes to the workers. So the guy who runs the block who is under the guy who's giving him to work, he gets 10,000. All right? So now you got 10,000.

So now you might got two different hitters, but one hitter every day, then you might be alternating. So your hitter is the one who actually, when the people come up with the money, they're the one who giving them the drugs. So your hitter might get paid $1,000 a week, you know? So that's about $9,000 left. All right. to have about three to four corner men, you know, so you'll pay them probably about $1,000 a week. And a cornerman is what?

A corner man is somebody who's going to stand on the corner who's not selling any drugs. He never touches any drugs, but he's making sure that you know when the police is coming. So most blocks got a keyword that you know that the police is coming. So when you yell it out, you're not just saying, police. You're not saying, 5'0. You might be like one of my around one of my old blocks I used to be. We should be like, Trayvon, Trayvon. You know, so it seemed like we're just calling somebody named Trayvon,

but we're actually saying the police is coming. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, all right, so let's say those four. So they split 1,000. Four corner boys split a thousand bucks. No, no, no, no, no. Remember, we're making $30 a day.

They get $1,000 each of them get $1,000. Right. That's really good money. You want your people to be happy. Wow. I'm making $30,000 a day. I can afford to pay you all this. You know, and then remember, most of these people get high anyway, so they're going to spend some of that thousand back with you anyway.

Wow, is that right? You know what I mean? So you're not just having people who are just like upstanding citizens. No, these are people who are part of the drug game. They get high or whatever like that. But amongst their peers, they are the Crim Dillac Cream. I'm making $1,000 a week. So let's just get back to the map.

So, all right, so the head of a thousand, the cornerman, because you want, you don't want the cornermen are not on one corner. You got to have them spread out four corners. So one cornerman can yell down the block. You know, Trayvon, and then the other cornerman who hid, he throws it to the block. Trayvon, so now the hitter knows who has the drugs that the police are coming. And the guy who runs the block, you know, he's actually the one who's going to decide how things move from this point. Like, yo, shut it down for now and whatever like that. Like, just go and walk off.

Let's go get some lunch. you know, so to the cool down some. He's the manager. He's the manager. Right. So the manager might get, so the hitter is 1,000. The corner men, four corner men, they're 1,000. The manager, the guy who run the block, he might get around about 3,000.

You understand? A week. You know? And the other 2,000, that'll go to, you know, you've got other people. It's miscellaneous money, because remember, we're on the block. So we might be given the old lady across the street some money, you know what I mean, to make sure that we can keep some packs in there. You know, we buying the kids, ice cream on the block, you know, somebody come through who doesn't, whatever. That's just like petty money, petty cash, you know, for whatever expenses that might need to happen throughout that block for operations.

Remember, you're still feeding people because you got to feed your crew, you know. So when it's lunchtime, everybody getting a check in a box. whatever it is. You know, you want to make sure that you're treating your people fair. That's how they stay loyal, and that's how you keep making 30,000 a day. So 30,000 a day, how much product is that? Is that like a half a brick, a whole brick? 30,000 a day, well, it's not a half a brick at all because, remember, it's being cut. Remember, we're talking about having grams of heroin, and this is heroin at the time, not fentanyl. You know, so let's just say a quarter brick, something like that, you know, but the numbers, the numbers vary.

Right. Because I might got something that I can step on it 10 times. Right. You know, so now I'm not really using a quarter brick, but it's coming out to that. Right. You understand what I'm saying? Okay, so just say it is a quarter, say it's like nine ounces of raw heroin. How many, how many bags does that make up after it's stepped on?

pretty good product. After it's, you put the mix on it. Yeah, how many, like, how many transactions is that? 30,000 bucks, dude. Yo, that's a hard question. It's impossible. Yeah, it's a hard question. But I mean, okay. And we're using, do you think. We're using gel caps, not bags. Right, right. So it's the tops, right? Yeah, it's the gel cap. Like, the same gel cap, if you used to take a vitamin in, you know, or whatever. So that's why you say pills. Pills, right. Okay. So Cavario, when he put his slang down in Baltimore, he sold New York style. He put it in the bundles, like the hundred, the hundred pops. Like, a hundred bucks gets you ten bags. So they actually kept them in the

little papers. Right, right. Yeah. Maybe that was to differentiate himself. Right. Right. And that's probably, I believe that's how they did it up north. But in Baltimore, uh, you have what is, you have gel caps. You have the pee-wees, which are the very small ones. Then you have the ones. which are like your standard size, then you have your double-oos and your triple-olds. Your triple-oes are the biggest gel cap you can get. And it's like a horse pill, you know. So imagine the delight of a user who see a pill that big

that's filled to the top with premium work. You know, like, man, so I'm telling you, I've seen it. So, again, just to get back to your original point, that so that's the function of it if I'm making $30,000 a week, and I'm paying people, you know, I mean, 30,000 a day, and that's how people get paid. Plus, you will pay people a daily stipend as well. You know, that's what comes out of that 2000.

Because, again, these are users. So they need to go home with some pills so they can get up on time early, everything. You understand? Because they're going to party when they get off. Right. But you got to be here at 5 in the morning, 6 in the morning. You know, that's a difference between heroin and crack. A person can be on dope and have a job for 30 years.

Go there every day. Right. crackhead ain't gonna hold no job. That's fascinating. Why, I thought heroin was worse for you. Like, we all, the perception was heroin turns people into unrecognizable, dysfunctional junkies. How is it to crack, which is just cocaine,

which is the most used, widely used illegal drug in the world, especially in America, it's cocaine. Cracks just, you know, that in rock form with a bunch of, you know, baking soda in it. Why does that turn a person worse than- You're wrong, Johnny, crack cocaine is the worst thing to ever happen to the world. Crack cocaine, listen to me, crack cocaine takes your soul from you.

That's why crackhead will come clean your car, your house for $2, $5 or whatever like that. See, the thing is, see, what you're saying is that's based on the physical addiction of heroin. See, you'll be sick, you'll be hurt. You can't function if you don't have it. That's what heroin does to you. Crack cocaine is a mental thing. See, when people smoke crack, what happens is this is the effect of crack. You are now the flash.

You understand me? And it's a very short high. Let me give an example. When they smoke crack in their mind, they're moving so much faster than everybody else. That's why they're clean your car, you know, wipe your walls down. That's why crack heads will work for you for such a small fee because when they do crack, it gives them an explosion of like a lot. of not, I won't say strength, but like speed.

You know what I mean? Now, I'm not saying like a crackhead or run up the street faster than you per se, but you ain't catching no crackhead even. No. But what I'm saying is, it's the psychological. When they hit it, it does something to their brain that everybody else is moving slower than them.

That's why I mean by you become the Flash. You know, the Marvel movies, when you see the Flash or whatever, like, oh, well, Flash is D. But, you know, when you see the Speedsters and everybody else moving in slow motion, but they like, you know, that's what the Crackhead experience.

is when they do crack. And I don't want you to minimize it when you say it's only cocaine with some bigger soda. No, whatever that chemical compound is, man, it does something that most crack is, right? This is I go. When they start doing crack, and most drugs, when they start doing crack, they are stuck at the age that they started doing it. They don't grow past that until they can actually quit. I know people got clean in a crack house because when you're done, you're done. When you hit your rock bottom, you're there, you're done. In my program, if somebody come and say, man, yeah, Johnny, my brother, man, he just dropped me off. I'm just going to come to this program and do this for him.

If anybody's trying to be in recovery for anybody other than themselves, it's not going to work. You have to do it for you. Recovery is a very selfish process. You've got to put you first. But crack, man, listen, crack is going to take everything from you. I mean, addiction in general. but I'm telling you, in my experience, man, a dope thing can have a job, hold a job, have a family, everything. But when that crack come in the picture, man, that crack, and some dope things don't do crack, some crackies don't do dope, you know, but.

Well, look, you, you're on, I'm speaking to somebody on good authority, you know, I've just, you know, I do know a lot about the streets just from talking of guys like you and, you know, Kavario told me, because he witnessed it firsthand, like, crack got a lot of people. off heroin. And maybe that's bad, but like, you know, Rick Ross, freeway, Rick Ross told me, he's like, dude, I know smokers to this day that I used to serve back in the 80s. So I don't know, that's... What was the context of what he said? He's saying crack again, because we're talking about the unfairness of the crack laws. Right. Oh, yeah. Compared to powder cocaine. And my contention and many people's contention is those laws are bullshit because crack is just coke in smokable form and and it wears off quickly so maybe it makes you it makes you go get it more chase right whereas coke you can kind of do it's not as intense and so it doesn't create the junkie

effect so quickly but on its face i mean you could do coke coke is disgusting i've been to labs in columbia literally where i've seen how it's what is the difference you just they're just There's baking soda in Coke a lot of times, or there's gasoline, ethanol. So that's my, yeah, I really, I really don't like the scare, the fear around crack was something pushed by the white man. Right. To justify a lot of these, like, really, really unfair sentences. See, that was based on, number one. I mean, remember.

