This is my experience as well. The "runners" (as the delivery persons were called) were always friendly, and usually didn't speak English. They would tell me, "Tengas cuidado," (be careful).
39 karma · joined April 19, 2015
Phone calls with the operator (el jefe) were brief and to-the-point. Code words were often used, e.g., "I need 2 pairs of pants." There was certainly never any in-depth discussion pertaining to the product.
I'm sure they had users with closer relations that they used for feedback.
Well I tried it, and boy did I like it. Slowly, over time, I ran the gamut of different strength pharmaceuticals, administered orally, intranasally, and even rectally.
Eventually, you develop a physical addiction. One day, you can't afford the $40 for an 80mg oxycontin that you need to get well, and you're staring down the barrel of a long night of withdrawals. But a small bag of heroin might cost $10 and last you a couple of days. And so it goes.
Speaking as an ex-user, opioids are a horrendous class of drug. They steal your motivations, your desires, your dreams—your very soul. They turn you into a shell of your former self.
Do not fool yourself into thinking that opioids are gentle and harmless just because they are technically non-toxic.
Balloons are typically sold in .1 gram quantities, with lower quality heroin. I do recall buying balloons wet with saliva, but only some of the time. An acquaintance told me that it used to be standard practice for dealers to use young Mexican children to sell dope by this method on foot in Skid Row, but that the city had really cleaned up downtown. With the popularization of cell phones, the delivery system described in this article became the standard.
Higher quality heroin was usually sold by the half gram. Instead of being in a balloon, it would be wrapped in plastic torn from a grocery bag, tied off or melted to close and seal it. I don't recall these ever being spat out. They would often hide it under the hood in their beat up trucks or minivans.
I never got customer satisfaction surveys from dealers. I'm sure that the dealers had customers or friends from whom they got feedback on their product, but I was never one of them.
A dealer's number was quite a hot commodity. You couldn't just call the dealer up and expect to get served—you had to be introduced. And the dealer would often throw in a free bag if you bought x number of them.
The result of this was that one user would have the dealer's contact information, and would make a buying run for other users who didn't. If they bought enough they could keep the free bag, or otherwise pinch off the bags that they acquired for the other users.