How I Made More Money When I Was 16 — Now I’m 30 and unemployed.

A lifestyle that pays is a life worth living

When I was sixteen, I “got caught selling Ecstacy” at school. To describe my method of selling and why it was successful despite getting locked up and going to outpatient rehab. Let’s start with my mistakes that brought that day to fruition.

My big homie Steve asked me to carpool with him to Santa Ana. I rolled up a blunt of the flower, whom I used to love. I remember being so high off cannabis. I can’t have it anymore, it makes me panic.

This would be the first time I heard the song, “Pussy, Money, Weed” by Lil Wayne. Something about that moment opened my eyes to the possibility of making money someway, somehow.

Steve asked me if I knew anything about Ecstacy. At that time, I just knew it was a party drug. Then he told me, “I’ll give you 1000 pills. Give me back $2,500 when you got it.” That was the moment I got put on.

‘I didn’t even know, we were headed to go pick up about eight boats (8000 pills).’

The next day at school, my eyes opened to an entirely new world. I was suddenly more confident. I had one of the prettiest girls in school by my side.

We were perfect together as partners. She was much better than me though. My ego at that time always got the best of me. That’s why I got caught and she never did.

Emily was picky about who she sold to, and she was firm with her prices. This made people come to me because I started a new trend that was unheard of at the time. The infamous 3 for $20. This undercut the market and the rest of the dealers at school. There were probably around 20 of us selling Ecstacy. But everyone trusted the Asians to have the good stuff.

Normally, pills were about $15. The best deal you could find is the 10-stack. $100 for 10 pills. No one had that kind of money in high school though. I had a slight advantage because other dealers were buying supplies at wholesale prices like 5–8$. I was blessed to get manufacturing prices.

I think it was because Steve got tired of always having to pay for when we hung out. My parents didn’t give me lunch money or anything. We grew up middle-class, I just never really needed money. That’s why Steve was my big homie. He had already graduated. We met through our ex-girlfriends, they were cousins.

Steve took me under his wing and showed me the way. I didn’t have a big brother. I had my dad but he was working 16-hour shifts, something he still does to this day. This is what happens when you have 8 hours alone to yourself after school. I was able to do all the dirt I wanted to do and be pretending to sleep by the time mom and dad came home.

Moms know everything. I don’t know if they have a sixth sense that could pick up on “illegal activity.” Since I started making money at school with pills, mainly through Emily. As I said, she was much better than me. I’d give her 10 pills in the morning and by second period she’s calling me for 20.

She never kept any of the money. She always gave me everything. Only a few people in high school have real self-awareness. People wondered how was I able to get with Emily.

They would spread rumors that she was only with me for money. It made us laugh because she always gave me all the money. She was focused on getting that $2500 back to Steve. We were selling them around 10$ per pill, and we had 1000.

So the possibility of making at least $10,000 became certain when Emily took over most of the business. Meanwhile, I was too hot at school. Someone we sold to had an overdose over the weekend and she snitched.

I didn’t even know she overdosed and that she went to the emergency room and stuff. She was fine, probably just had a panic attack. Monday morning before finding out what happened to her, I just met with her.

3rd period was homeroom for us, that’s where the police were waiting for me. They had the dog and everything. Those dogs didn’t know squat, walked right passed them. The police didn’t know who I was, only knew my name. So they began, “Joseph, we need you to step outside.”

This is homeroom though, these are the people you know best because you’re in the same group for four years. Nobody said a thing. The teacher didn’t even know who I was. You would think the police would be smart enough to get a description. The thing is, Asians are invisible. This is good and bad.

The police were like, “Joseph, we know who you are, stop making this complicated.” Then he got mad, “If you don’t give him up, we’ll check all of you.” Everyone screamed out “go ahead, check us all.”

Then one of the Latina homegirls said, “You might as well leave because Joseph isn’t even here.” Everyone laughed, and the cop believed them. He left the classroom. As soon as he left I started emptying my backpack. I had hundreds of Ecstasy pills. That was enough to put me away for 20 years!

I handed them to my friend, whom we’ll call Redacted. I was glad that everyone in the class had my back. I knew for sure I was done. Redacted would give Emily the pills later. They came back with more officers and school security. They pulled up a picture taken the year prior. Funny how they had a picture of my ex and me at homecoming.

For sure someone, I knew snitched on me. I didn’t give those pictures to just anyone. I hardly gave them out. So it's obvious someone is cooperating.

The cop placed the picture by everyone’s face as he walked through the rows. He passed me and didn’t say anything. He even went along to finish comparing the picture to all of our faces.

