Unless you live under a rock, you know that marijuana is illegal in Texas, despite recent decriminalization efforts by some in the state Legislature. For the most part, though, weed is still largely taboo in the Lone Star State, and much like sex, not everyone is game to talk about it.
Buying from your local weed dealer can raise a series of questions, such as how long each visit should last and what is — and isn’t — kosher to text. We spoke with a couple of North Texas dealers, whose names have been changed to protect their identities, to learn about weed-buying etiquette.
Dante has been dealing marijuana since his sophomore year in high school. These days, he sells from his home in a quaint, family-friendly North Texas neighborhood. Some dealers will make their customers hang out for at least 30 minutes so as not to attract attention, but Dante is more lax: His ideal customer would stay somewhere between five and 10 minutes.
“You just don’t want to piss off your neighbors and shit,” he says with a laugh. “So, I guess a perfect [customer] is someone who lets me know they’re coming because sometimes they don’t, and shows up when they say. Because my time is valuable, too.”
Although he’s friendly with most of his customers, it can get annoying when someone plops down on his couch and hangs out for hours, Dante says. He lives with his longtime girlfriend, so a buyer turning up, and how long they stay, can also be stressful for his partner. At the same time, though, Dante wants to maintain a positive relationship with his regulars, so each transaction time really just depends on the day. In other words: Read the room.
Mumia is a North Texas CBD dealer who has been selling herb for most of his life. Like Dante, Mumia has a close relationship with his customers, and he also works from home. Marijuana is a “beautiful” plant that can help people with varying ailments, he says, and as a dealer, Mumia feels like he’s “doing the world a justice.”“You don’t want to be texting on the phone or saying the wrong thing." – local dealer Mumia
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Mumia likes to make his customers feel comfortable, and he enjoys having conversations with them whenever they stop in. He doesn’t work with just anyone, so he pretty much considers each of his buyers a friend. Still, Mumia says he’s encountered an unpleasant customer or two, such as those who come across as “a little too cop-ish.”
In one memorable case, someone asked to return a product after they'd already smoked half.
“You don’t want to be texting on the phone or saying the wrong thing,” Mumia says. “You don’t want to be dealing with people that’s super picky, especially if you know you have a good product. That’s always been a turnoff for me: super picky people, texting the wrong things.”
For Mumia, asking for weed directly in text leaves “too much of a paper trail.” Dante, though, doesn’t mind when people are straightforward. He'll occasionally get a customer who prefers to speak in code, but he's resigned to the fact that if police want to catch you, they will.
“Nowadays, we’re in a time where if you’re going to get caught, you’re going to get caught," Dante says. "It’s not like before where you could talk on a landline and shit like that. Everything’s on our cell phones and they record everything. We’re fucked.”
An ideal customer would also pay in cash because Venmo transactions can be too conspicuous, Dante says. That’s especially the case for buyers who hit him up multiple times per week.
Dante will deliver his product from time to time, although he avoids going inside people’s homes, especially since the pandemic hit. When he does do house calls, he prefers that his buyers wear a mask.
Dante has one customer who lives around 20 minutes away, and since he delivers for free, driving that far can be a “pain in the ass.” Sometimes, this buyer won’t have cash and doesn't let Dante know until he arrives. Other times, she won’t even be home at all, so Dante will have to wait in his car for her to return.
Still, there are plenty of perks to being a weed dealer. Besides having endless access to herb, Dante and Mumia say customers will occasionally pay it forward.
One of Mumia’s buyers will bring his kids little gifts and cute knickknacks. And although Dante doesn't expect it, some of his regulars will tip him from time to time.
“If you do it, you do it. If not, you’re not hurting me any,” Dante says, chuckling. “Let’s just get this over with, because I have other people to see.”
