How is it possible to make any money? Whatsoever?

I'm being completely serious and want only serious answers, if possible. Through my extended research, it'd seem to me that the drug market is indeed lucrative; that's inarguable. But I'm failing to see how.

Numerous documentaries have shown that your standard drug dealer makes less than minimum wage off of the earnings from slinging on any given week given almost any product.

But let's just assume you're not that. You're not a low-level street dealer peddling for someone else. No. Let's assume you're operating alone. All costs and burdens are upon you and you come into some product. Unless you have bulk, the profit margin for nearly any quantifiably recreational amount is so petty that the repercussions for possession and distribution vastly outweigh the measly $500 or less you could ever get in return.

But let's go further. Assume you do have bulk. How'd you get it? Wholesaler? Are you a self-sustaining manufacturer? Are you able to sell that product at fair and reasonable prices to remain competitive? How much do you charge to cover the costs of the start-up, quality control, and the necessary charges to restock, be it to buy again to resell, or to reproduce yourself?

Let's go even further and assume all best case scenarios. You're not on the street, you're on these darknet markets. Security is a (relative) non-issue, for the sake of argument. Pick any drug in which you'd vend and you'd expect to see any worthwhile return. Let's doubly assume that you're a one-man-show. No middleman. No one to report to, no one to buy off of. It's all you, so any potential losses are mitigated in the process. What do you start with first?

Well, let's look at some statistics:

http://www.killerinfographics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Prescription-v-Illegal.png

Here, data collected up to 2012 indicates that the most popular illegal drugs are weed, cocaine, molly, and amphetamines. In that order.

https://pay.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1xy5p1/use_of_silk_road_the_online_drug_marketplace_in/

In this post, Gwern claims the most commonly purchased drugs were MDMA, weed, and LSD. In that order.

Okay, so we've got a better idea of what's in demand. Now what? Let's assume you go with MDMA. Most prices out there on the markets are retail; not wholesale. You'd be very hard pressed to find any prices worth going through the process of buying for the purpose of reselling for any substantial profit. So you'll make it yourself.

Okay. That's fine. Without getting into too much detail, let's say you've got a budget of $1,500 to work with. Not unreasonable, right? The necessary chemicals needed in the appropriate portions to produce a batch yielding ~15-18 grams, depending on how you go about procuring them, at the time of this writing, can cost you anywhere from ~$400-$600+ alone. And half of those chemicals will probably only last you for one batch. And that's assuming you know the proper process and can handle the equipment well enough to not fuck it up the first three times, having to restock with chemicals that could very well bring unnecessary attention to yourself. But let's continue with our chain of assumptions. Best case scenario. You do it, you get it right on the first try. But what about the glassware? And the safety equipment? An entry-level distillation apparatus runs at least for $200-$300. Then come the stands, and the clamps and the miscellaneous accessories. And then come the boxes of gloves, the respirator(s), the hazmat suit (if you're into obscene caution). And that's not even mentioning where you're going to produce it. You'll need a place that provides both privacy and seclusion, as well as decent ventilation. Not to mention running water and electricity. So let's say you rent a house on a monthly basis, to avoid any suspicion. Best case scenario, you get one for $500/month. You got everything you need, you got your first batch ready, now what?

Time to post the listing. But wait, you can't even get your listing out there without first paying a vendor bond. Of course there are places such as TorEscrow which allow free posting, but it's not exactly gained traction as a bustling place of business. Any other place, the fee can range from $150-$500 just so you can sell. Not even assuming you can accrue the necessary attention and trust to sell any of your product in the first place.

So where are we at now? Once again, assuming best, best, best case scenarios on all fronts; cheapest method of chemical, equipment, glassware, and vendor attainment. You've already spent $1,100 of your $1,500 budget. And that's only if you're only available on TorEscrow. If you want to expand to The Marketplace, you'll have spent $1,250. And not a single cent in return yet.

