What’s up fellas?! I’m back with another quite long story, and the main reason for that is the quite interesting subject which is the “all mighty’ narcotics racket but this time, the main “suspect” is again, the Chicago Outfit. It is also quite debatable subject and so my point is that I’am opened to any kind of different opinions and disagreements from you guys. So for now, relax and enjoy the story.


High level criminals, who belong to already existing organized crime groups, make money by doing illegal activities but they operate under certain rules which are transferred from member to member. For example, America's “Cosa Nostra” or the Italian Mafia always cares some sort of rules, just to keep the members in line. Rules such as don’t screw your “colleague’s” wife or girlfriend or don’t speak to the police, or in general, no spilling secrets and no killing bosses. The problem is that most of these rules are allegedly meant for the organization’s structure, obedience towards the high level members, mutual respect between the midlevel and lower level members etc. Now, you would ask yourself on what’s the problem here? Well, during my research on the U.S. Mob I came to a conclusion that the problem is that these rules sometimes meant only for certain members, or for certain situations and even certain operations, meaning they were quite broken. For example, if two guys had a problem between each other and if the one guy was wrong and the other one right, sometimes the one who was right was going to get killed. The reason is simple, and that’s money. If the guy, who is wrong, kicks up more cash to the boss, well usually he gets a pass.


These types of individuals are born for breaking the rules and they love doing it, so what’s the point of giving these guys the list of rules, right?! In other words, if these individuals followed some rules and regulations, I believe that all of them would’ve ended up been legitimate businessmen instead of bloodthirsty criminals. Now, some of these guys who made a lot of money, besides their prime schemes, they also dealt in everything and kept money on the side. By “everything” I also meant including the “dirty” business. Yes, the Mafia allegedly used to have its own “clean” and “dirty” businesses. Under “clean” there was extortion, prostitution, illegal gambling, political corruption, loan sharking, forgery, burglary etc. and as for the so-called “dirty” business, mostly considered were narcotics and white slavery of underage girls. My point here is that back in the old days, these guys allegedly had rules on which illegal racket was “operative” and which was not. Story goes that some of the top crime bosses wanted to keep their public image “clean”, meaning they didn’t want themselves or any of their underlings being caught in the act of doing the “dirty” business. In reality, there was no “clean” or “dirty” business, since everything they did was considered illegal and so every opportunity for the gangsters was opened. The problem was between the crime bosses, meaning the corruptors and gamblers against the so-called “street” guys.


The first group didn’t want to disrupt their quite lucrative rackets which were the main financial fuel for the organization and above all, their private pockets, but the problem was that in those days the “street guys” or the more violent types were usually on the top of the hill and they wanted everything. They were the ones who used to pull dirty jobs and they were the ones who were in constant contact with their street level members, obviously because of their same level of criminal mentality. In plane words, they didn’t care much about getting respect from individuals from higher circles of society because first of all, they never belonged in those circles and some of them grew up while hating those same circles. So the point is that the Mafia families supported every single illegal business to a certain level, meaning they invested more or less cash in various operations but still they had their fingers in every pot because that is their sole point of doing everything illegal and controlling the underworld.


The time period which I’m talking about is the late 1950’s, or to be exact, the year of ’57 when the U.S. Mafia allegedly decided to include one more rule to their list of “Ten Commandments” and that was “no dealing in narcotics”, which was allegedly one of the subjects. This was allegedly concluded during the infamous “Apalachin meeting” which occurred in Apalachin, New York, where more than 50 Mafia big shots gathered to talk business and in the end, got caught by few country policemen. My point is not the disaster which occurred that day, but instead the time period and the organization’s actions which occurred right after that “faithful” meeting. I really don’t know if someone broke the rule, but the records show quite different statistics, meaning the narcotics business suddenly exploded through out the country. The so-called east coast Mafia imported heroin from every possible smuggling route, in every possible way and sold it on the streets through all kinds of criminal associates, and despite the alleged punishments for drug dealing, including death in many cases, the racket still continued to flourish among the members and their bosses, for many decades to come.


