In this occasional series, OZY takes to streets and neighborhoods across the globe to ask a simple question: “How was your day?”

“Loko,” Blood Gang Member

Los Angeles

It’s a struggle out here every day in the city. All the homeboys are using crystal. Blood, Crip, it doesn’t matter. They are all going crazy on crystal. It’s the new big thing in LA. They call it G-Unit or Go Fast. Everybody is smoking it or snorting it. You go to the Black communities and you’ll be surprised. It’s super abundant. It’s badass as a muthafucka and it’s fucking South Central LA up real bad right now.

I got a lot of homeboys and homegirls that graduated from Ecstasy to straight meth. A lot of them are using meth, and they really tweaking off that shit right now. They are using it for partying, everyday activities, sex. I had a homeboy that died of it. He was using it and drinking and doing PCP and he fucked his heart up.

This shit is rabid in LA. It’s the second coming of crack for real. It’s worse than crack. Because on crack you can smoke for a few years and bounce back, but with crystal you smoke it and you are gone — no teeth, you lose all your weight, it’s a bunch of zombies out here. They are selling it for $3,200 a pound. Young dudes are getting rich off it. It’s the No. 1 scene they are pushing. They stopped the bomb powder. We got our own weed, it’s damn near legal out here. The only thing the Mexicans got to push is this and they pushing it hard.

The Mexicans are making super meth, like that Breaking Bad stuff. That shit is pure, ain’t no cooks in the hood, and if there were, the Mexicans would put them out of business. I was selling it, getting it from the Mexicans, but I had to stop. I have kids. I don’t want them around the crystal meth world, it’s too dangerous. I made a lot of money off that shit, but weed offers a better opportunity. I went and got a legalized card and documents so that I can sell it. I got my own dispensary now.

I used to get high like a muthafucka, but right now I’m scared. I’m just scared of drugs right now.

Meth is destroying the Black community. Back in the early 2000s you didn’t see crystal in the Black community; now, besides weed, it’s the No. 1 drug. Dudes are taking it out of town. Cali dudes going to Pennsylvania or wherever and making a killing with the crystal. They’re selling Molly pills at the clubs and down in the hood for $30, $40, and they are mixing the crystal in and getting muthafuckas hooked.

We are right by Mexico, so we flooded with it, and being that marijuana is legal here in a sense, it’s shut the weed game down. There is no hustle in it. Cocaine prices have gone through the roof — so the new hustle is crystal meth.

The media is not reporting on it. It’s an epidemic in LA. That shit is fucking the Blacks up in the hood. It’s destroying a lot of people I know. You don’t expect to see Blacks using it like that, but the Blacks are using it in LA and there’s a lot of Blacks in LA. I got homeys going to jail for dumb shit off that shit. They tweaking doing stupid shit, shit they never thought they’d do. That meth is killing them, dude. Trust me, it’s killing them. It’s a plague on our community right now.

I tried it, but I haven’t got high in four years. I quit cold turkey. I used to get high like a muthafucka, but right now I’m scared. I’m just scared of drugs right now. That’s where I’m at. That’s what’s up. That’s how my day is going.

— As told to Seth Ferranti