HOW TO WIN DRUG WARS — STRATEGY GUIDE
Master the classic 1984 drug trading game. Buy low, sell high across 10 cities, beat the loan shark, and climb the global leaderboard.
You start with $2,000 in cash and a $5,500 debt to the loan shark. You have 30 days to build the biggest fortune you can. Your final score is simple:
CASH + BANK − DEBT = SCORE
1. Buy Low, Sell High — The Golden Rule
Every time you travel, each of the six drugs is repriced randomly within its range. In every city, one drug is artificially cheap (drawn from the bottom 30% of its range) and one is expensive (top 30%). The whole game is spotting that gap and exploiting it. Here are the base price ranges for all six drugs:
| Drug | Low | High | Profile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cocaine | $15,000 | $30,000 | Premium — biggest absolute profits, biggest risk |
| Heroin | $5,000 | $13,000 | High value — strong, steady margins |
| Acid | $1,000 | $5,500 | Mid tier — flexible, good early game |
| Weed | $300 | $900 | Low cost — high volume, low risk |
| Speed | $70 | $200 | Cheap — fills the coat quickly |
| Ludes | $10 | $60 | Bargain bin — penny trades, safe starter |
Best arbitrage routes: The proven money-makers move high-value product from where it's cheap to where it's pricey:
- Cocaine — buy cheap in Bogotá, sell high in New York, Amsterdam, Bangkok or Miami. The single biggest margins in the game.
- Heroin — buy cheap in Bangkok or Karachi, sell high in Bogotá, Mexico City or Moscow.
- Weed — buy cheap in Amsterdam, Lagos or Mexico City, sell high in Sydney.
- Acid — buy cheap in Moscow, sell high in Karachi.
- Speed — buy cheap in Miami or Sydney, sell high in Lagos.
See the full cities & drugs reference for every city's cheap and expensive product.
2. Kill the Loan Shark Early
Your $5,500 debt compounds at a brutal 10% per day. Left untouched it nearly doubles every week and can swallow your entire fortune. Your first two or three trades should fund paying it off in full. Until the debt is gone, it is the most important number on the screen — a high cash pile means nothing if the shark owns more of it than you do.
3. Use the Bank as a Vault
The bank pays 2% interest per day and — just as important — money in the bank cannot be stolen by muggers. Once the loan is clear, deposit everything you aren't actively spending. Carry only the working capital you need for your next buy.
4. Manage Your Coat
You can carry 100 units of product at the start. That capacity is your real bottleneck — fill it with the highest-margin drug you can afford, not the cheapest. Watch for the random coat upgrade event, which expands how much you can haul and dramatically raises your ceiling.
5. Survive Random Events
Roughly 1 in 3 trips triggers a random event:
- Police bust — run, fight or surrender. Running usually works when you're carrying light; fighting is risky without an edge.
- Mugging — thugs try to take your cash on hand. This is exactly why you bank your profits.
- Find a stash — free product, but you can only pick it up if there's room left in your coat. Keep a little spare capacity and you'll never have to leave a free haul behind.
- Bigger coat — grab the extra capacity.
- Price spike / crash — a drug's price swings wildly. A spike on something you're holding is a windfall; sell into it.
6. Play the Score, Not the Cash
Remember the formula: cash + bank − debt. On the final day, sell down to cash and make sure the loan is fully repaid — an unpaid debt is subtracted straight off your score. Then create a free account to save your run and see where you land on the global leaderboard.
Read the frequently asked questions, explore the history of Drug Wars, or learn about this remake of John E. Dell's 1984 classic.