According to numerous Mob-researchers and general opinion goes that during this quite “tempting” period, one crime family, which was the Chicago Outfit, allegedly truly stood by the rules and by their given word, meaning “no dealing junk”. Well at first if we look at it clearly, if one crime family suddenly decided to not get involved in narcotics, the whole chain or point of Cosa Nostra was going to be broken, right?! Because during this period, the Chicago crime family used to have its own territory which was almost the whole Midwest and so strategically, they were quite relevant for the so-called east coast faction of the organization in at least transporting their product, right?! In other words, it was expected from them, meaning the Chicago boys, to help out with the distribution of the product. My point is that if they said no, one of the top guys from their organization was going to get “whacked”, which in reality never really happened. Could’ve been that all the talk about Chicago’s old Prohibition days, their gambling or union operations and countless murders suddenly made the narcotics racket almost invisible? Well this is a story in which only you can decide if the Chicago boys really avoided the narcotics rackets, or is it just another “The Godfather” type of myth.


For centuries, traffickers based all around the world had been involved in the production and smuggling of all kinds of drugs. My personal belief is that the sale of narcotics started at the same time when the world trade became more prominent. During the XIV century, European ships started sailing to China thus creating new major trade routes which were established all the way to India. Also Spanish and Italian expeditions ended up in Central America and after that, the continent became ripe for development. During the process, the most traded products were under the agriculture section, which included everything, such as beans, coffee, clothing materials and of course, narcotic plants. For the ones who travelled around the world, they discovered the drugs that kept the locals going, especially cocaine and opium, which were first touted as a wonder cures for all ailments. I remember some of my ancestors used to tell me that back in the old days, women used to put quite small dosage of opium on the mouths of their babies just to make them sleep, so the mothers can do their everyday choirs while the men were out at work. But the so-called healing side of the narcotics trade soon was followed by another side which was more like recreational and lucrative.





The people from Chicago, like all other humans from around the world, have long favoured the “forbidden fruits” of nature, whenever they wished to experience the so-called “high”. Whiskey or alcohol in general, always was and still is the first choice for intoxication and it’s quite easy to find it or buy it or even easy to transport. It’s also cheap and that is why it remained Chicago's most popular choice for fun during the 19th and early 20th century. Booze was available in all shapes and sizes, and was found in grocery stores, in saloons and the early department stores. Every ethnicity presented its own “product”, like for example the Germans introduced lager beer to the “Windy City” in the mid 1850s and by the 1860s, and the Irish people presented their whiskey. After that, mass production distillers made inexpensive and popular drinks for the working-class men and women, who in turn filled the local saloons and always bought some beer or brandy to be later consumed in workshops and tenement households. And on the higher scale of the social “pyramid”, the lavish dinner parties of Chicago's cultural elite featured a different kind of booze such as expensive wines, champagne and cognac.





But this wasn’t the same case with narcotics, since the main rule is if you have the right amount of money, which is usually manageable by every class of people, and contacts then you’ll get it. In the old days there were not any dealers on the streets selling their product but instead the drugs were usually acquired with the help of doctors or pharmacists. The first so-called “drug epidemic” occurred during the American Civil War which lasted from 1861 until 1865. One of the “best” medications during the conflict was morphine which is produced from poppy straw of the opium poppy and was used as pain medication of the opiate type. The drug was usually injected with the help of the recently developed hypodermic syringe, but for those who did not care, the so-called surgeons devised an even speedier sick call method by performing diagnosis from the top of their heads, while dispensing
morphine powder by pouring it into the patient’s hand and letting him lick it. Obviously the trick was in relieving the pain of bullet wounds or during surgery, but in time, the strong desire for that relief caused many injured soldiers to become opiate addicts. Also, the drugs were not meant just for the soldiers, but instead they were also meant for some of the high-ranking officers too. They mostly took the drugs to relax their nerves after some bloody conflict, thus slowly becoming addicts and so my point is that almost everyone on both sides of the line was “high” on opiates. The surgeon’s job was only to put his hand into his medicine bag so he can satisfy the request of the officer or general who in turn could’ve easily helped himself from the open stock, which usually arrayed on shelves in the unit's medical quarters. According to some statistics, over 10 million morphine dosages and 3 million ounces of other opiates were administered during that bloody five-year period.


