An Honor Roll Drug Trafficker

IOWA CITY - Matt Carlson graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School a year before his peers.  Touting a 32 on the ACT and an equally impressive GPA, his secondary schooling options at age 17 were far from limited.   Matt applied to universities across the Midwest, as academically successful teenagers often do.

With an eye for unusual entrepreneurial opportunity within his hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Matt instead decided to become a drug dealer.  He saw the profit potential in trafficking high quality marijuana into Cedar Rapids, a place he describes as a "schwag town," where poor quality drugs are ubiquitous and high quality drugs are gone almost as soon as they appear.

"I figured, why not make some money"

Put in touch with a distributor from Chicago through his friend's local band, Matt began making trips to the Windy City on weekends to purchase marijuana in bulk.  "I'd heard stories of people going there all the time," Matt said.  "So, let's go. . ."

What began as selling high quality marijuana to close friends quickly turned into supplying friends of friends, and sooner still, customers he had never been acquainted with.  Though he began his illicit venture by buying an ounce or two of marijuana at a time, Matt soon found himself trafficking upwards of four pounds of product into the drug desperate Cedar Rapids per trip. 

"I remember always having a grand in my pocket, at least,"  Matt said.  "I just remember having a lot of money."

Matt was driving to Chicago and purchasing $3,000 to an astonishing $18,000 of marijuana each visit, eventually including hallucinogenic mushrooms into his drug-dealing repertoire.

"It got out of hand for a while," Matt admitted.  "I would have people calling me until two in the morning."  Matt was making hundreds of dollars a day as a teenager.  He seemed to have found his niche. 

Matt made a point to avoid the more illicit and dangerous drugs.  "I didn't f--- with coke," he said.  "It's not my thing.  You never know what you're going to get.  You're getting crushed aspirin, baking soda. . ."  Matt points out the lack of a major crack, cocaine, or heroine problem in Iowa.  Pausing to think, he adds with a laugh, "Just meth.  I will never touch meth in my life.  Anything that makes your teeth fall out. . ."

"We just got robbed."

In September 2007, Matt needed two pounds of marijuana.  Pete, his usual dealer in Chicago was running dry and couldn't deliver.  No matter.  Pete had an address.  Matt had a GPS.   

Matt set out in his Mazda 626 with $7,600 in cash and three friends in tow.  The destination was a dingy white house in the South side of Chicago he had never seen, with a supplier waiting whom he had never met. 

Matt's friend Justin was along for the ride, along with Matt's usual dealer Pete, and finally Kate, a friend visiting from Philadelphia.  Justin and Matt pooled their money together, as they often did previously.  Buying in bulk saves money, after all.

Pulling up to the two story home, the unknown dealer wasn't comfortable with more than one person coming in, though Matt was able to convince him otherwise.  "I said, 'Here, Justin, I trust you.  Here's the money,'" Matt recounted.  "I didn't want to leave Kate in the car alone." 

Justin and Pete disappeared into the house and fifteen minutes passed.  Something had gone wrong.  Matt picked up the phone.  His two friends reassured him over the phone that everything was fine.  The money had been exchanged, and the unknown dealer had simply gone into the garage to grab the marijuana. 

Matt got out of the car and walked around the side of the home.  He was greeted with a wide open garage, completely empty 

"Nothing, not even a bike," Matt said.  "We just got robbed."  Matt went into the house and filled in his waiting friends.  It was early in the evening and getting dark.  Justin hit a light switch.  Nothing happened.  No lights, no electricity.

"It was a setup house," Matt said.  "That's when I started cutting back.  With dealing, there's one thing you need to keep in mind, 'Don't trust anybody.'"  Out $7,600, Matt, Justin and Pete tore the house apart.  "I just thought, 'let's do this as quick as possible and get the f--- out of here.'"  Matt said.   Driving back to Cedar Rapids, Matt began to rethink things.

"I'm thinking, I'm going to jail.  I'm going to lose my job."

In October 2007, a month following his $7,600 loss, Matt found himself at a small party on the Kirkwood College campus in Cedar Rapids.  Matt exited the apartment for a quick cigarette, and found himself approached by a Kirkwood security officer. 

Evident that there was a party, the security officer told all non-residents to leave, and Matt complied.  But not before going back inside to grab his schoolbag.  The guard was curious.

"He asked, 'What's in it?'" Matt said.  Grabbing the bag from Matt, the Security officer took a look inside.  "His eyes just lit up," Matt said, laughing about the situation in hindsight.  Staring back at the security officer was a Tupperware container holding a half pound of high quality marijuana.  Fifteen minutes later, Cedar Rapids police arrived.

"I'm thinking, I'm going to jail, I'm going to lose my job.  I'm f---ed," Matt said.  "I was freaking out at first, but I was also thinking, this is illegal search and seizure." 

Matt gave the police his full cooperation.  Seizing a half pound of marijuana, the police gathered Matt's personal information. 

Then, they left. 

"They said someone would get back to me in the next week," Matt said.  "I never heard from them again."  Matt should have been taken into custody.  Instead, he watched police taillights fade into the distance, left wondering what exactly had just taken place.  

"You know what, I'm done with this."  

Matt's bizarre and unexplained run-in with the Cedar Rapids police made his decision to settle down an easy one.  In November 2007, he ended his short-lived career as a drug dealer at age 19. 

Matt no longer carries a wad of cash in his pocked and a bag of drugs on his back.  He's an apprentice at Clover Tattoo by night and a screen printer at the Cotton Gallery by day. 

"I'm still young.  I can always go back to school," Matt said, though he's currently making a comfortable living working his two jobs -a living where the threats of felonies and jail time are absent. 

His mother put his two older siblings through college, but Matt plans to tackle that on his own, just as he tackled his short-lived drug trafficking career.  "I don't like borrowing money from family, and I'm not going to put any more debt on her."  

His new job as a tattoo apprentice seems to have rubbed off on him.  Matt sports a dozen tattoos and ten piercings now, including one tattoo spelling, "Iowa Life" across a large ear of corn.  

Matt isn't making nearly as much at his two jobs as he was trafficking marijuana, but to him, that's just fine.