But wait, there's more. We haven't even gotten into shipping costs, equipment, stealth peripheries, and the recommended circuitous depositing methods consuming your gas. But, no problem, right? You can get USPS priority mail envelopes and labels for free. But what about moisture barrier bags? And heat or impulse sealers? And whatever else you plan to stash in the envelope to make it seem innocuous in a worst case scenario? All of that costs money as well. And you have to repeat the process every time you receive an order.

But let's keep going, we're not done yet. Assuming, for the extieth time, all goes well. Everything's smooth. You haven't made any errors up until this point. Transactions have gone as planned, law enforcement has no interest in you as of yet, and you're doing well to get rid of your stock in reasonable amounts. Let's say all of it. 15 grams. If you partitioned the dosages to ~200mg each, and you sold each dose at an average of $10, you would've accrued $750.

$750. And it hardly covers even half of what you invested to get here. And it isn't even yours yet.

We haven't even gotten to the point of selling the bitcoins for fiat. Taking market volatility into account, your "deserved" $750 could end up being only $700 after market exchanges and losses with various dealers.

But that's okay. You're determined. You take what you can get. After starting with $1,500, spending $1,250 to start up, you're left with $250. In the best possible situation. And you make $700 in who-knows-how-long it takes to sell all of your product. But you've got to keep that house to make another batch, right? So you have to move enough in less than a month, or start moving around for a different place to manufacture. So now you're back up to $950. $550 less than when you started. But you're going to keep going. You want to make another batch. But half of your chemical supplies are exhausted. That's another ~$250 worth of investment to get what you need to produce again. So you're back down to $700. Less than half of what you started with.

But what if you sell that batch too? Valued at another ~$750? Well, you're back up to $1,450. After selling two whole cooks worth of illicit product, under the best possible conditions, you're still making less than you would've had you just saved your money.

And how did you get your money in the first place? Are you working a job? If so, what is the logical reason you would sell in the first place? It's been empirically proven to be a financially non-viable option. You've actually lost money trying this.

And you're the one selling.

So please. Someone. Tell me. HOW DOES ANYONE PROFIT OFF OF THIS?

(inb4 scammers and market administrators.)


Comments


[14 Points] queryox1:

How about a quick look at some of the top coke vendors, they buy in weight and sell in singles. This almost never happens in the real world, people either buy small, sell small or buy big, sell big.

This gets the vendors maximum profit. Small example.

Buy uncut kilogram of cocaine, £40,000. Sell per gram £100avg. Turnover £100,000/ Profit, £60,000. How long does it take to sell that? Not long for top sellers, including small weights,

Bulk Ecstacy 10,000 pills, Buy at £2 each, sell small scale £3-5 each, small small scale £5-£8 each.

$1,500 is no where near enough capital to start a business on, never mind making your own drugs and packaging/sending. Your simply looking at it the completley wrong way.


[8 Points] sconces:

I'm not reading all that (sorry), but I'll tell you what you can do: ounces of great weed on the Darknet go for $170 if you find the right person. I get mine in QPs. You can find some for <$600. That breaks down to about $5 a gram. Sell grams for $10 and fuck up your whole local market (where it's usually $20/g).

If you can get around 10-15 people a day to buy from you, you can flip your $600 QP to $1200 in about a week. That's $32,000 a year, and that's just weed, at $10/gram. You could set it at $15 a gram and if your area doesn't see great bud like Agora can offer, that's pretty good money.


[5 Points] None:

lol wut, not everyone is making everything they sell. It's pretty simple, almost idiot proof, to buy a large quantity of a substance and sell it in small quantities where the margins are higher. Producing drugs on a small scale is almost never profitable.

Ex: Buy an Oz of MDMA for 1k-1.2k, sell it for $10/.1g. End up with just under 3k. It works the same way with pretty much any drug.


[4 Points] maseratis:

☻☺ Darknet is just another channel of for dealer to vendor his stuff. Margin is smaller because of shipping and packaging overhead. But that's why the price you see on Darknet is almost always more expensive than street's.