So after the war, morphine usage and opium smoking became almost a normal thing among Chicago’s citizens and the city became one of those wide-open towns when it came to that kind of activity. The whole thing “blew up” during the 1870s, when the Chinese immigrants started opening the so-called opium dens in areas such as the Levee, which was the main vice district clustered around State Street south of the Loop. To be honest, these places were not so nice to have a relaxing “trip” because they were dirty and crowded with all kinds of people, who laid down while being wasted on opiates. So if anyone wanted to get wasted by “Chasing the Dragon”, they only needed to visit one of these dens which again, were located around Chinatown and across the Levee. But by the early 1890’s, the so-called “street dealers” started showing up, who in turn supplied many customers with different varieties of narcotics, including cocaine and different kinds of narcotic powders. Sometimes these dealers were known as "voodoo witch doctors" among the ordinary citizens who in turn bought their “love potions” and small doses of opium and cocaine.


But the thing was that sometimes these strong drugs were used for evil purposes rather than for pleasure. As I previously stated in one of my stories that during this period the infamous Levee was filled with various bars and brothels who supplied the citizens with booze and sexual favours. For example, during the late 1890’s, one of the most notorious and infamous saloon-keepers in Chicago’s Loop was Mickey Finn. Now, this guy was a pure criminal who somehow managed to create a “legend” which lasts even today. Story goes that Finn was an Irishman who operated two saloons, one was the Lone Star and the other was the Palm Garden. Finn’s bars were populated by resident prostitutes or as they called themselves in those days "house girls", and their job was to encourage the costumers to drink as much as they can from Mickey’s booze, and after that to offer their services which might be requested of them for a certain price. Finn always served the strongest and most expensive drinks which got every costumer easily drunk, thus making him an easy target to get robbed by Finn’s prostitutes, who in turn were professionals in their job. But in 1896, everything changed when one day Finn was visited by one so-called "voodoo doctor" named Dr. Hall, who in turn presented Finn with all kinds of new “love potions” and even cocaine. The Irish bar owner wasn’t much interested in cocaine or any other stuff but instead he became quite interested in one “secret ingredient” known as chloral hydrate, which produced quick unconsciousness. In fact, Finn had a quite evil idea on his mind by mixing his drinks with the “secret powder”, thus knocking down every potential target in his bars. With that, Finn became one of the first street criminals involved in narcotics but not for distribution, but instead he used them for more sinister purposes.


And that’s what really happened. Finn became quite famous for his “magical” drinks which he sold in his saloon, and one of them was the infamous "Mickey Finn Special." Two or three shots of that mixed drink would put the costumer in an unconscious state, thus giving Finn’s house girls an opportunity to empty his pockets. When the victim woke up the next day, he usually had almost no memory of what has happened and how he ended up in some dirty alley with no clothes on. In reality, this was a quite lucrative operation for the Irish criminal who in turn filled his pockets with stolen money and jewellery. But the problem was that Finn forgot about one thing and that was the human organism which was different in every individual, meaning one day his “Mickey Finn Special” did not have the same effect on one costumer. Once, Finn tried to drug a fellow Irishman who worked as a trainman because previously that same fella managed to clean out Finn for his money during a card game. So after the game, Finn wanted to celebrate the trainman’s victory with few shots of his “magical” drink. After that the poor fella fell unconscious and was quickly robbed by Finn out of his money. Later, when the trainman recovered, he remembered every detail regarding the robbing and went straight back to Finn’s joint and demanded his money back, or he would go to the police. The problem was Finn had already been gone and so the victim decided to take the info to the cops. On his way to the police station, the trainman disappeared and one day later, his dead body was found along the railroad tracks with his head cut off. Now, this shows that Finn was one quite dark individual who wanted to make an example for every other future victim to keep his mouth shut or else.


