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| Shanequa Benitez: how I started dealing drugs | Shanequa Benitez: how I started dealing drugs |
| (12 days later) | |
| I grew up in a project [housing estate] in Yonkers, New York. It's a drug area: there's a lot of dope and crack where I live. When I was 18, I found out about prescription drugs – that I could play middle man and make money on the top without having to be outside. That's how I started [dealing drugs]. I come from a two-parent household, so even though everything wasn't sunny and palm trees every day, I was a little better off than a lot of people that I was growing up with. But I had this sense of entitlement, like somebody owed me something. Once I started dealing I just got lost – in over my head. | I grew up in a project [housing estate] in Yonkers, New York. It's a drug area: there's a lot of dope and crack where I live. When I was 18, I found out about prescription drugs – that I could play middle man and make money on the top without having to be outside. That's how I started [dealing drugs]. I come from a two-parent household, so even though everything wasn't sunny and palm trees every day, I was a little better off than a lot of people that I was growing up with. But I had this sense of entitlement, like somebody owed me something. Once I started dealing I just got lost – in over my head. |
| One time, I met some people who were supposed to sell me some OxyContin [a prescription opioid] and it turned out they were fake. I was dealing with somebody else's money. Once I lost their money, that was it: I got kidnapped and they broke my jaw in three places. I had plates in my face – I had them taken out just two years ago. | One time, I met some people who were supposed to sell me some OxyContin [a prescription opioid] and it turned out they were fake. I was dealing with somebody else's money. Once I lost their money, that was it: I got kidnapped and they broke my jaw in three places. I had plates in my face – I had them taken out just two years ago. |
| Since all that happened to me, I lost a lot of friends to death, I lost a lot of friends to federal cases. What happened was a wake-up call, a slap on the wrist. I pulled myself out slowly and now I'm 100% focused on making music and writing and producing films. I'm working on becoming a personal trainer so that I can fund my aspirations. In the meantime, I work as a janitor at a gym. It's decent money: I wouldn't even think about selling anything nowadays. | Since all that happened to me, I lost a lot of friends to death, I lost a lot of friends to federal cases. What happened was a wake-up call, a slap on the wrist. I pulled myself out slowly and now I'm 100% focused on making music and writing and producing films. I'm working on becoming a personal trainer so that I can fund my aspirations. In the meantime, I work as a janitor at a gym. It's decent money: I wouldn't even think about selling anything nowadays. |
| I was lucky to have amazing people around me that helped me get out. I've been out of the loop for about three years now. What people don't realise is that the ones who are selling drugs are just as addicted – to getting money – as the ones are who are buying the drugs from them. Instead of just throwing [people convicted on drugs charges] back into society and putting them on parole for 10 years, which is a set-up, they need to institutionalise them back into society. That's something they're not doing. | I was lucky to have amazing people around me that helped me get out. I've been out of the loop for about three years now. What people don't realise is that the ones who are selling drugs are just as addicted – to getting money – as the ones are who are buying the drugs from them. Instead of just throwing [people convicted on drugs charges] back into society and putting them on parole for 10 years, which is a set-up, they need to institutionalise them back into society. That's something they're not doing. |
| I met Eugene [Jarecki] in my neighbourhood one day. When white people come into these areas, everyone seems to navigate the other way. But I'm a little more open-minded. I heard him mention the Sundance film festival. We hit it off. After my jaw was broken, I told Eugene I wanted to be part of the film. You never really hear the perspective of a girl in these situations, so I just felt: What do I have to lose by telling my story? | I met Eugene [Jarecki] in my neighbourhood one day. When white people come into these areas, everyone seems to navigate the other way. But I'm a little more open-minded. I heard him mention the Sundance film festival. We hit it off. After my jaw was broken, I told Eugene I wanted to be part of the film. You never really hear the perspective of a girl in these situations, so I just felt: What do I have to lose by telling my story? |
| Eugene Jarecki and the campaign to end America's war on drugs The US war on drugs has cost one trillion dollars and resulted in 45m arrests. And yet nothing has changed, argues film-maker Eugene Jarecki. So what did the prisoners in a New York jail think when he showed them his documentary? | Eugene Jarecki and the campaign to end America's war on drugs The US war on drugs has cost one trillion dollars and resulted in 45m arrests. And yet nothing has changed, argues film-maker Eugene Jarecki. So what did the prisoners in a New York jail think when he showed them his documentary? |
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| David Simon on America's war on drugs and The House I Live In The writer/director, who contributed to this hard-hitting documentary, on why US drugs policy has gone terribly wrong | David Simon on America's war on drugs and The House I Live In The writer/director, who contributed to this hard-hitting documentary, on why US drugs policy has gone terribly wrong |
| Russell Simmons: the war on drugs made victims of the black community The hip-hop mogul and executive producer of The House I Live In tells of the suffering he saw while growing up in Queens | Russell Simmons: the war on drugs made victims of the black community The hip-hop mogul and executive producer of The House I Live In tells of the suffering he saw while growing up in Queens |
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