Prohibition Creates Wealth

It was 1986 when things began to get really out of hand. I had been living the life for over 15 years despite all the obvious and not so obvious warnings. Greed is a funny thing in that it frequently overrules common sense. Sadly, I had little common sense to begin with so that made anything possible and, in several particular cases, problematic.

As I mentioned earlier, things had grown immensely from the original quest to raise money for an engagement ring. How innocent that all seemed! Buy a pound of pot for $125, weigh it into ounces, and pick up a profit of $175 by selling 15 of them at $20 each. It seems funny now but I was just as thrilled to get the 16th ounce to smoke as I was to make the dough.

By 1986, we were practically on top of the New York pot scene. The network stretched to all the boroughs and suburbs... Any shipment of any size hit our radar and most of the time, we knew who was in charge of it. Our track record was solid in that (from our way of thinking at the time), we weren’t greedy. We bought and sold the pot at fair prices and were both honest and reliable. We became skilled at all the things that go into a successful illegal business, including having all the equipment (finding and maintaining secluded houses, warehouses, scales, untraceable cars & trucks, bags, boxes, storage spaces, counting machines, etc.). It got to a point where people who came to town were hoping to connect with us rather than the other way around. I remember sitting at the Nassau Coliseum thinking we had just sold enough pot to put a pound under every seat in the arena.

Today, it’s hard to wrap my head around the mindset at the time. Some decisions just went all wrong and for all the wrong reasons. It’s not that I was completely in la-la land. You don’t forget that this thing is illegal. The expectation was that things could and would go wrong but the hope was that when it happened, it wouldn’t be unfixable. For example, if someone got ripped off, I wouldn’t pursue any payback. It was all part of the deal. Insurance from Lloyds of the Universe isn’t cheap but the premiums are small when you consider the coverage and benefits. If someone got in trouble, you got them a lawyer... you made sure their bills were paid... and you kept them on the books for as long as it took. On the other hand, it’s very easy to tell yourself that laws are being broken and there’s a price that may have to be paid. Unfortunately, that thinking didn't include the possibility that I myself might become a target...

It wasn't as if I didn't know that my 'cover' wouldn't withstand a serious investigation. It was more of a renegade bandido attitude that believed it would never happen. If someone happened to take a look at me, they'd see a 'normal' suburban guy who had a successful business and paid his taxes. The cover was enough to stand a cursory glance. It was never intended to stand up in court. It was intended to cover me if a fluke occurred. And it actually did that a few times.

A year earlier, I had given one of the smugglers about 25 grand as an investment in a hash scheme. The deal was successful and my $25k became $150k, turning the world into a very different place financially afterwards. It suddenly seemed crazy to be delivering 5 pound boxes or to be fronting someone else’s product to the entire circle or sending it across the country. It’s not like I stopped doing it, but I definitely took a step back.

And now, a year later (these guys only worked once a year at best), I was approached with another, larger opportunity. In fact, things were so good that I was approached for two different (and larger) investments, by two different smugglers. One was a hash smuggle from the usual sources and the other involved Asian pot that was to be run into Alaska and then down to the west coast.