That was actually Charles Rangel, the black guy from, you know, Harlem. There's a lot of sellouts in the black community. And we're responsible for that, for the crack laws too. But anyways. Right. And you know, Joe Biden had a part in it as well. Definitely. Yeah.

I believe he was the author of that law when he was a senator. Yeah, it was. And then look how karma comes around that now your son who's been afforded every luxury in the world is smoking coat. That's my favorite thing. That's crazy, right? Oh, God, such sweet karma, dude. But, uh... It seems like a good time, though.

Listen, man. And he's partying with middle-aged hookers. I'm like, this guy's like a normal guy. He's like your everyday American. Right, right. Okay, but let's get back to this real quick. So you worked, so that's a really insane amount of money. Yeah, 30 grand a day.

A day, man. And that's just one out of, God, how many heroin spots in the city? Dozens, maybe? Hundreds. Hundreds. So do you think you were serving 30 grand? Okay, do you think 200 people a day? Do you think it was hundreds of people that spent that kind of money?

Hundreds of people. hundreds. So times hundreds, you're talking about like tens of thousands of users that are coming every day. Easy. And remember, again, just keep in mind that we're talking about capsules. So the capsules are they're easier for users to use. See, when you're talking about them cellophane bags and all that, you got it pop it open, you got it or whatever. See, with a cap, they get just pop it off and dump it down their nose. I've seen that. You know, like, yeah, man. So it's like, it's instant gratification for them. So if I'm a trash man, but I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a dope thing. So I'm like, okay, so what I need to do is, uh, I need to go down there,

holly Johnny and him, get me these seven pills, you know, that I can do. I'm going to do three on the day. I'm going to do three of them at the work and I'm going to have one in the morning to hold me out so I can get back to Johnny and I'm just going to keep on, you understand? And then you got to think, so to get back to our original point that you asked when I was telling me about if I was a rich white guy with a daughter, with a habit, and I'm in Wyoming or something like that, right? The thing. The thing. The The thing is that we've seen, the statistics have shown that the panhandlers in Baltimore, right?

These are not Baltimoreians. A lot of these people are coming from out of state. So they get stuck. Yeah. You know, so now you got somebody like, can I get holding a sign? Can I get a dollar? Can I get a dollar? But they're from a whole other state who came here for treatment, and then they got caught up

in the whole mix of what's actually going on as far as the, like, the drug trade. San Francisco's like that, too. Okay. Because, and a lot of the laws are really lax around using. So you can get caught with as many drugs as you want if you're just a user. So what that does is it brings more drug dealers to the area, like the tenderloin in San Francisco, and it makes the packages better. So then you have junkies and users from all over the country coming into that neighborhood. It's like a reinforcing cycle.

So Baltimore kind of seems similar. Right. But anyways, so you've got the manager who's making like four or five grand a week. And then you've got the guy who owns the spot. Right. The guy who's getting the wholesale bricks from the Connect. Right. And he's...

Which, to put it in your point, your perspective, right? He would be like a... From the wire, he would be like a cheese. Remember cheese? Yeah, Method Man. Yeah, Method Man. Uh-huh. So Method Man would be the guy who's given the guy who's...

running the block. You understand? Because those players in the wild, they weren't on the block. You understand? They were bosses. Right. The people on the co-op and all that. But those are the ones who's collecting the 30 a day, those type of people. And then they're going back to the prop Joe and to the, you know, to the meetings and saying, all right, well, this is what I got to put to the re-up or whatever like that. Right. Right. You know, so. Is the goal of the drug dealer in Baltimore to become a wholesaler, to really be getting, you know, have connects in South America or Mexico, and then just to be bringing into the city and be invisible and just hit off guys that have different corners. Or do some guys say, I want to make it my career to own strips because that's where the most money is,

is when I get these chickens and I fucking put the whack on it? That's a good question. I mean, it depends on the individual. I mean, because... Well, in your experience, I guess, like, what did you see? What I'll speak for me, for myself, I was the second example that you gave. I wanted to get... Every time that I got a brick, I broke it all the way down to nickels, dimes, and 20s.

You know, because that would give me, like, such a larger profit margin. Right. So I'm not selling ounces. I'm not selling eight balls. I'm not selling four and a half. None of that. Is this Coke? Coke.

Okay. Right. Right. Yeah, I'm talking about COPA, you know, in particular, hard, ready rock. Right. So for me, I would always do that because it's a lot of peace in the wholesale because you don't have to deal with the street level sales and nothing like that. But it's a lot more treachery when you're dealing with other millionaires and stuff like that

who might, you know, just line you up to set you up. You know, like, oh, yeah, man, bring me 10 bricks. You know, bring me 50 bricks or whatever like that. But you got it. You got 100 bricks. You know, like, all right, you know. And then you get there, you know, and something happened. In comparison to, you know what you have.

And you're like, okay, well, I can sit on this. It's almost money in the bank. Let's say, if I have, like, if I take four ounces and I make out of that four ounces a certain amount of pills, right? Now, when I say pills, well, they're not in the gel caps. I'm talking about 1212. Like, if you think about little baggies that, like, how the store was selling them, they would be bags that you would put buttons in and stuff like that.

You know? So you're actually selling crack in plastic baggies, the 1212s. 1212. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. That was... I think in New York, they sold vials. They sold vials.

Right. Well, we sold vials, too, but the thing with vials is they're harder to conceal. See, we used to have pills in our mouth and stuff like that. So we... Like, man, I used to be out of... have like 15, 20 pills in my mouth. They all sealed up at the top, you know, but I got like, like 20 dimes in my mouth. And as I'm going to see my, you know, my place, you know, all right, you want three, boom, boom.

You know, it's, it's a lot easier that way than to have a whole thing full of vows that you got to have in your pocket or under your balls or whatever, you know. So it, you look like a chipmunk. You just got, you get a mouth just bulging with fucking pills. But, you know, for me it worked. You know, because the convenience, and remember, I'm not holding these all day. You know, I'm bagging these up, or I got a bag that I'm taking these bags out of, and I'm just going to go see people. So I'm dropping off four here, I mean, seven here, whatever.

You know, the street level, I believe the longevity is in that part. Because when you start dealing with other plugs, other people who got hundreds of thousands and all of that, you become more of a target for them. You know what I mean? Like, okay, like, if you ran out of something like, yeah, I got a guy, your intentions might be to kill my guy and take whatever it is. Maybe kill me and my guy, you know? But if I'm just dealing with, if I'm making $10,000, you know, every two days, just on the street level, just off of having nickel, dimes and 20s, that can bring you a little bit more peace. It might sound crazy because we're talking about selling drugs.

But for me, it just bought me more peace, you know, because I know what I'm doing and what I'm dealing with. Yeah, I mean, and you're, when you're dealing with, you know, 40 bricks of cocaine, right? Like, you're always a target for the feds. I mean, that's a life sentence. You know, nowadays, you can't really retit. You can't, you can only put a couple of points on it. Right. So, like, you're risking huge football numbers in prison just to make, like, 40 bricks.

You can wholesale them for maybe make 80 grand profit. Right. But you could make that stretching out a couple. A couple of keys. You understand? Right. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. You just have to be down in the muck, though. That's, that's it. Yeah. And you have the luxury of doing it at your pace. Your schedule is yours. Hey, I'm going to be outside around this time. You know, you might have, let's say, a thousand times, right?

You know, okay, that's $10,000. All right. So that's my quota for this next three days. But that's all yours. You know, you don't have nobody breathing out of your back because they didn't throw you something or, you know, then gave you something on consignment or you selling weight

and you got to make a decision like, okay, I can sell him this for this, but I can sell it myself. Nope, I didn't have that problem because I know I'm putting everything to the streets. Right. You know? And it was crack.

Crack, yeah. And did you have somebody cooking it for you or did you have a mix yourself? So. Like a recipe, I guess. Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah. So how I found out how to cook, I found that some people use microwaves, different things. Pyrex Amber Visionware was my best friend. Shout out.

