DOPE $TORIES Episode 4: From War to War
- Lucky B$TRD
- May 27, 2022
- 6 min read
Part Two
After addressing high-controlled open-air drug market in part one, we're getting into the heart of the matter regarding migrants [4] with the other model of open-air drug distribution, set in central areas of towns. Train stations’ adjacent streets and parks are the center stage for those Free open-air drug markets. "Free" by opposition to "high-controlled", in this scenario, dealers operates in a riskier setting, without surveillance nor control of the perimeter where increased foot traffic from tourists and commuters alike calls for more police per square meter.
II "Free" open air drug Markets
The snatch
A majority of migrants, after a lengthy, hellish journey to asylum, end their trip on the port of Augusta, in Sicilly. The armed military welcome committee separates them in different groups before “shipping” them out, paperless, in buses to some of the largest refugees camps in Europe. There, starts the endless procedure of applying for international protection [5]. But before any assessment is performed or legal status obtained, asylum seekers are often snatched by organized crime.
Human trafficking is highly profitable. Women are the prime victim and often forced into prostitution (with margins close to 99%) [6]. Men also are an easy prey for criminal organizations recruiting them for positions in "retail": dealing drugs open air in high density urban zones. It’s a risky business, badly paid, yet more lucrative and better off than working the field in the countryside of the South of Italy for pennies on the dollar.
Here m’s the deal: arrests and jail time are part of the game when it comes to breaking the law, but given the legal status of most immigrants, cops constantly cast the shadow of residence ban and deportation over their heads.
New country, new dangers
They fled war zones, genocides, environmental disasters, escaped totalitarian regimes, hunger, extreme poverty… They paid the price of a first-class plane ticket to cross the Mediterranean sea on rafts in the hope of being rescued at sea. For some of them, the journey finishes in the street of an unknown city dealing drugs to make ends meet, to survive.
Drugs sold in train stations surroundings are usually bad, if real at all… but not in Italy. In order to push their product in central area, criminal groups use migrants as foot soldiers: they are cheap, expendable and replaceable while shielding them against intrinsic risks from police scrutiny.
City after city, the scenario repeats. A quick glance at the local news outlets to learn about the latest exploits of law enforcement and find out the streets and parks where it “went down”… Lo and behold: business is still flourishing in those exact same spots. From North to South, I witnessed firsthand the way drugs are sold and how easy it is to get them, confirming how meaningless and misplaced are the police's effort to tackle this issue.
GENOVA
The very first time I went to the Genova’s train station was 2021, on a trip between Marseille and Rome. I had exactly 27 minutes to change train and catch my connection to Rome.
On my way I read several articles online reporting heavy drug dealing and lot of busts in different areas of town amongst which the train station and more specifically: via di Prè [7][8][9] . A look at Google map and I realized the station was few steps away from the [in]famous street.
A short walk and I found myself in the narrow alley where I was instantly approached by “Kevin” - from Gabon. He was selling coke (powder or base) and heroin. We stepped into a perpendicular street, he spit out balls from his mouth and in few seconds we “sealed the deal”.
Precisely 14 minutes later, I was “back on track”, waiting on the platform for my train…. Proof that police methods are simply not working.
BOLOGNA
Same story in Bologna. I once had a layover due to some train delayed. Long story short, my wife and I ended up spending the night at the Mercury hotel, right off the station so we could get the next train in the morning. Out looking for a restaurant still open at this late hour, I was approached by a 16-something year-old kid from Nigeria. He quickly asked me the now recurrent hook: “do you need anything?” and in few minutes drugs were exchanged. Quick, english-speaking, efficient, they learned to dodge and evade the police and to close deals in seconds while walking
NAPOLI
We saw in Part One an example of high-controlled open market. Free open air drug markets employ very different actors: no local kids here, only migrant. It's at night, on Piazza Garibaldi, the square in front of the main train station that start a game of hide and seek between police and dealer. It was around 11pm when I met Cedric. We spent around 20 minutes going back and forth and in circle in the narrow streets around the station in order for him to make sure there was no police around. His paranoia and fear of the police were not only due to the rocks of crack he just smoked before we started our little mission but mostly to the potential consequences an arrest can mean for his immigration status. Cedric and his brother are originally from Senegal and have been living in Naples for 7 years, dealing to survive. His brother got busted the week before and is now in deep trouble with his legal status… a way too comn story.
Piazza Garibaldi, Naples - Photos from La Repubblica
BARI
I crossed Bari while “road tripping” in Puglia. i could read online that carabinieri conducted several busts in Piazza Umberto I… next to the train station.
Few minutes of “bench hopping” and I cross eyes with Max, from Gambia. Him and his crew were selling coke, crack, heroin and hash. They were chilling in this small park, on benches, laughing and joking amongst themselves. On the next bench users were smoking heroin out in the open…
Max's group weren't behaving in a disrespectful manner towards the locals. The users, however, had no care for the people around. Passerby were speechless and quite disgusted by such pubic display.
Cherry on top, a city police car with 2 agents was parked in the middle of the square, in plain view, facing this happy bunch less than a hundred feet away. I asked Max, “aren’t you concern at all by the police car parked there?”. Smiling , he goes "They do their job, we do ours”.
There were city cop, I’m well aware that Max's reaction at the sight of a carabinieri or a police's car would have been entirely different.
Nonetheless they are sworn agents from the state, witnessing illegal substances being sold and used before their eyes and everybody's. The sporadic, targeted blitz conducted by carabinieri on street dealers are for the public eye and opinion and in any way solving the problem: business is still flourishing.
A game of cops and robbers where the police put on their show, organized crime makes the money and migrants... well they pay a high price for barely getting by.
Once again, decriminalization of drugs is the path to take, it would remove the need for a police apparatus enforcing ineffective drug laws.
Terminus
Criminal organizations have made an art of scanning their environment and quickly capitalizing on it. The mafia is making vast profits off the back of migrants with drug trafficking
Meanwhile, in a soaring migrant crisis, Italy finds itself stranded and left alone by the E.U. and its members. The same way migrants are abandoned by the international community, their disenfranchised lives, lost in an administrative limbo, became a highly valuable commodity for organized crime and an easy catch for law enforcement, trying to keep up with appearances.
In an industry where the demand is high -no pun intended, the absurdity and irrelevance of law enforcement's methods are disconcerting. It’s time to change strategy and tackle the drug issue from another standpoint. A broader approach of the problem is necessary to understand the root-causes and start working on fixing them. It's necessary to stop wasting time and energy in meaningless interventions. Following the principles and ideas of the “Defund The Police” movement in the United States [10], resources need to be reallocated to non-policing forms of public safety: a more comprehensive help to migrants, community resources, housing and local youth programs... Last but not least, it's time to break the stigma that drug users and dealers are bad people who are entirely responsible for their actions and chose that life of crime and/or suffering.
Migrants are only pawns on a game of chess between the police and the criminal underworld.
References [4] Immigrants moves to another country intending to settle there permanently whereas migrants cane be people simply moving from one region to another whether they cross international border or not. In Layman's term: Migrant = temporary movement, Immigrant = permanent residency
[5] International protection guarantees the right not to be repatriated and to stay in Italy.
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