There's casinos in town that don't have the greatest reputations, most of them downtown. The El Cortez, the Gold Spike, The Western, I can go on and on. But those aren't the only dumps around. I took a trip to San Diego, leaving late because I had to make it home the next day for work. I just couldn't do it. I got twenty miles from the California-Nevada border where there are three casinos Primm Valley, Buffalo Bills and Whiskey Pete's. The prices were right, $65 of a Sunday night.

I pulled up to vallet and the kid driving couldn't have been more than 17 and drove that way. I have a five speed stick and the kid peeled out. I waited for him and an explination and all I got was "I dunno" I was tempeted to speak to someone but I didn't want to fire someone, and that's all it would take. I picked a 21 table which I usually don't do but I bought in for $50 and the dealer coming in tapped the outgoing dealer on the left shoulder and got repremanded by the floor man for tapping the dealer on the wrong shoulder.

Not good--the dealer was visibly embarassed for getting so chewed out for tapping on the wrong shoulder. He wasn't a new dealer, he got the cards out just fine, could talk and was friendly after the embarassment wore off. When the floorman paced the floor behind the dealer for a few minutes then he called another dealer to the table, pulled the original dealer off the game and sent him for a drug test. For the life of me I can't understand why they would just randomly drug test dealers when they didn't do anything wrong. The floorman came over to fill the rack, it didn't really need it, there was plenty of money in the rack but it was near the end of the shift and she wanted to fill the rack for the next floorman, it's the right thing to do.

When the fill came in the back-up shift boss walked over and asked her in front of all of the players why she was filling the rack. There wasn't too much money in the rack but she still got bitched out and talked to after the fill was done, and by the way, there was still plenty of room left in the rack. This shift boss was tough, and since she never returned that night they probably sent her for a drug test. And more than that, the shift boss was such an asshole, interrupting games to repremand dealers for such things as not standing right on the game, not having their hands at the designated places on the tables, just little things that could easily be handled at the dealer's break.

Now the floorgirl got it for not correcting a mistake when she has to watch 6 to 8 games at a time and spent most of their time around the bigger players and ignoring the $5 players. So of course the shift boss would constantly tell her to watch the other games, and he did it in a loud enough voice where all the players could hear them. The floorgirl was almost in tears and couldn't walk back to our table after being embarassed like that over such a trivial thing like doing her job by filling her racks before the end of the shift as a courtesey to the next shift. Not a good start. Now the floorgirl and the dealer are both shaken up, the players at the table, myself included couldn't just sit there, it was too uncomfortable. I went a couple tables down and the dealer there is another Asian kid who didn't smile or talk to anyone at all. We tried some communication but was lucky to get a one or two word answer, usually pointing to the player with the word "no". A short time later I walked to the bar and the dealer walked past me talking perfect English to the other dealers.

It was fine while I was winning but after a short time it got real old. The next dealer to come in was an Asian girl, I know I'm bringing up the word "Asian" a lot but there's a reason. Because half way through the night, after playing for almost five hours, all I've had was Asian dealers, all but one or two didn't have enough English speaking skills, and though it wasn't the problem that they were from any other part of the world, it was the problem that I couldn't communicate with anyone but the players, and when there was a problem on the games, which there were quite a few of since most of the dealers were easily identified as break in dealers by their sloppy moves and all the mistakes.

Now I knew why the shift boss was always looking pissed off all the time, because she couldn't communicate with her dealers either and neither could the floor people. If they were from Russia or India it wouldn't have made a difference but it just seemed strange that all I was getting was Asian dealers. By 8 p.m. I had seen all the day shift dealers and most all the tables were opened and as I looked around for a non-Asian dealer I realized the only ones I saw were two girls, older ladies who had worked out there a long time but were only dealing the generic poker games, Three Card Poker or Let It Ride, but I stayed away from those games. So I sat down at an older gentleman's table and we started talking.

I didn't tell him I was a dealer but we got on the subject of being a dealer for a living. "I've been dealing since 1977. It was a great job back then. You could smoke a cigarette or drink a Coke at the table while you were dealing, the bosses were friends, they would go out with us, take the tie and coat off and drink like there's no tomorrow. Then the next day we'd have laughs about the night before. Most dealers from all the casinos would go out after work together and talk shop.

So what changed? Why are they hiring Asian dealers at a rate of more than two to one over Americans? because they normally don't use drugs. They drink like crazy but they show up for work. So it's a simple reason so many people can't find work...it's called DRUG TESTS. It started in 1990 by Steve Wynn. Many dealers lost their jobs since getting caught drinking and driving in Vegas is big time trouble costing thousands of dollars with no guarantees you'd get a break from the judge. But if they got caught with a little pot they'd either throw it out or write a ticket to appear in court to pay a small fine.

Now with every casino drug testing, the dealers are returning to booze to calm down after a stressful day at the tables, and believe me, it's very stressful. The DUI's have gone up over 30%, multiple accidents are now normal all over town. Half the news are reports of accidents, most due to alcohol. Even the doctors are making tons of money writing perscriptions for everything from Valium to pain killers, both addictive drugs, except there was only one accident that involved smoking pot and the reason was the guy dropped the joint between his legs and there were no injuries.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not telling people how to live their lives, I don't condone smoking pot, but alcohol is killing thousands of people and marijuana hasn't had anywhere near those numbers. There are so many more accidents, a good portion of them killing one or more people, yet in marijuana studies the figures are less than 1/3 rd. for traffic accidents, fatal or not.

I don't know what the reasoning was to legalize alcohol after seeing the terrible results, from accidents to loss of time on the job due to hangovers or in Las Vegas, staying out drinking all night then going to work which usually results in termination. Yet the pot smokers wake in the morning with no hang overs. They don't miss time on the job since there's no hangovers. There's little or no domestic or or any kind of violence, if anything the worse that happens is they just take another puff and any arguements seem to just disappear. They eat and sleep better. And yet the casinos would rather have you come in to work hung over smelling of alcohol than walking in perfectly straight and do their jobs better than people that drink regularly.

So what's the answer? Production. Why the casinos care about what you do after work seems to me to be an invasion of privacy. They don't mind if you go out after work, come home driving drunk, then beat the wife. But a couple puffs of marijuana just puts people relaxed and often just go to sleep. So now with the drug testing the pot smokers are going back to drinking and the results are staggering.

So where do they go from here. Will they be giving us rectal exams to be sure you're not hiding anything up there. Will they insist on searching our pockets, our lockers, maybe even come to our homes to search for anything? The real problem is us, we accept what they dish out with no union or spokesperson to defend the dealers. We tried to unionize in the early 80's and a number of times since which just goes to show you that justice comes in the form of casino owners, no matter how intrusive they want to get, they'll get their way no matter how much we protest, and taking them to court has changed nothing.

Welcome to the new America where cameras are EVERYWHERE, not just the casinos but if you look at stop lighhts in Las Vegas you'll see a camera at every minimally busy intersection, even the perfectly straight people are getting upset, but good luck getting them removed. It's a fact that once done can't be undone without an act of Congress. So now everyone is totally straight sitting at home watching TV. Getting totally drunk since they can't smoke pot anymore.

Smacks of Huxley's "Brave New World." Sorry to tell you all, but that's where we're headed and it's only going to get more intrusive. Don't be surprised if Steve (Huxley) Wynn comes up with a few more surprises like the new system where you put your finger in a slot, making a small drop of blood to tell them how much of what you may have been using the night before. And if he gets it on, everyone else will follow like they always do. Brave New World, not quite, now we have to take the word "Brave" out of the title. Maybe call it Wynn's New World.

- Ken Pearlman