Street Drug dealers are almost universally vilified by the media, politicians, regular citizens, and the police. The penalty for dealing drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine is per Federal Trafficking guidelines dependent upon whether it's a first offense or not, whether there is serious bodily injury involved or not, what Schedule classification the drug is classified as, and also taken into account is the quantity of the drugs involved and sold. The penalties for drug dealing are so severe, you could in theory; spend the rest of your life in prison, or no less than five years minimum incarceration, depending upon the circumstances involved.
With the penalties for drug dealing and distribution so high in America, you would think that every drug dealer would already be in jail, or off the streets, but that isn't even close to being the case. First off, the law is selectively applied by prosecutors and the police to which, to nobody's surprise, those that are most disadvantaged, least able, trapped within impoverished communities and often racial minorities, end up becoming the most frequently targeted people by law enforcement for the selective application of our drug laws.
None of this is even close to being fair, and very few of this makes any logical sense. When you live in a community in which your transportation is limited, your opportunities are limited, your education is limited, your wholesome family life is non-existent, and there isn't any ready money to be legitimately made, you will create your own opportunities to make do in order to live a life. Street drug dealers seldom create a need for any drug, they are instead best viewed as enabling other people to pursue and obtain their drug of choice, and they are a facilitator for accomplishing those tasks.
Additionally, street drug dealers interact with basically two types of customers. In the first case, there are people within their own neighborhood that have a need or desire for drugs, which they will buy from their local purveyor of such products. It is unfortunate that these drug users will trade money or perhaps their body for drugs, but you must also keep in mind that when you live in a world in which you feel empty, forgotten, and abandoned, to take something or to have something that will allow you to at least temporarily to feel relief, euphoria, or hope, is a trade that you often want to make. In the second case, there are plenty of people that will travel to you from other communities because they know that they can procure the drugs that they desire from you, and they will gladly trade their money for your drugs. By doing so, the drug dealer has brought money into his community, which will invariably be spent within that same community or thereabouts. This is why the drug dealer invariably works, to make money, to have money, and to spend money, to which you cannot do this without providing some sort of service or labor and when the legitimate opportunities are few and ill-paying, people will gravitate to something else that will provide them opportunity and money.
Many people on the outside like to view drug dealers as a terrible scourge or a parasite, but in actuality they are providing a service to their community or surrounding communities. In order for a drug transaction to take place, there has to be a buyer and there has to be a seller. As long as there are willing buyers, there will be sellers and not the other way around. Street drug dealers are the easy fall guy, but it's almost completely unjustified. When you take away people's hope, their opportunity, their education, and embrace a secular society in which the State has replaced God, this will be the end result. The real street drug dealers are those that deal out false promises, false justice, false equal opportunity, and a false god.