The thing was that Finn felt invincible and possibly had a “God-like” feeling because he paid protection money to the boss of the Democratic machine known as “King” Mike McDonald and the First Ward Aldermen and at the same time vice lords, Michael Kenna and John Coughlin. These were the people who “invented” organized crime in Chicago or in plane words these were the ones who introduced politics to crime. But the problem was that these fellas tolerated violence to a certain matter, but getting too many people doped up or heads being cut off around the city was just too much. In those days when somebody mentioned narcotics, it didn’t sound bad because of the addiction or such, but instead it represented a threat because somebody might take an advantage of you. High profile individuals such as “King” Mike did not want the word “narcotics” near them because it was considered a dirty habit and it was also bad for their public image. So the deal was off and the police started to investigate Finn’s saloons more closely.


Finn did not take the “warnings” very seriously and just to make things worse, he started terrorizing his “workers” meaning the prostitutes who worked at his joints. So many of the so-called “house girls” began to fear for their lives and their earnings because one day, Finn decided to steal their hard-earned savings by doping them with his “cocktails”. Since everyone who worked for the Irish gangster was scared to death, “King” Mike and his organization had a hard time in getting the crazy criminal exposed. So the “big guys” decided to give some amount of money to one of Finn’s girls, in return to testify against her boss and one day, one of the girls decided to testify before an aldermanic committee about the effects of Finn’s drinks and on December 16, 1903, Mayor Carter Harrison ordered the closure of the Lone Star Saloon, and Mickey Finn was wisely advised to leave town shortly thereafter.


But the problem was that the damage was already done. Legend goes that before he left town, Finn allegedly sold the “formula” for his famous drink to a number of other Southside saloons, who marketed it as a "Mickey Finn," or even just a "Mickey". I don’t know if this is true because during Finn’s heyday, there also other reports of doping and at the same time robbing people in numerous saloons. Whatever’s the truth, during the 1910’s, the name eventually came into use as a generic term for any knockout drink, and to "slip a Mickey" into someone's drink now means to secretly drug an unsuspecting victim. This so-called “practise” became famous during this period and it received a whole new meaning which almost went out of control. For example, during the mid 1910’s there were these so-called “waiter groups” who were involved in doping costumers in restaurants by placing a dose of a “Mickey Finn” in their drinks or meals. The drug used by the waiters was tasteless and odorless, but it was strong, emetic and left the victim in a nerve racked condition. Now the first answer that comes on my mind, regarding the question on why the hell these crazy fellas would do such a crazy thing, is to pay the waiters’ personal grudges against some costumers who had incurred their displeasure. So a lot fear spread among the ordinary citizens regarding the doping cases in restaurants and bars, and so many of them started having a lot of respect for the bartenders or waiters, who in turn became looked upon as potential dangerous criminals. But the reality was that this wasn’t the case since there was a whole darker side of the story.


The whole doping thing was in fact a huge criminal ring which was formed by a number of waiters, bartenders, cooks, doorkeepers and waitresses who worked in a large number of hotels, restaurants and bars. They were “backed” by the Waiters’ Union which in turn with the use of the powders and the help of the waiters, they somehow forced the owners of hotels and restaurants to unionize their places of business. It was a beautiful scheme, meaning if somebody refused to join the union, people were going to get doped up and the joint instantly was going to receive a bad name. The extortionists purchased the powder from the Meyer Drug and Chemical Company from St. Louis under the name of the Crown Chemical and the Chief Chemical companies. The powder was put up in packages containing twelve doses each and then sold at 20 cents a package to the union. After that, the packages were kept behind bars or receptions at the union’s headquarters and were given to the waiters for their operations and as for outsiders the packages were sold at 35 cents a piece. The real so-called “mastermind” behind this whole operation with the narcotics, unions and waiters was in fact one crime boss known as Maurice “Moss” Enright. During this period this was the guy who extorted and at the same time controlled most of the unions in Chicago and all the schemes that went with it. If somebody started making problems over the doping scheme, Enright already had the police in his pocket and usually there were no charges. Even though this sounded like just another “nickel and dimes” business, still I believe that this generated a lot of money for the labor boss.