Yeah, man, I had this. We should get them a, we should be a Pyrex. I should have a, I should have a, a sponsor from Pyrex. There's a lot of drug dealers that watch this show. Okay. But I think crack cocaine ruined the Pyrex brand. Pyrricks is just a big cooking. cooking cup, essentially. But, I mean, no, Parrax says they have multiple different kinds of cookware. So they have pots, they got bacon sheets, they got all kind of. But it has to be visionware. See, the visionware was the one that you can take straight from, let's say, your grandma, she's making a tuna cassero in the oven and she put it right into the freezer and it don't crack,

it don't none of that. See, you can go get some Pyrecks right now and that joined a break on you as soon as you You understand? So it had to be the vision wear And most of the vision where it was amber colored You know, so it wasn't transparent But it had that little, yeah, man

But that was the way that I found, you know, the best way And anytime I was cooking, I always put maybe about Three grams on every ounce You know, that would make it That would I needed it to be, you feel me? But when I actually got up to the 10-bring, I had my own, the gentleman I was getting it from was already cooking. He was a chef.

See, I ain't got a chef if you're a chef. You understand what I'm saying? So you were buying 10 bricks cooked up into crack. Right. Fuck. Right. And what was your price on like a kilo that was already cooked up? He was charged me probably about like 24.

24 G's, yeah. And then what can you, and you sell out a key in just dimes? Did you sell Nichols? Nichols, dimes, and 20s. Okay, cool. So you just stretch that bitch out. So what can you make off of one key? A little more than double.

Yeah. And that takes you about a week? About a week. A seven-day week. Okay. And then how many workers do you have to get that off? Just you? Just me.

You were a one-man shop. Okay. So how would you let- At this time that I'm telling about. Remember, I'm jumping around a little bit. Yeah. At this time, see, like when I first started hustling after I got that weed from my grandmother and him,

I went out the projects, like I said, with my cousin. That was O'Donnell Heights. That's in South Baltimore. And out there, that's when I said, like, I was making maybe about maybe $2,500, $3,000 a week or something like that, which wasn't a lot of money, but it was good money for me at that time. And like I said, I had power, you know? And I'm telling you, like, it's nothing like it.

In hindsight, you know, it's like, yeah, you, somebody might be making $30,000 a day, right? but you can get whacked today. You understand what I'm saying? It's just different, man. And it's crazy how, in hindsight, as a gentleman who's gone so far past that, but when I look back at it,

I see the mental illness and how all hustlers thought and how we think and how we actually move through the streets and stuff like that. It's like a dog-eat-dog world. You know, everybody's lines a hyenas. And what I learn is, if you are a wolf and chief cloakling, you can survive a lot longer

than a wolf who can't put sheep's clothing on. Because when wolves just see a wolf, you're always a target. But you got to be able to, you understand what I'm saying? You got to be able to finesse it and move through what it is that you're looking to accomplish. Well, what were you looking to accomplish as an enforcer? Like, were you sticking up big-time drug dealers? No, no, no, no. Enforcer being somebody, I never was a stick-up kid.

You know, that was never my thing. As an enforcer, I would just make sure. sure that where me and my guys were at, it was always secure. You feel me? So I'm out there. I might have like six other guys out there with me, right? Younger guys. And they hustling, you know, they all hustling for us and stuff like that. But we all working together to make one pot grow. You know, so as the elder, sometimes when I'm out there, I got to make sure that even though I'm selling, you know, crack myself, I'm still making sure they're good. So I might only have, let's say, 10 pills on me, just for argument sake, right?

Just make a quick $100 or if they're 20s, $200. Just to put in my pocket because I want to go get some wheat. Something that I don't even have to do. But I'm out here. The money's coming. They have the packs. So they really working. But I'm just like passively.

But my goal and my mission and my job from my big brothers, you know, was to make sure that they're good. And that was essentially my role. Just, you know what I mean? Just play your part. Just be a stand-up guy. Don't let nothing happen to none of us. Now, why did you not get into Heron?

Like when you started owning the shop, like, why did you choose crack? Because, as I said, heroin takes more structure, you know? And a lot of times when you have all of those employees, because I've been a part of a lot of different heroin shops. I've ran blocks. I've had blocks and all that. But those are more people that could potentially snitch. you. For sure. You know, and as the culture started changing, you know, I was like, man, look,

I'm good with what I'm doing because I know I'm not going to tell them myself. You know, all it takes is somebody, even if you're paying them good, to say, I'm already on parole or probation. I can't take this charge. Man, it was called. He was the one giving it to me. You know, he's going to come drop off some more packs around three. And now the DEA, whoever waiting for you, you know, so I'm just saying, for me, I made the most money I've ever made off of crack. You know, I've sold, you know, a lot of dope too. And probably arguably, when I was in the streets,

I probably could cut dope better than I could cook crack, you know, because it's crazy, Johnny. And I don't want people to take it. Nothing I'm saying is to glorify anything. This is just my story. When it came to cutting dope, it was almost like an art form. You took pride in what you did, man. You know, you get a deck of cards.

You get you a mirror. You know what I mean? You get your Benita, your Quina. You know, in Baltimore, we made it a three and one. Some do two and one. I went to other towns where they only put Manitaw on the door. And what they do is, like, that dope things, they call it rubbernecking. When you come to Baltimore, you're going to see people lean.

I'm talking about it. Go all the way to the floor, but they don't fall. Yeah, it's amazing. You understand? The flexibility. Yeah, man, I'm telling you. So, but cutting dope, man, it's like taking your quina and sifting it 100 times. Taking your Benita, you know, sifting it, your blocks, you know, 100 times.

Then sifting it together a hundred times. You know, getting your grams sifting it a hundred times. Sifting it another because you want the right hit. That's what it's all about. You want somebody, see, in the streets they say, if they're talking good about your door, say it hit and it hold. See, hold me, you know, I'm not going to get sick from it. It hit me.

When I sniffed it, man, it gave me that good, it hit me, and I got that good drain, that good rush and all that, everything that I needed. So now you sift your grams again. Then you sift it together. Yeah, it's like baking a cake. It's like cooking. Yeah. Yeah.

Whereas you're right, crack, there's not much to it. It's pretty much just baking soda, maybe one other element added into and mixed into the... But you got to know what you're doing with crack, too, because a lot of people, what they do is it's called whip. Whereas though they'll put it together and it'll be like some mediocre. It'll burn down, meltdown. So that's how also we learned too, you know, my big brother told me, like, whenever you're getting some crack or something like that, right? Because sometimes somebody might not sell you the powder. but you need to get on because you got people who are waiting for it.

You know what I mean? So they're like, I'm not selling powder, but I got this hard for you. But how you would test it out is you would get a piece. I mean, when you get in a brick, you take a triangle out of it, number one. You know what I mean? And you see what it is on the powder tip. But like when it came to the crack, you would take a piece, take a lighter, melt it down. If it melt all the way down like butter, then most likely you got something good.

But if you're melting it, it ain't moving, it starts popping and all that, you got some trash. And ain't nobody going to buy it. So it's an art to cooking Coke as well, you know, because when you get that oil, man, and you see it start to lock up and all that. For me, it was always customer service. You know, it was always like, I could stand behind something good. So if I know this is my table mask, this is my work. And you come back, I ain't like that. I know you line.

Because I just now gave out 100 Ts. You know, I put it together myself. I peeled it. You understand what I'm saying? Like back in the day, we didn't have access to pill presses. Like, you know, where you put the gel caps all in it, and you just dump it on it, and you slide the card, and it fills them up, and then you put the tops on them.

No, we had to use the hand tap them. You know, take the bottom part of the pill, tap it in, put the top on it. You know what I mean? Have a mask on whatever, because it'll get in. sister. I know people who actually died from that, you know, at the table, but they don't have no masking, no gloves on. It gets in your pores, man. You know, and you can OD. That's what happened. It was an unintentional OD. Wow. You know, so just to answer your question, I prefer to sell crack, because crack, it was easier. And you always got more time at that time for, like, heroin because

the overdoses was going up, you know, but to your other point, the reason why they were smashing us a lot with those crack laws was because in the eyes of the government, you're some sort of scientist that you know how to take this powder and turn it to this. That's what they was trying to say. Wizards. Yeah. Like, how do you know how to do this?