You're questioning why people do it and whether it is really beneficial? Consider this ;

☻☺ You spent 4 years and $200k or more in school. You work for 8 years with $30k annual income just to break even.

OR

☻☺ You and couple of friends take one time risk and mule for a manufacturer. You then get special deal at 1/3 retail. You decided to a huge bulk. Selling it all give you $200k within 6 months.

Dealing is something anyone with half a brain can do. Buy low, sell high. That's the basic of any business.

FYI in Most asian countries, Thailand, Japan, and Korea the profit isn't just three-fold. It's 7-10 fold.


[4 Points] None:

Let's run through a theoretical scenario in which we invest ~$500 in product and see how much we can flip it for while minimizing risk:

Let's buy -

10g of MDMA for $200

250 hits of NBOMe for $100

50 4mg pills of 5-MeO-MiPT for $100

10g of street amphetamine for $100

Now, let's create 3 fine fellows to help us peddle our wares: Bob, Frank, and Doug.

Each associate gets:

~3g of MDMA, sold for $300 street value. They keep $150 for their efforts, and give $150 back to you.

~80 hits of NBOMe, sold for anywhere from $400-800. $200-400 for them, and another $200-400 for you.

~17 pills of 5-MeO-MiPT, sold for $6 each, netting both you and your associate approx. $50.

~110 30mg amphetamine pills, sold at $2/3 each as a cheaper adderall alternative. Yet another $110/165 in each of your pockets.

A total of $510-765 per person.

$1530-2295 total.

$1030-1795 in profits.

Assuming this takes about 2 months for everyone to move all of their product, you're looking at around $6180-10770 in profits every year, for minimal risk (yes, yes your associates could always get busted and rat you out, but this is assuming that doesn't happen, or that you are smart enough never to touch any product yourself).

Even greater profits are achieved if several connections are made who are interested in frequent bulk purchases.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, 6-10 grand every year certainly isn't enough to support oneself on. But, if one were absolutely adamant on making a living solely by selling drugs, I imagine it wouldn't be difficult to create a large enough network of street-level distributors and bulk-purchasers to eventually invest in a small lab and minute quantity of precursors.

Assuming one can get 2,5-Dimethoxybenzaldehyde for around $20 for 10g, one could theoretically purchase $100 worth of 2,5-DMB (50g), and synthesize it into a 2C for an extraordinary profit margin. Let's choose 2C-B, for argument's sake. Assuming a 37% yield from a popular synthesis method that doesn't require LAH or other difficult to obtain reagents, this gives us 37g of 2C-B. Turned into 15mg capsules/pressed pills with a street value of $5-10 each, this provides us with a quantity of product whose street value amounts to somewhere between $12,210 and $24,420. Even wholesaling the entire batch for $3,000-$5,000 nets a significant profit for a technically uncomplicated synthesis with readily-available precursors and reagents. This is just one example. There are several other, more popular compounds that could just as easily be synthesized for similar or even greater profit margins; I chose 2C-B just to serve as an example.

And therein lies the allure of the trade, my friend.


[2 Points] tomhuck:

Most dealers don't make that great of money. Even if they were profitting $1000 a day thats hardly worth the risk of 10 years in prison. But to each his own. God bless them for sacrificing there freedom. Prisons are full of them. And no one gets away forever.


[2 Points] shitstormy:

I dont know where youre getting that prices are high, if anything massive competition has driven the prices down to barely nothing at all. Only people on here making any real money are the ones importing tons of cheap drugs and then selling them for slightly above margins. Everyone is like me is just a small timer having to drive his prices down to match that and making very little in the end, but hey its not like they're handing out high paying jobs anymore, the "greatest generation" is choking everyone else out of a job and this is pretty much the only thing you can do to pay the bills.

Streets have higher prices because you cant window shop your dealer or try to jew him down a few dollars cause the bigshot down the street is selling it for less. You shouldnt vend unless you got a cheap source for drugs or youre making your own.


[1 Points] Analyticalotter:

Economies of scale


[0 Points] cheapcab:

Fuck that wall of text.