Money, women, guns—these are what make a street drug dealer's life so addictive. But a ghetto version of a 12-step group is offering these young men a future other than death or prison.
“Hustlers Anonymous is a fellowship of members whose
lives have become unmanageable due to the choices they have made. The
only requirement for membership is the desire for a better life and a
willingness to take certain suggestions. Many of us have experienced
negative consequences as a result of our hustler lifestyle:
incarceration, broken families, police harassment, and near death
experiences. Due to the lure of the streets we have time and again
chosen the seemingly easy way out over our mothers, children and our own
personal freedom. If you are tired of handing over control of your life
to the system, missing your children grow up, or just ready to get out
of the game, then you are ready to take certain steps. Some of these may
seem hard but if you are ready to gain true respect for yourself, from
your family and from your community, then you are well on your way.”
So
goes the Hustlers Anonymous preamble—read, in traditional 12-step
style, at the start of every meeting. Printed on unadorned white paper,
blotted with fingerprints photocopied into the page, it looks a mess
because it’s been passed around, copied and recopied so many times. In
fact, since the group’s start early this year, copies of the original
have circulated to most of the drug treatment sites in Philadelphia’s
poorest neighborhoods. Following the preamble are 10 steps:
“1. We admitted that our values have become distorted and that the streets is a game you cannot win.
2. We came to believe that the power to change is within us.
3. Made a decision to embrace the concept of faith.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We were entirely ready to give up our old behaviors and attitudes.
6. We admitted to ourselves the harm we caused others.
7. Made a decision to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.
8. Made a commitment to be honest in all our affairs, except when to do so would cause injury to others.
9. Continued to work the concept of faith in our daily lives.
10. Having gotten out of the game and experienced a productive life we pass on what we have learned.”
The
origins of Hustlers Anonymous are murky, but its use spread quickly
across Philadelphia this year because it helps solve an increasingly
common problem facing urban drug-treatment sites: What to do with drug
dealers stipulated into the substance-abuse treatment system by the
courts? As probation offices and diversion programs use the drug
treatment system more heavily as a way to keep nonviolent offenders with
drug arrests out of prison, counselors find themselves saddled with a
growing number of clients who refuse to identify as addicts and insist
on qualifying themselves as hustlers.
The reach of courts into the
clinical realm of drug treatment is a long, hotly debated trend with
armies of friends and foes. President Barack Obama strongly backs these
initiatives, claiming that they improve public health while monitoring
public safety. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s Criminal Justice site details
the broad array of pretrial and post-conviction drug treatment–related
interventions it supports. On the opposing side, there’s a chorus of
voices arguing, for example, that there’s little evidence for the efficacy of such interventions
and that courts shouldn’t intervene in issues of public health. Some
critics say that such tinkering with the justice system is another way
to not admit defeat in the War on Drugs.
Regardless of its
benefits or harms, the justice system’s change in focus from
incarceration to treatment has inarguably—and drastically—altered the
landscape of substance abuse treatment, as users who don’t fit a typical
addict profile wind up in outpatient groups. In urban settings like
Philadelphia, this new type of treatment consumer is a self-described
“hustler.” He’s young and typically black or Latino, was caught selling
drugs like heroin and crack, and reports using heavy daily amounts of
marijuana and frequently other popular hustler drugs like Xanax (an
anti-anxiety prescription drug), wet (the anesthetic PCP) or codeine
cough syrup.
Hustling is his best opportunity to make a decent living, the sole job available that he finds appealing, and an essential part of his personal identity.
According to
treatment sites, hustlers meet the clinical definition of a substance
abuser necessary to fit the criteria for placement in an outpatient
group—low level, inexpensive care. And some hustlers do self-report
consuming mind-boggling amounts of less harmful drugs like marijuana
while working the corner: 20 or 30 blunts a day is not uncommon. But
hustlers unequivocally do not see themselves as drug addicts; in fact,
they find the “drug addict” description insulting. On the streets there
is a social hierarchy, and those who run the corners are locally viewed
as on top, those coming to the corner to cop drugs as on bottom.
Hustlers resent even being near someone they used to serve.
This
new mix of weed-smoking, pill-popping, crack-selling hustlers sent to
groups mingling with hardcore addicts who came voluntarily off the
streets has created other complications which in retrospect seem obvious
and unavoidable.
“I ain’t real proud of this,” admits Fredo, a
24-year-old Latino from the Badlands barrio in North Philly who has
since left the game. “I stood right outside the [drug treatment] place
and served everyone in my group. I knew that wasn’t right—honestly, I
regret that. Those people were trying to get help. But what was I
supposed to do to eat?”
Fredo says that he was placed in drug
treatment by the courts because he tested positive for Percocet and
Xanax after being arrested for selling heroin. Taking pills was
moderately problematic for him, he says, and impacted his hustling
judgment in a way that led to his getting arrested (“I got sloppy”). But
he doesn’t identify as an addict and had no difficulty abstaining from
drugs in order to complete probation. But abstaining from selling drugs
was another matter.
“My probation officer had me on house arrest
so I was off the corner, out of the game,” Fredo says. “I was looking
for work but I couldn’t find anything. How was I supposed to support my
kids? So I worked where I could to make a little bread, which was on
break outside [the treatment facility] during group.”
Treatment
sites of course know about their potentially toxic new mix of sellers
and users, and some have tried to use it as an opportunity to innovate.
They are most often creating separate tracts of curriculum for
court-stipulated participants, where the focus is less about drug
addiction and more about the hustling lifestyle. While no hustler will
admit to being a drug addict, nearly all will admit to being “addicted”
to the lifestyle. Once the program is overhauled to become truly
relevant to them, hustlers suddenly become very active in the treatment
process.
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