You are a threat to the whole community because you can keep doing this and crack is doing this and, you know. Did, what's the difference between the flows in Baltimore, the movements between crack spots and dope spots? You know, obviously dope fiends, they need it all day. They need it before work. It's literally a medicine to keep them from getting sick. Crack is more mental.

Right. But did you, so do you feel like there's more opioid hair on junkies in Baltimore? Or is there more stimulant cocaine addicts? Or is it about even? What do you think? It's, I'll honestly say it's probably about even because nobody has a block where they just sell dope at. You sound of crack, too. Okay, I was going to ask you that.

Yeah. So there's mixed. Yeah. It's mixed. But what we would do is we would never have our hitter who's selling the dope, selling the crack too. You'll mess the money up. It'll be whatever.

So you might go in the hole to go get the dope. But when you come out and you say, hey, I need some ready too. But you would let us know. So about time, they get past one of the corner, man. And they like, I want a one and one. That's one crack, one dope. you know so we already know when you're going to home get that one whoever got the crack who hitting that they're going to have one ready for you you

you understand what I'm saying I see so it's just like you want to have a one-stop shop honestly right so most people that have corners or streets blocks they're selling both yeah now what about weed no I was gonna ask you that okay that's what I said one-stop shop okay so weed does get trapped like it's a hard narcotic yeah absolutely and it's a lot well nowadays it's a lot of smoke shops pop-up shops all through um uh-u-a-u-u Baltimore and Maryland. I haven't smoked weed like so long, right? I didn't realize that other states didn't have that. I thought, like, so I got a buddy who down in Florida. He said that it's not, like, you still got to have a marijuana cart in Florida or whatever part. I think he was in, I forgot what part.

I'm not sure if it's Florida as a state or it was the city he was in. But in Baltimore, police could be right here. You could roll a blunt right in from him and smoke it right in front of him. And no charge, no nothing. Like, but it wasn't like that originally. Years ago when I was in the game, man, they would smash you. You know what I mean? Like, you'll have a nickel bag of some weed on you and they're taking you to jail. Right.

It was crazy. So you did, you went to jail quite a few times. Yeah. Which is normal. Right. Any corner boy kid manager that's out on the block. Right. Yeah, the cops are just posted up.

It's not a big secret what's going on. So you're going to, you're going to catch. some tickets, you know, you're going to catch some charges. How many times did you go to jail when you were working, when you originally started working for your cousin? That's when I was getting locked up the most. House raid after house raid. Maybe about like 13 times. Yeah, just in and out. Yeah. You said you would get it. See, I never did no long bits, but I was constantly getting locked up and stuff like that. And you said you would get out And sometimes you'd be back working the same day.

Yeah, yeah. As soon as you get out, I mean, because the job don't change. You know, I got people who are waiting on me, you know? And the worst thing, it's just like this. Like if we opened up a pizza shop, right, on the corner and we got some good pizza, right? And then, like, let's say we're open for a week or two or something like that. People loving us. And then we just don't open one day.

There's people who's looking for that pizza. They're like, where's that Johnny pizza at? It's the same thing with drugs. You know, and then sometimes people just prefer to deal with you than somebody else, even if they got better drugs. So for me, yeah, every time I got locked up, I look forward to getting back to selling drugs. So the reason you didn't do any prison time is because you're a juvenile. And are these just possession charges? No.

Like how does it work in a city where everybody, where drugs are rampant and everybody is always getting caught selling them or using them? How much do you need to fuck up before you get like real jail time? I think I was just lucky, man, because none of my charges was juvenile. My charges were all adult, but I would get probation before judgment. I would get, so I would sit down on the charges, eight months, nine months, six months, stuff like that. But ultimately, what would happen is I will cop out. I will plead guilty to it. You know, and I will constantly just keep getting.

I've been on so many different probations, man. You know, so that's really what happened. But the last time I got booked, when I was up, when I had like a lot of coke and stuff and I had a real good lawyer, he was like, man, he really broke down my record to me. He was like, you don't realize, man, that every time that you was taking them probation, you was fucking your record up. He said, man, he said, you got double distribution and all this. He said, yo, your record is really, really bad.

But I didn't think so because I'm like, well, they keep letting me out. Yeah. You know, I keep getting probation. I can't be that bad. But him as the professional, he's like, nah, man, I'm telling you. Like, nah, you have a really fucked up record. I remember I was going to take my, I was, it was crazy, right? So at Court of City and the County Charge.

So now I'm sitting over MTC. That's Metropolitan. transition center. That's the, like, the penitentiary in Baltimore. So I'm sitting over there and I got a city and the county charge. So I did see, these are things that I learned, you know, through the years now, like in hindsight. So anytime I went to court for the city, they were always say, we got to wait to see what the county do. So I didn't know that Annapolis being the capital to a Maryland that that meant that the judges in Annapolis word rules over every other judge that's in that state. So they kept telling me, like, so I will go to the city, they postpone it

until I go to the county. The county postpone it. Then I go to the city. So you're talking about almost like, like 13 months to just keep on going, postpon, postpon, postpon, postpon, postpon. So I told my lawyer, I said, man, you know what? I said, man, I'll take it a trial. So now. Now, Now I'm in Anarundal County, and I'm sitting there, and Anarrono County is a predominantly white county. And as I'm sitting there, I got my suit on, all that, but I'm booked. I'm not going to court from the street. I'm already still locked up. So I'm in there, and we start picking the jewelry.

So these two white guys sat behind me, and they're like, him? Oh, he's guilty. I don't care what they say. I'm pleading guilty. Or not pleading guilty. I'm going to say. And you overheard that? Yes.

They, like, as close as the wall is behind me. Oh, he's guilty. And in my mind, I'm like, man, I got my hair cut. I got, nah, nah, nah, you know what I mean? So, and I start, you know, because they tell you, look forward. Like, don't be looking at the jewelry and all that. So I'm like, man, there's a lot of white people in here, man. So I called my lawyer, Roland Brown.

I'm like, they just said I'm guilty. They don't care what you say. He said, man, he said, he said, you're in Annapolis. What you think? I said, oh, no, man. No, no, no, no. We ain't going to do this one then, you know? But this was my blessing in disguise, right?

The judge that was overseeing my case, he was like a 30-year judge. And he was retiring in like the next, like, 45 days. My lawyer went to him and said, Mr. Johnson might have got caught, you know, with these drugs, because they gave me a large amount. You know, that's like a kingpin charge. Okay. So you got raided or what happened?

This is when you're working with bricks now. Right. Of crack. And what did they find on you? When they raided my house, they found fentanyl, weed, and cocaine. Okay. Right. And how much, and how many, it was an already.

He was already bagged up. It was already bagged up. So my guy had hit me and we was going to go up northeast Baltimore. It was a street off of York Road. He had called me. We had already been dabbling, dabbling up there. So I'm living in South Baltimore this time and he's like, man, we've been going up there every so often, like a couple times in the past week, just giving out some, you know, some pills of cracking, some boy, boy and girl cracking dope. Just seeing what it's like, right?

And when we got out there, we seen that we had a good reception. Like, okay, we can get some money up here. Like, okay, because he was kind of from up that way, like, Old York Road. So the night that I'm bagging up, he hit me. He like, yo, we're still doing what we're doing this morning, right? He hit me like around five. I'm like, yeah. No, hit me like around three.

I'm like, yeah. My door get kicked in like around six. So I'm still, I'm like, yeah, I'm saying I'm putting it together now. So I'm at the table Like, you know, like when I'm Stand Up mayor was the tall ones So I got it laying across my coffee table With my living room

You know what I mean But I got everything separate His own spot I got the weed I got the ready I got the boy You know what I mean So

You have fentanyl? Yeah Okay And were you mixing that with the hair on? Well, there was no heroin at that time Okay It was just fentanyl Okay, so you were actually sold fentanyl

I didn't realize that Okay And you were selling it in powder? Yeah Okay So fentanyl comes in the powder. Fentanyl is... Right, but I mean, I don't think it's sold in powder much anymore.

Yeah. Still, you think it's still sold mostly in powder? Yeah. How else do it come? Tell me, put me down. I mean, it comes, I think it gets pressed into pills in Mexico. And I think I, the drug bus I see, these big, big fentanyl bus is mostly pills. Okay.

That's what I see. Right, right. But what year did you catch this charge? So we're talking about like two. 2018. Okay. That's still pretty early into the fentanyl phenomena. You know, fentanyl really hit about 2014, 2015 is when Choppos.

