Steve, Almost all the gangs are into selling drugs, whether wholesale or retail depends upon the stature or power base of the gang. National gangs like the California-based bloods and crips and the Folks in Chicago sell wholesale. Big, big money. For the little gangs selling retail on the corner it is still by far the most profitable thing they can do to support themselves. Alas, the profits are not spent as you might think on subsistence for starving families (at least not much of it) but rather for succeedingly expensive cars and clothes and jewelry. Oddly, even in the juvenile prison where I work the kids organize themselves into gangs based on the town/community from which they come. In this case there is no territory to defend and it is based upon having a group of people who fight for each other. I often ask them "what does the winner get?" when they have a fight, and they always reply "respect". This is one of the basic tenets of gangsta culture; There is no difference between the definitions of respect and fear. They think that if someone is afraid of them, which is of course easy to attain, that this situation is equal to respect. I try to explain the real meaning of respect and I rarely get the idea across.

Chet.