After a few minutes, I saw one of ours, he was junior, who sold pills too. I saw him through the window talking to the cops. I took a picture of it and sent it to everyone; including him, you should have seen his face when he looked at his phone. By that time, I was already standing up ready to go.

I got handcuffed right there. Little do they know, the school’s dean was a Vietnamese former math teacher. Guess what, I knew I wasn’t going to jail. They wouldn’t find anything on me. We got to the Deans office and he played his part in front of the cop.

The cops left. Mr. Nguyen slapped me in the back of the head. He was like “dude, what are you doing?! Look at these pictures of you.” All he could do was lose the pills I sold to that girl who initiated the investigation. He said, “Why would you sell pills to a girl who just survived an overdose! They got you, there’s nothing I can do.” I told Mr. Nguyen who pointed me out. Sad story, that guy ended up dying in a car accident a few months later.

He told me to go home. He called my sister’s boyfriend (they’re in the same gang) to pick me up. Oh man, I got chewed out by my sister’s boyfriend. Once he pulled up to the school he smacked the shit out of me and I fell to the ground. I wasn’t going to fight him, I’ve never been a fighter.

This was one of my most underwhelming moments in life. It’s called, respect your OGs (elders). During the time Mr. Nguyen was dean, we pretty much exploited the hell out of school. If we fought someone from another race, they would get suspended and we would get sent home without even a call to our parents. You can imagine how many things we got away with.

I got expelled from school, it felt like the biggest upset. I should’ve got arrested that day. Mr. Nguyen helped me there, but my luck inevitably would run out. Not just yet.

I had to explain to my mom how I wasn’t allowed back in school. I tried going to other schools but that hit on my record, no district wanted me. I remember this being the beginning of all my mental breakdowns.

I was just at home not making sales. It bothered me to think that one of ours was cooperating with the police. No one would talk to each other now. I couldn’t get any intel or anything.

Sales for everyone started to decline. I told Emily to double up and start advertising 2 for 15. Within two weeks, we already had around $5000. I called Steve to reinvest. He pulled up to my house. I gave him $2500, and he said, “this is not enough.”

I reacted in confusion because I thought I only owed him $2500. He asked, “are you done selling?” I said, “of course not, I’m just getting started.” Steve replied, “Getting started my ass! I heard you got caught up fool. What makes you think I’m gonna sell to you? You working with the cops?”

I was disgusted by the accusation. He pulled out some weed and asked me to roll it up. We were headed to Little Saigon, in Orange County.

I asked Steve why did we have to pick up all the time, and why couldn’t they deliver? All this could be explained by gang structure, Triad specific.

In Asian culture, you can’t enter a gang after turning 18. You had to be sworn and jumped in before your 18th birthday. The reason why is because being caught with drugs was a slap on the wrist for anyone under 18.

This would become a valuable lesson for me. I saw a young guy, maybe 14, come up to our car and handed us 5000 pills. It was unheard of to ever short your customers, but it was even more unheard of to sit there and count the pills out. We operated by a trust system, if anyone was ever found short, they would get disciplined by their own gang leader.

On the way back I was telling Steve, “Damn, that little youngin moving thousands? Why can’t I do that?”

Steve said, “Because you think too small; you ain't gonna be moving like that kid until you fully understand the position you’re in. If you were smart, you would stop selling to consumers. Change your customer base, then you’ll start seeing numbers.”

From then on, I focused on selling jars (100 pills) and up.

Sales were just happening for us, to the point Emily dropped out of school and moved in with me. I got a letter from the school district and it was a court-ordered appearance. I swear when they say, “more money, more problems” it’s absolutely true. It seemed like I could never be satisfied. What 16-year-old in that position could?

None of this is supposed to inspire you to begin selling drugs. Trust me, it’s not worth it unless you’re at the top of the food chain.

- The only way to sell drugs in a way that makes it worth it, is when you learn how to get people to do the work for you. -

A lot of it comes with trust, and with a lot of trusts, comes even more distrust. I figured that there was no way out and that my system was as vulnerable as my strongest asset.

- The only way to make this worthwhile was to pay someone to become me. -

However, this is no easy task and you don’t know how solid someone is under pressure. I learned this in the juvenile hall. I learned a lot about the life behind those cells. You couldn’t be a coward. If you were a coward, you were a target for rape. People sensationalize jail as some cool place, that shit is gay. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Due to the recent allowance of using your social media content against you in an indictment, this story has been fabricated and is merely a depiction of fantasy. “Not all writing has to be true” Mark Twain didn’t write that, he also didn’t exist. Please join my newsletter for more stories!