So it's still kind of early. Yeah, yeah. So 2018 is still pretty early. And I think that's why you saw a lot of overdoses because people, it did come in powder. Right. And Coke dealers were putting in Coke and heroin and people didn't know and they were dying. You know, I knew people in fucking Hollywood, California, white people that were sniffing Coke and

had fed in and they kicked the bucket. So I think what the cartels started doing. is pressing that on the Mexico side into pills. So it's colorful. So it's clear. You can't just chop it into white cocaine or heroin powder anymore. Right, right, right, right. It's a way to actually, it's smart.

It's a way to like keep people, so many people from dying. Right. No, I've actually heard of that too. But yeah, in Baltimore, no, it's all powder. Even to this day. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

And at that time, I was just receiving it as powder. Because it was no more heroin. Heroin in Baltimore was probably over in like, like 2015, something like that. So that happened quick. Yeah, I mean, like... That happened quick. Because when the fentanyl came in, it just took over everything. It's cheaper.

So the dealers want it, but the same margin is heroin. And the users, it's cheaper. So if I already got a block that's drawn $30,000 a day, right? I just don't have to get the dope no more. But I'm still making a humongous... I'm making more. because I'm not paying as much. Yeah.

You know? Who was your plug? Who were you getting your fint from? It was a homeboy. It was actually the guy who hit me that night. It was his friend. Okay. You know, you know what I mean?

So it was like, I don't know. It was just, it was a fishy situation for me. So you never had, you always, your plugs were always like black dudes from Baltimore. You weren't working with Mexicans. No, no, no, no. Okay. No, no, no. Okay.

No, no, no. Got it. Yeah, I wish at that time, you know. But the guy when I had, at this time, I was still dealing with my guy when I was getting to Tim Bricks. Right. So his plug most likely was. Yeah.

Because this guy, he was, he was hitting a lot of people, you know. He was hitting a lot of people, you know. But, you know, when you're in the game, the less you know the better of, whatever like that, you can't ask a guy. Who else you're serving around here, whatever, you know? Long as every time I hit you, you got it. And it's good, you know, and when I need more, you got it. What more can I ask for?

Yeah. You know? shit, he could have been the one who put the police on me for all I know. I mean, right. So somebody had, somebody knew where your spot was. Right. And this is a, are you, was this like your main residence or just your spot where you bagged up? So this was my main residence.

But I never did it before. That's what made it so, you understand? That's the bad part about the game, kids. Somebody could tell on you and you don't know. And unless you take it to trial. Right. You know, but again, see, remember, so I'm telling you back. So I did take it the trial to them boy, the white boys behind me,

start saying, oh, he's guilty, whatever like that. That's when I was like, man, look, we ain't doing this. And then, so to answer your question, so they kicked in my door while I was bagging up to go take over the spot of northeast Baltimore. You know, so I had packs, everything was already packed up. And it was a joint sheriff task force to kick my door. So, and like, again, and the wire, they call them narcos. In Baltimore, we call them knockers.

That's the name of the undercover police. Knockers, knockers. Boy, the knockers come and watch out. You understand what I'm saying? Not narcos. We've never said knockos. Always knockers. So if the knockers would have came, kick my door in,

I'd have been gone. You probably would have never met me. Because in my living room, as I'm at the table, probably maybe as far as where the wall at, Not right here, but a wed wallet. I had a floral book bag that had two bricks of cocaine and a 40-caliber pistol in it. You understand? So I never bagged up at my house because I always would go to a local motel, do it up, and be good.

You know, then I was distributed in the cars that I had parked around the projects. You know, that way I never have nothing in my house. I never bag up my house. I might have money in my house, but money ain't a charge. You understand? Like, it's a charge you got over a certain amount, but no drugs. I could not get a motel room for no reason. Not a hotel.

I was using motel. I couldn't get no room for no reason that night. So that's why they say, man, don't break your rules. I had a rule and I broke it. So I bagged up in my house because I'm excited about going to take over this spot. And then they kick in my door. But the blessing was they didn't find the gun in that. I swear on everything I love.

And it was just sitting in a bag? In a backpack. You know, it was zipping up. Right. But they never even touched it. Because when they came in, they were so happy. But what they sang that was right here in front of me, because whatever tip they got said it was drugs in the house,

they kicked the door in, and it was drugs in that house. And they were happy, man. And I'm like, and I played it cool. Because my baby mother at that time, my baby mother and my two sons was in the house. So, of course, they go through, they go upstairs and all that other type stuff, you know, see who else in the house and whatever, whatever.

But they didn't really search the house. So they bring them downstairs. And I'm like, look, y'all got everything. It's right here. I'm not going to resist the rest. I just don't want to upset my family anymore than what they already is. So you could just take me out here now, you know, it ain't going to be no struggle or nothing. And the guy who was in charge, he was like, I can do that.

We got everything. You know, this was an easy one. Whatever. He was cocky about whatever. So they took all the stuff. But they never checked the bag. So now I'm locked up. Now fast forward to now I'm in Annapolis.

And these white boys talking about, no, he's a lot. guilty. So they remember the judge by to retire in 45 days. So my lawyer go tell him like, that he's, he's really a user. And they're like, um, he's kind of big to be a user. Well, this is recent fat. You know what I mean? Like, I used to be, I used to be a lot smaller. But, um, uh, so the judge, like, well, we can get him a program then. So, Now we dismissed the whole trial part of it. So now we're not taking drawers no more. The judge has agreed that I can do a drug program now.

So I'm like, okay, all right. So because I was facing, I think it was like 16 years or something like that. You know, that's what the charges that came up to. And they were like, well, if you do a drug program, you got to do six months inpatient. six months outpatient and, you know, finish up, whatever, a little bit of time. So at this time, I'm sitting like almost two years, you know, just fighting, just going back and forth to court.

I didn't even get a, I didn't even, I was not even convicted of anything. And I sat for two years, just fighting, just back forth. So Baltimore City did not want to hear that. So this is what I was saying earlier. I learned something. So the judge in Baltimore City, I believe his name was Joseph Peters, white guy, right? I go in there, my lawyer like, yeah, Annapolis. Because he kept on saying, this is not personal usage.

He's a drug dealer. Look at his record. My lawyer like Annapolis gave him the program. Man, he was so furs up because that's what I said. That's when I learned that no judge in the state of Maryland will supersede a judge that's in Annapolis. So by him saying that, it was done. So he had to bang the gable and he had to agree with what that judge said. I don't think he had to agree, but I think it's very uncommon for judges to go against each other,

especially when it's a higher court judge. So then I got into the program. Wow. What luck. Because, yeah, you've had so many charges already for drug dealing, where you pleaded guilty for drug dealing, right? Like those skid bids, those weren't for usage. That's for... CDS.

Yeah. CDS is what? Control dangerous substance. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I mean, that's a blessing, though. That's definitely a blessing.

Now that I look back, yeah, man. Yeah. I was ready to take it to trial, you know? So did that wake you up? Like, because, you know, a lot of people look at this and say, wow, shit, I was facing 16 and I'm going to be out in a year. I'll just get back to it. But what happened that changed you this time when you were in the, the, you?

the inpatient. So I never had been to a program before. As a drug dealer, I always thought if I didn't see somebody that I used to serve, that they even found something better, they were dead or they were in jail. I never knew people took time to get themselves together. Never. I mean, bro, never in my life did I ever think that, oh, if I didn't see John, John then went to the program to help himself.

So now that I'm in the program, I'm learning more about addiction. And remember, my mom died when I was four. She OD'd while I was still a baby. My dad was never really in my life because he had its own addictions. You know, so all I know is addiction is affecting me, but I don't even understand it. All I know, I'm just some knuckle here selling drugs because that's what everybody who get money do. So when I learned from being in a program that addiction is primarily made up of two key components, obsession and compulsion, if you add those two things to anything, you'll be addicted.

It don't matter if it's shopping, eating, gambling, sex, you know, booze, or drugs. It doesn't matter. Like, I know people who will literally, you know, take the television off the wall while their family is watching it to go shoot dice. because it's in them like, oh, this is going to be the big, I'm going to hit this time, I'm going to get it. They're on the slot machine, oh, the jackpot, I'm going to get it, I'm going to get it. The whole time, they might not do drugs or alcohol,

but it's that addiction. So when I learned that addiction is more than just people who just get high and drunk, like, hold on, so you're telling me shopping is an addiction? You know, people got carts right now from Amazon and whatever it is, you know, fire agama, whatever it is, and they're ordering things they don't even need.

