The UK is a ship that sank a while ago. There are more food banks than McDonald’s, public services have been obliterated by 13 years of Tory rule and half the country is on strike. Despite the Bank of England's chief economist telling us to just “accept” that we are “poorer now”, we’re also still being forced to pay millions for a glorified game of royal musical chairs with a fancy hat thrown in.According to the Guardian, Charles’s coronation will cost taxpayers up to £100m plus “£369m for a gold-plated, bells and whistles refurbishment” of Buckingham Palace. (The king has an estimated personal wealth of £1.8bn, but he didn’t fancy chipping in on this occasion.)At least the country’s peasants do get a day off, which means that a lot of us will spend the bank holiday weekend summoning dealers to pub car parks and street corners. Personally, I’d rather pledge allegiance to a drug dealer than King Charles – they’re much more hardworking and useful – so I called three of them up to ask what their plans are for the coronation weekend. (All names have been changed for obvious privacy reasons.)VICE: Do you have anything going on for the coronation weekend?
Terry: Every bank holiday I do deals, me. I generally do party bags.What’s in a party bag?
If they buy an eighth (3.5 grams) or half an eighth of coke, they can get five bags of weed (around 2.2 grams) for £85. We have two levels of coke; one is cut a bit cleaner than the other one. We call them ‘medium’ and ‘top-shelf’. [laughs]Which one do you think people will pick for the King’s coronation?
Most people will just go for the full top-shelf and get an eighth or a half [an eighth] of coke. Some people will go bigger if they’re going to a big party or whatever; they often buy the medium one and sell it off as the higher one and make a little raise for themselves. How do you prepare for a bank holiday?
I’ll send a WhatsApp message out early doors on the Friday with the menu of what we have. We can judge how much people will want and we’ll get that and start grafting [driving round doing drop-offs] later on in the day. That way we won’t have to fuck about reloading later on. What hours are you working?
We’re going to graft until about ten o’clock at night Friday and Saturday. Then we’ll party. Sunday will be a write-off. Then the line will be back on about ten or 11 on Monday morning to try and catch up on the people who have been up all weekend. And will you be watching the coronation yourself?
I certainly won’t.VICE: What can you offer someone who wants to get high watching the coronation?
Will: We’re going to have three strains on for the bank holiday weekend – Cherrylato, Apple Pie and… What else will I have in? Let me have a look at my phone, bro… [checks] Alien Dawg! I get [that] off the Albanians so it’s a bit cheaper, but the majority of the Cali strains [i.e. weed grown in the UK from strains associated with the legal weed sector in California] are more expensive.Why do you have so many strains?
It's all changed. Nobody rings you up anymore and asks if they can get a 20-bag [£20 worth of cannabis flower]. Now they say, “What’s on the menu?” It’s effectively a legitimate business run illegally. Do you reckon a judge would buy that line?
No, I don’t think so.How do you make sure you get a good bank holiday trade?
People are always looking for variety now. What I’ve found now is that the price of bud has shot down in bulk. The Albanians [grow] it in massive warehouses and the price for a key [i.e. a kilogram] has come down to three grand from four and a half or five grand two years ago. But people are bored of them strains; you can get them all day long but your line will go quiet. How do you avoid that?
Well, you can’t have the same stuff all the time. So what we do now is buy in lesser amounts but try and have more variety. It probably costs us 25 to 30 percent more in outlay in regards to what we're paying in bulk, but the business that we get from it kind of eliminates any loss that we're making spending more to begin with.Why is everyone obsessed with branding now?
Some people will pay £70 an eighth for a Cali pack but you can buy that fancy packaging on Amazon. It's not imported from California – the seeds might be from there but it's grown in the UK and packaged up that way here. But, yeah, anyone under 30 just wants Cali, they'll happily spend more money than your average Joe who's smoked it for the past 20 years or whatever. They'll happily pay £40 for two grams.VICE: What’s happening for the coronation?
Alan: I’m doing an ounce (28g) of King Kong Haze for £180 and 1.7g of coke for £100. We haven't really got much going on because we just had sales all last week for our favourite holiday of the year: 4/20. What are your plans for the bank holiday?
I’ll be running around. Do you think it’ll be busy?
