The Hall Building was Once a Hash Dealer Haven

Posted by Colin Harris in From the Archives on September 4, 2013

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The ‘80s was a crazy time for Concordia.

According to a feature in September 1981, you couldn’t throw a frisbee without hitting a hash dealer in the Hall Building—let alone enjoy a drink at Reggie’s.

The dealers—selling mostly hashish, a little cocaine and pills—were largely centred around the sixth and seventh floors of the Hall Building. It became so conspicuous that a handful were busted in an undercover police operation in June 1982, seizing 130 grams of hash and a gram of cocaine.

“[Students] have to go through a line of 25 drug dealers before they get here,” said Paul Arnkvarn, CUSA Co-President at the time.

So The Link got the story from the administration, security, students and the dealers themselves.

The Link reported there were at least 25 drug dealers in the Hall Building at any given time, passers-by hearing “inquisitive hissings of the word ‘hash.’”

“Please sir, just come over and sit down for a while. Smell that quality? I can give you a gram for $13.00, or maybe a $10.00 piece? A $5.00 piece?” was one unnamed dealer’s increasingly hurried pitch, trying to get a “yes” from a passer-through.

Brawls over territory were not uncommon according to reports at the time. It was a buyer’s market, with one high school student telling The Link that the Hall Building had the best deals around.

And someone at The Link must have participated in quality testing, with the report saying “for about $5.00, one can purchase a piece of hashish potent enough to induce a person into a state of extreme paranoia for about three hours.”

Since then, the Hall Building seems to have cleaned up its act and gotten back on the wagon. Good news for most. As for you degenerates, you’ll just have to look elsewhere.