When Doug and I arrived to Amsterdam we were still exhausted from New York, the sleep I got on the plane wasn't enough. Luckily the hostel we were staying at was a 2 minute walk from the Centraal Station, Amsterdam's main rail station. Immediately after getting our beds in the hostel dorm, we slept for almost two days.
The dorm we were staying in had 12 beds, and was busy with coming and going backpackers from all over the world. Eventually after enough rest, Doug and I was able to move again to meet our roommates and walk around the city.
Hostel living was awesome, especially in Amsterdam. Doug and I ended up living there for several weeks, even doing a little work there helping keep the beds filled with tourists. The gig was more for fun than money, but it was nice to not have to pay our own rent anymore. The work was simple too, all we did was hang out at the train station and pass out flyers to the droves of tourists coming to town.
During this time I was partying too, hash and weed was sold in coffee shops everywhere and first rate ecstasy was being sold for 15 guilders a pill by Turkish dealers in the clubs. At that price, that equated to about 7 dollars a pill… much less than the 30 dollars in New York. Some simple calculations got Doug and I thinking.
Doug and I started to discuss the option of buying a quantity of ecstasy and selling it in New York, with a markup of 23 dollars, or a 300% profit. It's not like we were broke and hard up for money, but what I was missing was action. The idea of going to New York with a mess of pills just sounded too cool.
Working at the hostel gave us the advantage of getting good connections, ecstasy being the most abundant. At that time, in the mid 90s, ecstasy was so abundant in Amsterdam because it was being produced there, more than any other place because of the laws. The law was so lenient in Holland regarding ecstasy production, that the risk of getting caught wasn't so bad. A chemist could make millions before getting caught, then end up doing 3 or 4 years in a Dutch prison which isn't that bad. Dutch prison is like living in a campus dorm room that you can't leave.
Doug and I started talking to some guys we knew that sold ecstasy to get a feel for prices and selection. There were so many different kinds of pills to choose from: Doves, Playboys, Mercedes, Dolphins, etc etc… The pills get their names from the stamped image in the pill, pressing pictures of little doves or dolphins into the tablet. I thought that was so cool how the pills could be identified that way, all the pills I saw in New York never had any images on them.
The question of quality was never an issue, all the pills we were using in Amsterdam were consistently top notch, some I would easily argue better than pills in New York.
Pricing was awesome too, with all the money we could spend we could buy 200 pills for 1000 dollars, or 5 dollars a piece. My mind instantly did the calculations and those pills would equate to a New York value of 6000 dollars… not bad. If I had more money, I would've looked into buying more.
We never fully committed at the time to make the buy, we still had a lot of planning to do. Getting the pills was easy but now we had to think about getting them to New York, and what to do after that. Doug and I had zero experience dealing drugs, sure I bought them all the time… just never sold them.
The easiest problem we dealt with first, what to do with the pills after they get to New York. We decided to give Mike in New York a call to bounce the idea off him.
Mike was happy to hear from me, and when I informed him of our plan he had mixed emotions. Mike wasn't a drug dealer either, sure he copped pills for us in New York but he wasn't making money from it. He didn't even qualify as a low level street dealer.
Mike was interested in the idea of having so many pills around, but it was scary to him too. He never thought about changing character from simple user to dealer before, which is a big step to make. I never thought of it like that and instantly regretted calling Mike, I was afraid I either insulted him or corrupted him.
After a brief and awkward pause I was about to apologize and hang up, but Mike spoke first and told me to bring the pills to his apartment if I ever was in town. He said that if I was serious and made it, we could figure out what to do with the pills after. To me that was an indication that Mike was down, and considered the problem of what to do with them in New York as solved.
Doug was happy to hear about what Mike had said and was extra enthusiastic about the plan, I was feeling it too. Amsterdam is awesome but I was missing that New York action, I was dreaming of clubbing and pill popping with pockets stuffed with cash.
Doug wanted to move fast and fly to New York by the next week, the feeling was mutual but I wanted more time. We were about to spend our last 1000 dollars on pills and I wanted a solid plan to get them to New York.
There was a lot of disagreement between Doug and I about transporting the pills to New York. I proposed we carried 100 pills each and travel to Frankfurt Germany by train, to later board separately on the same flight to New York. Once passed US customs we would reunite outside JFK airport by the taxi stand and take a cab together to Mike's. High fiving the whole way.
My thinking was simple, 100 pills could easily be stacked into a small package which could be disguised or hid. I pictured in my mind splitting 100 pills into 4 stacks of 25 pills, then putting the 4 stacks together and mentally measure its dimensions. I came up with my most liberal estimation by rounding up every whole number… I reckoned a package of 100 pills could be tightly stacked to 3X1X1 inches, or the size of a small matchbox.
Traveling to Frankfurt Germany by train and boarding a plane for New York to me was perfect. At the time European borders were still checked by customs, but holding an American passport made it easy to get through. The problem was American customs, and flying directly from Amsterdam would be stupid.
Boarding the plane separately and flying independently made sense to minimize any trouble, if any were to occur. Not that I was worried, 100 pills sounded easy to sneak through.
Doug didn't like the plan and felt it was too risky, he said he didn't want to go to prison, which I completely understood. When I asked him what he suggested we do I couldn't fucking believe it.
At the hostel we were staying at there were backpackers from all over the world that came, to buy their drugs and smuggle them to their country of origin. Many of them swallowed drugs in balloons, to throw them up after once passed the border. Doug wanted to smuggle the pills like that, swallowed in balloons.
Doug was so charged up and anxious to leave, he started making hasty decisions that weren't smart. He bought a ticket to New York leaving Amsterdam within a week and made a deal for 150 pills, which he didn't have all the money for.
Doug informed me of his plan. He was buying 150 doves and he was going to smuggle them in his stomach, carefully following the instructions from those at the hostel that were doing it. He had even reached out to Mike in New York already and was expected there.
I wanted nothing to do with this plan, but unfortunately I had to. Doug had already made a deal for the pills and at the end of the day, Doug was my friend and I trusted him that he knew what he was doing. I helped him with 700 dollars to buy the pills.
When Doug got the pills they were small and blue, with a print of a dove on them. I had never seen so many pills before, the most I've seen at one time was 10 which was rare. 150 pills looked so felonious, a quantity that separates the user from the dealer. I felt like I was definitely crossing a personal boundary, and it felt ok.
Testing the pills was easy, we each took one and gave a couple to these two backpacker girls from Portugal. The four of us had the most amazing time, we all ended up staying up all weekend, taking about 20 pills between the four of us.
Doug took the remaining 130 pills, separated them into 13 stacks of 10 pills, and wrapped them individually in cellophane. He then took the cellophane wraps and wrapped them in condoms, to later be swallowed.
That didn't sound right, but I was no expert. There was a Polish backpacker at the hostel helping Doug out, and he reassured Doug and I that he does it this way all the time. The condoms will make it in the stomach and withstand the acid.
Two days later Doug left the hostel for New York. I wished him good luck and asked to call me the second he arrived.
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