Read the Voice, Get High

Today in unexpected uses for the Village Voice: Drug mule! (Sort of.) Via the New York Post, we've learned that two "drug dealerships" offering pot and "low-cost but high-grade cocaine" left their business cards in Voice issues distributed in the East Village and the Lower East Side. This seems to have worked on their target market of college kids and bar-goers, some 200 of whom responded to the "grassroots" marketing campaign, according to a press release from Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly.

The service was first discovered last fall, when one of the doctored Voices was picked up by an anonymous tipster, who recognized the business cards for what they were, Brennan and Kelly said.

The paper was in an honor box outside a New York University dorm at 10th St. and Third Avenue, officials said.

(Guys, you could have asked!)

An interesting detail: Grams of coke went for $60 via the service, "an unusually low price for a delivery service," said officers.

Drug felons Thomas "Biggie" Zenon and Miguel "G" Guzman, who cops bought drugs from "on a dozen occasions," pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance today.

The Village Voice: "We're free, but we might just get you high."

Compliments of the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor, here are the business cards (numbers blurred!):

Manhattan drug dealers promote delivery service with cards: authorities [NYP]