Tide detergent shoplifted for drugs? Black market needs cleanup | Style | NewJerseyNewsroom.com -- Your State. Your News.

That's a very... dirty market.

Puns aside, apparently the black market is starting to focus not on high-end items, but things as simple as name-brand laundry detergent. It's not new to see people paying for normal items with drugs, but it certainly seems to be on the rise. This is very interesting in fact, because...

1. It could be a sign of the economy itself. You know the economy's bad when a trade that normally involves getting killed is for normal household items instead of objects normally associated with wealth.

2. Criminals are getting a little bit smarter; they realize that stores put a stricter eye on large electronics that are high priced, and instead slowly take away lower priced items. For example: the article says 25,000 dollars was slowly snuck out of a Wal-Mart in Tide.

What do you think? Are we seeing a revolutionary change in the drug market? Will we see a trend in black markets like this?

I wish I had something to contribute to this, but I don't really have a whole lot of insight on the issue, other than to say that most of Wal-mart's losses are caused by its employees (as in, the employees steal stuff more than customers do).

So I'll just leave this here.

oO What's going on in the US?
I've seen many developing and even war torn nations and areas and their black market personally, but none as weird and desperate as this.

All sorts of thievery is on the rise in the US. Someone got held up at gunpoint last year in front of the house I live in now (but before I moved in and I wish I'd known that before moving in...urhg). There was also a rash or break ins...And lately the big game has been ordering food from places at the end of a shift and mugging the delivery driver.

I don't think its about the drugs themselves or the black market, times are hard and people are miserable. Prohibition 2.0