Have you noticed that organized crime has become more and more about drugs and less about helping someone out? Like back in the 30's and 40's it was kinda like 'hey this guy raped my daughter will you get revenge for me' where as now, it's like 'Hey, I'm withdrawing from heroin i'll sell you my soul for a fix.' It shows how times really have changed a lot!

Just thought i'd mention it.

Everything revolves 'round drugs anymore.

Mobs, street gangs, Triads, Cartels, they all dip into drug somewhere. Life's messed up...


-Ethereal

PS- Bush only did it once, and Clinton didn't inhale...yea', right.

The Mob was always into drugs. Don Vito Cascio Ferro, who established the first connection between the Sicilian Mafia and the US Families in 1909, did so to establish a heroin pipeline. Arnold Rothstein, the biggest gangster in America in the '20s, dealt drugs. Charlie Luciano dealt drugs. Vito Genovese called the 1957 Apalachin meeting in part to ratify the traffic in drugs.

I learn so much on this board!!!

Though drugs have always been connected to the Mafia somehow, it still contributed to the mobs downfall drastically.

Sure did, GF. But that was a fairly recent development. Before the late '60's, law enforcement and the courts didn't much care about drug trafficking, as long as they perceived that it was confined to blacks, Hispanics and others whom they and the rest of society didn't care much about. But in the late '60's, drug use exploded among white, middle-class kids--including the sons and daughters of law enforcement and politicians. That's when they started caring, and handing down stiff sentences. Then, bada-BING!--the RICO law was passed, and that started the decline of the Mafia.

I don't think all Mobs were into drugs. Back in the day most of the weren't. But right now I see that Drugs are getting bigger and the Mob wants to get in it. Mexican Drug cartels, Colomian Drug cartels are showing the Mafia the ways of success.

Some Dons officially decreed a ban on drug trafficking. But even those Dons were powerless to stop the street-level dealing that their own people carried on--and they seldom asked questions about where the money came from that was kicked upstairs to them. Paul Castellano had such an official ban--but he never questioned the big bucks that Neil Dellacroce and John Gotti were delivering to him. He only got concerned about drugs when Gotti's pal (and Dellacroce's nephew) Angelo (Quack-Quack) Ruggiero was busted for drugs, and the Feds revealed that they had tapes on which Q-Q talked about the Family's drug connections. Castellano's only concern was that he could be implicated.

Turnbull,

In GF, the Five Families set rules on the drug trade (i.e., not by schools, blacks do the selling, etc.) Did the real-life families do this?


-Ethereal

PS-I'm a button!! Yea'!!

Sure did, GF. But that was a fairly recent development. Before the late '60's, law enforcement and the courts didn't much care about drug trafficking, as long as they perceived that it was confined to blacks, Hispanics and others whom they and the rest of society didn't care much about. But in the late '60's, drug use exploded among white, middle-class kids--including the sons and daughters of law enforcement and politicians. That's when they started caring, and handing down stiff sentences. Then, bada-BING!--the RICO law was passed, and that started the decline of the Mafia. [/b][/quote]So very true. Turnbull let me ask you a personal question just because Im curious. Do you beleive more in the old ways of the Sicilian Mafia, that all men should take care of themselves and handle things accordingly , or that we NEED a government to run our society the way it does? Do you personally think that the government can be just as biased as the average every day Joe, ie: only caring about drugs when it is sold to their children.

My opinion is that government is no substitute for family in organizing and enriching anyone's personal life. And, at the end of the day, "government" doesn't make and enforce laws, people in government do, so their biases often get the force of law. But, over time, the pushing and pulling of contending forces in a diverse society like ours does result, broadly, in attaining a modicum of "justice" or "fairness." The strong still prevail over the weak overall (that's human nature), but the weak have a fighting chance under law. I'd rather have recourse to law than be ruled by ruthless, self-serving Mafiosi who aren't accountable to anyone except the next guy's lupara.

Very well put .

drugs are were all the money is

Sorry I didn't answer this question earlier, just spotted it now:
Some of the families may have made such rules, but they were never enforced. Sure, the Don may have made a decree that drugs shouldn't be sold near schools, but the Don never personally checked to make sure his order was being carried out. Nor, when his underlings delivered his cut, did he ever say, "Uh, by the way, is any of this money from school kids?" What might happen: If one of his people was caught selling drugs at a school, and the cops identified the guy as a member of his family, and it looked like the guy might get a stiff-enough sentence to make him squeal, then the Don would get involved. That's what happened in the case of Angelo (Quack-Quack) Ruggiero and Paul Castellano.