Edited by Jim McCrory, Monday 1 September 2025 at 10:42
The Drug Dealer’s Nemesis
“What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” — Mark 8:36
We have heard the stories that circulate. Drug dealers using child runners and giving them free drugs to to deliver them into addiction.
When I walk through towns near me, like Glasgow, I see the painful legacy of drugs woven into the fabric of society. Addiction devastates lives, families, and communities. Yet in the world of drug dealing, the lines blur—because both the victim and the dealer are, in truth, victims.
Consider this thought experiment. A button sits before you. You have two choices: walk away and leave life unchanged or press it—and instantly receive untold riches. Houses, cars, holidays, bank accounts overflowing. Every comfort the world can offer.
But there is a cost. Somewhere, a stranger falls down dead. It could be a Bedouin shepherd, a Filipino rice farmer or a fisherman on the high seas. You’ll never meet them, never know their name, never see their family’s grief. Their absence will ripple through the lives of others, but you will remain rich and apparently untouched.
The brutal question is: would you press the button?
Drug dealers press it daily—not by machine, but by choice. They exchange the lives of others for wealth and status. Their fortunes are built on broken homes, ruined bodies, and prison cells. In their world, another’s destruction is merely the price of their gain. The button is already pressed, again and again.
Yet this experiment is not only about them, it also exposes us. If the offer were laid before us, anonymous and guaranteed, would we resist? It is easy to say, “I would never press it,” but temptation whispers more seductively than principle when the stakes are high.
Here lies the truth: the button is never anonymous. You are seen. You are known. The Creator weighs not only the deed but the intent. To press the button is not just to harm another, it is to wound yourself. For what is gained if you win the whole world but lose your soul?
We live in an age full of invisible buttons. Choices to exploit or to serve. To profit from others’ suffering or to show compassion. To look away in blindness, or to look with love. The riches such choices promise are an illusion, a gilded snare. But the judgment of the Creator is not.
To walk away—to let the button gather dust—is to choose life. Life not only for the unseen stranger, but for your own soul. Your eternal life. And go ponder, many addicts are finding God and Jesus and gaining the power of God's spirit to overcome this evil.
If you know a drug dealer, show them this. They may need reminding that their greatest enemy is not the law, not rival gangs, not even the police. Their true nemesis is the button they press—and the soul they forfeit with each press.
The Drug Dealer’s Nemesis
The Drug Dealer’s Nemesis
“What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”
— Mark 8:36
We have heard the stories that circulate. Drug dealers using child runners and giving them free drugs to to deliver them into addiction.
When I walk through towns near me, like Glasgow, I see the painful legacy of drugs woven into the fabric of society. Addiction devastates lives, families, and communities. Yet in the world of drug dealing, the lines blur—because both the victim and the dealer are, in truth, victims.
Consider this thought experiment. A button sits before you. You have two choices: walk away and leave life unchanged or press it—and instantly receive untold riches. Houses, cars, holidays, bank accounts overflowing. Every comfort the world can offer.
But there is a cost. Somewhere, a stranger falls down dead. It could be a Bedouin shepherd, a Filipino rice farmer or a fisherman on the high seas. You’ll never meet them, never know their name, never see their family’s grief. Their absence will ripple through the lives of others, but you will remain rich and apparently untouched.
The brutal question is: would you press the button?
Drug dealers press it daily—not by machine, but by choice. They exchange the lives of others for wealth and status. Their fortunes are built on broken homes, ruined bodies, and prison cells. In their world, another’s destruction is merely the price of their gain. The button is already pressed, again and again.
Yet this experiment is not only about them, it also exposes us. If the offer were laid before us, anonymous and guaranteed, would we resist? It is easy to say, “I would never press it,” but temptation whispers more seductively than principle when the stakes are high.
Here lies the truth: the button is never anonymous. You are seen. You are known. The Creator weighs not only the deed but the intent. To press the button is not just to harm another, it is to wound yourself. For what is gained if you win the whole world but lose your soul?
We live in an age full of invisible buttons. Choices to exploit or to serve. To profit from others’ suffering or to show compassion. To look away in blindness, or to look with love. The riches such choices promise are an illusion, a gilded snare. But the judgment of the Creator is not.
To walk away—to let the button gather dust—is to choose life. Life not only for the unseen stranger, but for your own soul. Your eternal life. And go ponder, many addicts are finding God and Jesus and gaining the power of God's spirit to overcome this evil.
If you know a drug dealer, show them this. They may need reminding that their greatest enemy is not the law, not rival gangs, not even the police. Their true nemesis is the button they press—and the soul they forfeit with each press.