Ordering things they might not even wear. They might got a closet full of shoes they wore one time, but they still ordering new stuff. It's an addiction. So once I started to learn more about addiction and being in the program, I actually seen people that I used to serve. Wow.

Yeah, that was eye-opening. Right. They see me, they like, and I see them. I'm like, what you doing here? You know? And then the thing was, Ben, so I got drug court from that judge out there in Annapolis. What happened is, so now, so I remember myself, I was at MTC, that's the city.

So now that the city has went along with what the county has agreed to, now I'm done my city bid. I'm no longer in Baltimore City jail. They shipped me out to Jennifer Road. That's the jail out of Anarundal County. And then from Jennifer Road, they put me on ordinance road. You know, so now I'm out here in these county jails, but I'm just saying. counting down my time until I can go to the program.

So now, so remember, so now I've been locked up for like two years now, and this is the long as I ever been locked up at this point. And I'm like, when I get to the program, there's no barbed wire, it's no correctional officers. It's not. It's just a house. And every day we wake up and we do group and all this other stuff. So psychologically, I'm like, I can walk out here any day.

But the years that I'm backing up, they're going to smash me with it. And Judge Peters from the city already told me, boy, you ever come in front of me again, I'm going to give you everything that I can. So I'm like, I can walk out this door any day and go do whatever I want to do. But of course, I got two sons, you know, and they're great, great, great kids, man. And they are part of the reason that I do this because they're at the age, 17 and 18, that I was already outside. I was already like, oh, I ain't getting no job. I'm not doing, you know, whatever, whatever. And I was, and I had other young kids around me who was, you know, shooting and, you know,

killing and robbing and everything else that we were a part of this group. So it's the youth that I had to, like, really, like, sit back and like, man, like, I'm an official Baltimore guy who've been through a lot. And another thing is, this is the polished version of me. You know, like, when I say Baltimore, right, that is. ain't how we say it. We say Baltimore. You know? So when people see these interviews, they're like, he says Baltimore. He's not from here. No. I just learned how to move in these rooms around people to get the

funding and stuff I need for this nonprofit, to be able to help change lives, you know? So it's like, and like another thing when we say dog, right? We don't say that in Baltimore. We say Doug. You know? Like, I'm going to go get a hot dog. on a bun and get some mustard on it. You know what? That's how we talk. But when they hear me on these interviews, like, dog, they don't understand that I've been through what they've been through. And you can't go in these meetings and trying to help people with people with power just

talking hood or being, you know, whatever. You got to present yourself, polish yourself up, and be the best version of yourself. That's how you succeed in life. That hood stuff takes you so far, you know. So to answer your question, when I went out there, and the boys were hobby was like, oh, he's guilty. It woke me straight up. I'm talking about I had a three-piece suit on all this.

Because I still had money. I still had money. I still had cars. So I'm booked. My baby mother, she got access to all of this stuff. Like, I had so many different cars and stuff like that. And I always, I didn't know about real estate and stuff. Like I didn't have anybody around me to say, hey, go buy a house.

So I used to buy cars and stuff. and if anything ever happened, go and sell a car, you know, get $3,000 for that or whatever, you know, and it would just be some sort passive income. And I was happy to be in a position that when I was gone,

she could still provide for the kids, even though she was working, you know? Wow, so you completed that. I mean, it really changed your life. Absolutely. In a huge way. Not only you didn't go back to crime, but you started, you know,

your whole business now is helping people get clean. Right. It's amazing. That's what you can do. That's the ultimate is like acts of service like that. Absolutely. Do you think that one of the good things that have changed about Baltimore since you were a young man and what's gotten worse?

One of the good things have changed about Baltimore. Start with a hard question first. Yeah. It's that the high rises are gone. See, if the high rises would have still been up, I don't think my grandma would ever move. Because she'd already lived there for so long. You know, but being out of that atmosphere and environment, taking me somewhere else because my grandma raised like four of us, her grandchildren. I think them high rises, the projects themselves, it just brought a certain mentality out of people.

You know, that going to a residential block and saying people who have, you know, cars and, you know, you. You know, they're sweeping that front. They got a, we got a backyard. Listen, and the projects, listen, and the projects, the projects I'm from the originals, we didn't even have a shower. I'm not talking about my apartment didn't have a shower. I'm talking about it wasn't no showers and none of the project. It was just tubs.

Oh, my God. So to move somewhere and you got a shower now? Like, that was a big upgrade, man. That was huge. So it's like, you know. A grown man taking a bath. Come on, man. You're selling a fucking.

You're doing 30 grand a day selling hair on and then you've got to go take a bath. Yeah. Yo, that's crazy, right? And that's what I'm saying. That was every apartment. Yeah, it's real slum stuff. Have them projects, they're like prisons, man. Right.

Like, I guess they thought this was a good idea back after World War II when they built these gigantic cages, just putting people in, yeah, just like rats. Like Cabrini Green in Chicago. You know, I went there. I was there in the 90s before they knocked it down. It was like, you can't believe human beings live here. So, yeah, so they knocked those down, which even though it created a lot of, you know, street beef amongst the drug dealers, it probably beautified the city a little bit for sure. Yeah, because what are they put in its place? Like, what's there now?

I'm about to say that. The exact place where Lafayette Projects was, they actually have townhomes there. because Lafayette Projects was literally five, ten minutes away from what was city hall. Wow. Like literally, like downtown. It's downtown Baltimore. So that's A1 real estate. Right.

I'm talking about literally, man, like right there. So imagine out of town are coming. And as soon as you get off of 83, you just see these large towers and this poverty and this, you might hear gunshots and all of that. they have since revamped that whole area. It looks a lot better. You know, but it's the poverty mind, though, man. It don't matter where you put somebody who doesn't believe in themselves.

Don't see the beauty that they possess. They don't want to do anything better for themselves. You could put them in a mansion, and guess what? The mansion will dilapidate over time because it's about the individual. It's about the mind. See, behavior health is the bark of the tree. The branches is substance.

abuse and mental health, but behavior health is the beginning of it all. So we have to address those things. Like, it's people in the community right now, right? That people might say, oh, that's crazy Melvin. He just like that. May he ain't been crazy his whole life. But no, Melvin just has undiagnosed mental health issues. And if he had the proper help, he might can be an upstanding citizen in society. But if we don't go and address these things, what happens is the trauma, the hurt and everything else, it just keeps on breeding. You know, we pass it on to our children and everything else. Oh, yeah.

You know, so we have to break those things in order to help people, you know, actually be better people. Don't just put people in jail. Like, we've seen the stories where somebody might be autistic or something and the cops show up and they shoot them or something like that. Like, we have to be able to, you know, to de-escalate these things. It takes longer to become a beautician, you know, than it does to become a cop. You feel me? Yeah. Like, to go to, you know, to be a, you know, it takes apart about a year to be, you know,

aesthetician, whatever, go through, you know, the whole process. It's about six, seven months to be a cop. Yeah. You know what I mean? So it's like, we have to address these type of things to be able to help the people who need the most help. But of course, Johnny, we know this isn't a mistake. This is by design.

Because every time somebody goes to jail, a jail is just like a, hotel, those bids have to be filled. They build these places with the intentions of every bid being filled. You know, so when you go to the music, like you said earlier, when the music influences the youth to say, hey, man, go shoot your gun. You ain't, you ain't hard if you ain't shooting your gun and, you know, go pop them perks, go, go go, go have sex, you know what, it's going to, you just keep on hearing it on the radio. And guess what? Somebody's going to listen. And there's so many single-parent homes, no matter if it's just a dad, who raising the kids or just a mom.

These kids are influenced by the things they hear and they see. Like, oh, my favorite rapper got a chain and a Bentley because he's talking about this same stuff. So what he's going to think, if he do it, he's going to get rich too. Yeah. So do you think the fentanyl, do you think that, the fentanyl crisis in Baltimore is markedly worse than the heroin?

Oh, yeah. I can't even call it a heroin epidemic. It's a tradition. Right. I think the fentanyl crisis has made a lot of these areas just like zombie land. Yeah, man, I definitely do. And the thing is, like I said, it's not only that it's the stuff that they're cutting the fentanyl with. Like, for instance, the xalazine, man.

I used to work in the medical field outside of what I'm doing. I used to work in a hospital, right? And the Zalazade, man, like for the people who actually shoot, it eats people down to the bone. I'm talking about like, it's been a spike in amputations. Right. You know, because it lands in the body where it wants. So it's not the injection site.