Yeah, massively busy. If it’s sunny, it’ll be ridiculous. It’ll be people buying shitloads at one point. It can be a belter with the bank holiday and the weather. For me, I have my regulars constantly but on a bank holiday you get a few newbies here and there as well. Do you think there should be a bank holiday in recognition of the service of dealers?
Yeah, completely. We do provide a service to people, to be fair – the weed helps a lot of people with mental health and other ailments. A lot of my weed customers are older people and they’re smoking for a reason rather than just to get high. It does more for them than that. So in that regard, I think yes. I was joking, but fair enough – we can go with that. Will you be pledging allegiance to King Charles yourself?
What do you think?
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Terry (37), weed and coke dealer
Terry: Every bank holiday I do deals, me. I generally do party bags.What’s in a party bag?
If they buy an eighth (3.5 grams) or half an eighth of coke, they can get five bags of weed (around 2.2 grams) for £85. We have two levels of coke; one is cut a bit cleaner than the other one. We call them ‘medium’ and ‘top-shelf’. [laughs]
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Most people will just go for the full top-shelf and get an eighth or a half [an eighth] of coke. Some people will go bigger if they’re going to a big party or whatever; they often buy the medium one and sell it off as the higher one and make a little raise for themselves. How do you prepare for a bank holiday?
I’ll send a WhatsApp message out early doors on the Friday with the menu of what we have. We can judge how much people will want and we’ll get that and start grafting [driving round doing drop-offs] later on in the day. That way we won’t have to fuck about reloading later on. What hours are you working?
We’re going to graft until about ten o’clock at night Friday and Saturday. Then we’ll party. Sunday will be a write-off. Then the line will be back on about ten or 11 on Monday morning to try and catch up on the people who have been up all weekend. And will you be watching the coronation yourself?
I certainly won’t.
Will (28), weed dealer
Will: We’re going to have three strains on for the bank holiday weekend – Cherrylato, Apple Pie and… What else will I have in? Let me have a look at my phone, bro… [checks] Alien Dawg! I get [that] off the Albanians so it’s a bit cheaper, but the majority of the Cali strains [i.e. weed grown in the UK from strains associated with the legal weed sector in California] are more expensive.
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It's all changed. Nobody rings you up anymore and asks if they can get a 20-bag [£20 worth of cannabis flower]. Now they say, “What’s on the menu?” It’s effectively a legitimate business run illegally. Do you reckon a judge would buy that line?
No, I don’t think so.How do you make sure you get a good bank holiday trade?
People are always looking for variety now. What I’ve found now is that the price of bud has shot down in bulk. The Albanians [grow] it in massive warehouses and the price for a key [i.e. a kilogram] has come down to three grand from four and a half or five grand two years ago. But people are bored of them strains; you can get them all day long but your line will go quiet. How do you avoid that?
Well, you can’t have the same stuff all the time. So what we do now is buy in lesser amounts but try and have more variety. It probably costs us 25 to 30 percent more in outlay in regards to what we're paying in bulk, but the business that we get from it kind of eliminates any loss that we're making spending more to begin with.Why is everyone obsessed with branding now?
Some people will pay £70 an eighth for a Cali pack but you can buy that fancy packaging on Amazon. It's not imported from California – the seeds might be from there but it's grown in the UK and packaged up that way here. But, yeah, anyone under 30 just wants Cali, they'll happily spend more money than your average Joe who's smoked it for the past 20 years or whatever. They'll happily pay £40 for two grams.
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Alan (31), weed, coke and ket dealer
Alan: I’m doing an ounce (28g) of King Kong Haze for £180 and 1.7g of coke for £100. We haven't really got much going on because we just had sales all last week for our favourite holiday of the year: 4/20. What are your plans for the bank holiday?
I’ll be running around. Do you think it’ll be busy?
Yeah, massively busy. If it’s sunny, it’ll be ridiculous. It’ll be people buying shitloads at one point. It can be a belter with the bank holiday and the weather. For me, I have my regulars constantly but on a bank holiday you get a few newbies here and there as well. Do you think there should be a bank holiday in recognition of the service of dealers?
Yeah, completely. We do provide a service to people, to be fair – the weed helps a lot of people with mental health and other ailments. A lot of my weed customers are older people and they’re smoking for a reason rather than just to get high. It does more for them than that. So in that regard, I think yes. I was joking, but fair enough – we can go with that. Will you be pledging allegiance to King Charles yourself?
What do you think?