> Just can't understand how so many lives are lost over a few grams of drugs.

You are raised in a situation that gives you no hope for the future. Nobody you know has ever gone to college and many never even graduated high school. Many if not most of the male figures in your life have been in jail.

All your life people around you have solved problems with violence, because violence is the only thing that gets respect. If someone takes your toy or your lunch money at school you don't get rewarded by your peers or your parents for ignoring them and being the bigger person, you get called a punk bitch, and then even more people take your toys or your lunch money because now you're known as a punk bitch who doesn't fight back.

You live your entire life with this mentality - fight back or things will get worse. You start fighting back with pushes and punches and people back off you. You get older and instead of fists people use knives and guns.

You scrape together some cash to buy a couple ounces of weed or crack or heroin and you start selling and making some money. It's more money than you could ever make legitimately because you either dropped out of high school or got "socially promoted" into a diploma but you read at a 2nd grade level and can't do more than basic arithmetic. But then someone comes and robs you for your stash. It was only $20, $50, $100, not that much but if you don't retaliate you'll be known as a punk bitch and get robbed every time you reup. You won't be able to make money in the drug trade and you certainly can't make much money out of it, so you do the only thing it seems you can do - you shoot the person who robbed you so you don't get known as a punk bitch and can keep your income stream. You might not get caught, and already have the mentality that you're eventually going to go to prison or die young so what do the consequences matter anyway?

To people like us with other options and a better upbringing it seems unthinkable, but when you're in that situation it's completely normal.