Let's say shooting in your neck. It might land in your hand. Might land in your thigh. I'm talking about I've seen people with like down to the bone because this is what it does. It's not for human consumption. This is poison, but it gives such a good feeling. And that's the thing I want people to understand

that addiction is not a choice, man. It's a disease. If you had heart disease, you will go see a cardiologist. So it's the same thing with addiction. If you have the disease of addiction, you need to go get professional help, not just throw this person in jail, not discard this person or minimize what they're going through.

These are still people, man. You know, and I'm telling me, I've seen it, man, feet. It was a lady who was pregnant. And she had, what was it? She had to get her leg amputated because she was shooting dope. But the doctors had to make a decision. Do we breach the pregnancy for her to have the baby before we cut it off? Or do we cut it?

You know what I mean? Like, they had to think about the welfare of the child. Like, if we cut it, it might be too much trauma, the cat, whatever. But if we might have to like breach the birth because she wasn't nine months, she wasn't full term yet. So it was like, what do we do? So it's these type of stories that are unheard, these type of people who are unseen. That's why at Baltimore Recovery Alliance, and Baltimore Recovery Alliance is not just for Baltimore. You could be somebody anywhere.

If you need help, I have the resources for every state. It might be a program somewhere that you don't even know, but it's in your state. And you give a call, an email, whatever it is. and I might connect you with that. You don't have to come to Baltimore to get help. If I can help you from where you are, I'm going to do it. That's what the team is for. So shout that out again, the name of the program.

It's Baltimore Recovery Alliance. That's Baltimore Recovery Alliance.com. We're on all socials, Baltimore Recovery Alliance. Yeah, man. Yeah, and we'll put a link to that in the description. We'll give it a nice plug. Before we get out of here, just a couple more things. Do you think that...

these open-air drug markets, the ones that we've seen, you know, in Baltimore, but also L.A., Chicago, Kensington, and Philadelphia. Do you think... Let me just tell. Because you said Cabrini Green in Chicago, right? Chicago, right. Now... I don't know if Chicago has open-air drug.

It's too cold for that. No, no, no, no. What I was going to say is Dante Boxdale's other uncle was King David of Chicago. Are you familiar with David Boxdale? David Boxdale was from Chicago as well, and he was a big figure in Chicago. So Dante used to fly out there to Chicago to help with the peace initiative. Like I said, in Baltimore, we have Safe Streets. You know, shout out to Brian and Scott, because that was a very good move to take people from the community. Because people don't respect the police. You can't come tell me what to do in my community. Remember, back in the day, the police used to be of the

community, you know, but now you people are coming. from 10, 15 miles away. You don't know what's going on here. So the fact that he's taking people from the community and put them in positions to actually help, but nobody's perfect. Some of these guys were still involved in certain stuff, but that doesn't mean all of them was, you know,

and they are making a difference. We'll go to the open-haired, because it just dawned on me. We said earlier, Cabrini Green, Chicago, King David, Buckstale. That's interesting. That's interesting for sure. I mean, should these drug addicts, right? Forget about the dealers are there because the addicts are there.

Right. You know, obviously when you've got a package, the dealers are the chicken and then the egg comes, which are the users, but the dealers are there because the users are there. Do you think not to put them in prison for long stretches, but do you think they should be off the street? Like they should be physically removed and placed in,

you know, clinics and rehabs that are perhaps run by the state, but it's not, You know, it is incarceration, but it's not prison at all. The whole thing is dedicated to programming, to cleaning you up and giving you mental health services, right? Because what good are you doing for allowing a pregnant woman to shoot dope in her leg? But yeah, we're not going to take her to jail because that would be like, you know, racist or that would be over prosecution. Like, she should be in jail if it's, you know, a jail dedicated. not towards punishment, but towards, like, help.

Right? Right. I don't know. What do you think about that? I think that, number one, I think that individuals who are going through that, I don't think it should be state run. I think it should be independent operators, people like you and me who have a passion for recovery. You know, because when you put things in the hands of the state like that, it does become

prison. It does become, you know, a monopolization. It's like, okay, now we're going to make sure that. Everybody that we find who's doing these type of things, they're coming here. You know, and it becomes a kickback type of thing. Yeah, but they, you have to, the state is there, how are people going to go to these private? They have to be forced. I mean, some come around to it, of course, right?

But, you know, how many people on the corners in Baltimore, what was that open-air market you were talking about? Lexington Market. Yeah, how many of- This is one of many. One of many. So how many people out of the hundreds that go to just one-on-old? open our drug market in Baltimore every day, how many of those are actually putting their hands up and saying, you know what, I'm going to go, I'm ready to go seek treatment, probably a really

low percentage. It's a very low percentage. But to your point, right, remember I'm sharing with you, people will only get clean when they're ready. So if you force them, that's still, let me give you an example. And to your point, I also think that there has to be and should be is something that I'm working on, a rehab for dealers as well. because the money is very, very addictive, man. You're telling me, I have a seventh grade education

and I only can go work for pot pies or something like that. And you want me to give up getting this $3,000 a week? I'm running the block. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not ahead enough. I'm running a block. I'm getting $3,000 a week. And if I want to quit from hustling,

because I ain't never stack nothing up enough. I don't have nothing going off of myself. I got to go to Walmart and be a greeter or something like that. So there should be something for hustlers as well to help them reacquaint themselves and adjust to society. Things like resume building and things like that, you know. But let me give you an example to your point about the state-run facilities. The problem what that is, this will be the problem. There are people in prison right now who've done five, ten, twenty years.

Remember, being clean does not mean that you're in sobriety. So I could do 20 years in prison, and the day I get out, I'm going to go smoke some Coke or shoot some dope. So just because you put me somewhere, I don't mean that it's working. That's really interesting. I got to be ready. There's also a lot of drugs in prison, too. You understand?

Yeah. There's a lot of Suboxin and K2. Yeah, there's no shortage of drugs. There's no shortage of drugs in prison. But you see my point? Yeah. So let's say that person isn't using that all in prison. But as soon as they get out, they go do that drug.

choice. Yeah. Well, I get that. I'm not saying the prisons now are the way they should be. You know, like we used to have mental hospitals where, you know, they were maybe less than ideal conditions, but it was an alternative to prison. Like somebody who's shooting trank or what do you call it? Trank in their leg when they're pregnant. That person is mentally ill. So they should be in a hospital, but you have to use the monopoly of violence, which is to say the government, you can't have vigilantes, you can't have private hospitals going and arresting, citizens arresting drug users. You have to have the state remove them.

Right. Because it's like you can't tolerate that shit at a certain, like you're tolerating it. And I do think it's by design. I agree with you. I think it's on a societal level we tolerate people killing themselves. Right. That's what you're doing. And so you have to say, no, we're going to say, no, we're going to be.

to be adults here. You can't do that. You can't do it on the street. You can't be pregnant do that. But you got to find a happy medium. You have to give them help that's not the brutality of prison. It can't be forced, John. It'll never work. If you don't allow a person to go amongst their own free will, what a happiness is going to backfire you. It's been proven. That's why I just gave the same example about people who are in prison. Now, I might be in prison because, you know, whatever. You know, it's not violent. It's not whatever. I'll be home and, you know, maybe 11 months or something, right? You know.

Well, you cleaned your act up. You were forced to be in a program. But it was in prison. You weren't on the yard with a fucking shank. Right. But you were arrested and forced to do this thing that changed your life for the better. And now look at you. Because I want it changed, though.

But you wouldn't have known it if you hadn't been physically taken. That's my point. You have to be taken. No, no, John. I disagree. You can't have a society for normal people. What about the normal, what about people that want to move to Baltimore? Like normal people that are entrepreneurs, they've got college educations, they want to, you know, open businesses, which helps people.

It raises the real estate, which will then make people buy more. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. But they can't because there's their drug addicts everywhere on the corner. Like, what about their rights to live? But a lot of times those same individuals have substantive. abuse issues. We know it's not just the ghettos to have people who've got, you know, drug problems. It's people at every level of life. We just talked about Hunter Biden, who's the president, the ex-president of the United States. Come on with this man is rich. He went to Harvard. For sure,

but he's not, again, though, and this is going to sound fucked up, but rich people doing drugs behind closed doors doesn't, it eats away at the fabric of their soul and their families. But it's different than being on the corner shooting up. It is because that is directly affecting the quality of life of the other people who live there that are civilians. I don't think anybody's deny. I don't think any serious person can deny that. It's why ladies, civilians on the block in Baltimore will pick up and call the police. Because I don't want 15 drug dealers on the, on the,

walk, you know? But you know what that happens? Because she's already had our own experience with it. She might see her son, her loved one, who went through it in them. Addiction affects us all the same. So even if I'm rich in Hollywood and I'm snort and Coke and guess what? It's only a matter of time. It doesn't matter, Johnny. Addiction doesn't discriminate. So when you're talking about these entrepreneurs who can make jobs and all that, listen, the statistics show that one and every seven people have a substance abuse issue. You do the math. That's a lot of people.

And that's just substance abuse. Now, remember, I just explained to you about addiction. Addiction is addiction. So you might not be sniffing coke or drinking booze. But guess what? You're tricking all the time. You know what I mean? You know that rent got to get paid, but you're going to get some booty.

The kids don't know why the lights out. Right. You feel me? Or you're gambling. You know what I mean? You got to get on it. You understand? Come on.

Gambling is like probably the worst addiction in America. It's probably gambling. It's very bad, man. But again, where do you, where do you draw the line? Because you know what really exploded that phenomenon of gambling? Parlayers. Exactly. I know.

Legalizing gambling. I know. I see it all the time. I promote it on my show. And I will continue to promote it because I'm about money. I don't have character or principles or values like you, Carl. So that's my whole thing where it's like, I don't know, we might. It's, I think, I'm myself just rethinking this idea of make everything legal and then the black market will go away or it'll solve addiction.

I don't know. It worked for Amsterdam. Amsterdam, they legalize drugs, whereas though the government provides drugs, you go to a place, you walk in. I'm not sure if it's for free or how, if it's insurance or whatever, but they'll give you, let's say you do heroin. They give you a bag of heroin. You go use it there. Switzerland, they do that too. Yeah.

You leave everything there. What it did was it dropped a crime rate, you know, it did a lot, it did a lot of good, you know. So I understand. It's just one of those types of things. It's so complex. It is difficult, especially in this country. Yeah, man. Because you're always going to have people say, no, that's not going to work.

Then there'll be people say it might do. You know, so. Well, you're right. They do give out, yeah, you go to clinics and you get like synthetic opioids. Right. Fentanyl is synthetic. Yeah. Fully synthetic.

But I think if you're caught. like selling drugs in those countries, you're still going to go to prison. Like, they still have drug interdiction teams and stuff like that. So it's never like a one size fits all, and it's never black and white. Like it's about finding something, some kind of like middle ground. Absolutely. Which we just are so bad at this country. That's because people are getting paid off of the misery of others. Yeah. That's how a lot of the rich stay rich. Like I said, man, look, you got all these- Sackler family, the Purdue. I mean, go back to They're the biggest criminals.

They're the ones responsible for... It starts with them. It starts with the pharmaceutical companies. Oh, man, nothing's bigger than Big Pharma. There is no industry. There's no people richer than Big Pharma. Did you see, because you dealt with thousands of drug addicts, personally interacting with them over the years,

did you see any, like, suburban people that probably started off taking oxies, and perks, you know, that they were getting from their doctor and then just saw them. Johnny, that was a part of the plan. That's why what you just now said about farmer, yes. It was people who came with a spring ankle or something like that, and they were giving perkinsets, right? And the percassettes ran out, but they already had that addiction now.

So now what they do? They're going to find the next best thing. And I'm talking about I've met those type people in droves. You know? Like in cheese lines, waiting to, cop. No, no, I'm not just saying that. I'm just saying, like, what I'm saying is I've heard that story that I sprang my back. I was in a car accident. They kept giving me the perks. The doctor just kept writing the script, just kept writing the script. Even when I ain't won them,

they just kept writing the script. And then they cut me off. I can't function without this. You know, and then what they do? They go ahead and go get the dope and now they do. So you're right. What you just now said, I swear. I've heard that story so many times, Johnny. that I started off with just perkinsessed from a doctor. They kept feeding me them, kept on writing the prescription, and then they cut me off, and I already got this addiction now. You know, and I'm not getting any help. It's not like when they cut me off, they say, hey, you can go here for help for it.

No, they just left me dry. Now and every morning I wake up, I'm going through withdrawals. I can't even drive my car. Withdrawals are one of the worst things in the world, Johnny. See, what we learn is, see, people feel like they die from opiate withdrawal, right? And some people have. It's a very small percentage per capita, right? But benzodia and alcohol, you will absolutely die without, you know, withdrawal management.

That's why if you're on, let's say, benzos, it's recommended that you go to a doctor or to a program so they can give you the medicine to wean you off. You're waking up with the DTs from the alcohol and stuff like that. is recommended that you go somewhere to get, you know, the medicine to make sure that you don't die. You need to get hydrated. Yeah. And it's medicine they give you too. Yeah, man. Like, you will die from from, from, from, uh, benzog and alcohol withdrawal. Benzo being for the people who don't know, benzos is X, um, uh, clonidines, uh, you know, all of those type of, um, uh, drugs. Anything that's a, in the benzodia, I forgot the big word, in the benzo family. You got to actually get help with that.

So what do you, so tell the people what it is your organization does. Like, what can you do for them? So Baltimore Recovery Alliance is dedicated to helping people with substance abuse and mental health issues. That means, and it's a nonprofit organization. So what we're looking to do is to help, you know, provide housing, you know, peer support, you know, whatever you might need, like people who might need services like food stamps, you know, resources like TDAP, anything that a person might need, we have a reentry program.

That's one of the biggest, you know, file-ups of the system. If somebody just came home from doing five, ten years, and as soon as they leave the door, they don't have nothing, no resources. So what we do is we help provide housing where as though somebody can come from the system into a house. We help you get a job, help you, you know, just understand what's going on in society. because a lot of times we come home and everything has changed. A city can change in five, ten years, man.

Your friends, everybody dead in jail, whatever. You can't find whoever. And now you're on the street. And guess what? You're most likely going to repeat the cycle. So that's our whole goal to help break the cycle of addiction and mental health, homelessness, and really just help anybody who needs help. And it's not just in Baltimore.

As I said, you can be anywhere. You can call me and you in Chicago. If I can connect you with somewhere that can help you. help you, help your family, help yourself, I got you. That's what we're here for, man. Everybody lives matter. But the disease of addiction tells us, right, that nobody cares. Can't nobody tell.

Don't nobody know. It just, you know, it just, it's terrible. And now that I'm on this side of things, I just want to be able to project and be the change I want to see. You know, I've sold a lot of drugs, Johnny. I'm telling you, I didn't, in jail, out of jail. I'd have had a lot of great times, had a lot of money. But I can honestly say I've never felt good about selling drugs. I've never sold drugs.

I'm like, yeah. You know what I mean? No. But what I do now? Man, I feel amazing. It feels great when I go somewhere. I walk into the mall or something. I see somebody who's an ex-client.

Like, Mr. Carl, I knew that was you. How you doing, man? I got my kids back. You know, I'm driving now. I work up here, man. You understand what I'm saying? It's so fulfilling. man, to be a part of building the community up after I helped destroy for so long, you know?

So that's what Baltimore Recovery Alliance is about, man. It's about helping people and meeting people where they are and accepting people for who they are. You know, like, because a lot of times, man, we'll try to make somebody into what we, no, this person is who they is. Either you're going to accept them or reject them, but you ain't going to change them. They can change themselves. So that's what it's all about, man. Just, you know, trying to be a better person and being a change I want to see. That's it, man.

That's amazing. That's amazing. I really respect it. Last question. Whatever happened to those two keys that the cops didn't find? I assume they got to their proper place. Yeah, they made it to their destination. Well, Carl, thank you so much, man.

Go use him as a resource where, again, we're going to plug the Baltimore City Alliance. Baltimore Recovery Alliance. And I look forward to, I'd love to come to Baltimore. And if you could show me around, that'd be great. I'm going to have to cop something, dude. Become a client of yours. Let's get strung out. Shout out to the wire.

Shout out to Baltimore. real friendly people. And Don Deva Magazine, man. Look at that, dude. You really are representative of the city. It was really, you really have an encyclopedic knowledge of it. And maybe we'll do it a bonus episode. Maybe we'll jump over and we'll do a,

you want to stick around and just chat for a little longer? Yeah, I want to ask you some more just fucking wire questions. There's a lot to talk about. So thank you guys so much. Jump over to the Patreon. Patreon.com slash The Connect Show with the one and only Baltimore. Carl right here on the Connect. We'll talk to you guys later. Take care.