Everything went smooth until people started dropping dead from large doses of the powder. The main problem was that during the autopsies of the deceased, the coroners managed to find some type of drug in the victims’ bodies which later it turned out to be chloral hydrate. So the government had enough and few waiters were arrested where some doping cases occurred and they were violently interrogated regarding the situation, thus forcing them to tell about the operation. On June 6, 1918, over 100 waiters, waitresses, bartenders, cooks, restaurant and hotel owners were arrested by the police and were taken into custody. On June 22, other people included on the arrest list were union members such as George McLain, who was a business agent of a bartenders' union, Benjamin Parker, president of the waiters' union and Herbert Gould, business agent for the same union, Lincoln Powers and John Millian, the bartenders at the waiters' union headquarters where the drug was sold and also Stuart Wood, the manufacturer and dispenser of the drug. During the trial, analysis of the drug were made and showed that each envelope contained ten grains of salt of antimony and potassium tartrate and that 6 grains of this has been known to cause a certain death. In the end, 37 individuals were convicted and sentenced to jail but the guy behind the operation, Moss Enright remained untouchable at least for a while, or until 1920 when he was killed by the rising Italian Mafia.


But still, the problem with narcotics in the city of Chicago did not end up there, mostly because previously the government decided to import large quantities of narcotics for medical use, which in turn was obviously taken advantage of by some people. For example, in 1911, 630,000 pounds of opium containing more than 9 percent morphine was imported and in 1913 the amount was 708,000 pounds. In others words, dangerous narcotics were easily found in pharmacies in all kinds of forms. The main problem started back in 1898, when none other than a German chemist known as Heinrich Dreser, treated morphine with an inexpensive and readily available chemical, called acetic anhydride, and somehow managed to produce a powerful chemical which became known as diacetylmorphone. When the chemist tested the new drug on some the volunteers, the individual had a calmed and at the same time powerful feeling which made him feel like a hero or heroine and that is why Dreser named his new product “heroin”. But on the other hand, the physical dependence of the drug is also quite “powerful”, meaning when the organizam is deprived of the alkaloid, it immediatelly reacts by producing abstinence symptoms. States of exalation, manic fits, cramps and serious circulatory disturbances, endanger the life of the addict, thus making the voluntary escape from the clutches of the poison almost immpossibile, once a real addiction has developed.



Bottle of heroin sold in pharamcies


So by 1915, there were more than 50,000 heroin addicts in the Chicago area alone and that is why that same year, the government made the first ban on the domestic distribution of drugs which was known as the Harrison Narcotic Act. This act was presented and passed as a method of regulating the production and distribution of opiate-containing substances under the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, but a section of the act was later interpreted by law enforcement officials for the purpose of prosecuting doctors who prescribe opiates to addicts. The first section of the law clearly provided that every person, selling or supplying opium and its derivatives or coca and its leaves, must register with the commissioner of internal revenue. It was made unlawful and punishable for any person not registered to sell or give away either of these drugs. In time, the reports allegedly showed that the act was slowly reducing the use of heroin and cocaine around the country. Even though at first sight the law looked quite effective but it came out to be quite the opposite because there was a considerable alarm over the angers that would ensue when the hundreds of thousands of drug users became unable to obtain their supplies. From this point on, most of the users got their satisfaction from street peddlers, who in turn received their supplies from crooked manufacturers, druggists, and physicians. The situation became so lucrative that many criminals began forming so-called underground groups of physicians, who used their diplomas only to supply the drugs at exorbitant prices. In reality, these people did not belong to any medical society but instead they carried the title of physician so they can do business. The Harrison drug law even increased the smuggling operations which soon were about to became a huge problem for the whole country and that’s when the real underworld started seeing the big picture.


Even though the so-called narcotics racked started seeing its rising days, it really didn’t matter because in 1919 the government decided to make another clearly dumb move by declaring the Prohibition of alcohol. With this, the government somehow managed to produce thousands of gangsters who in turn started making millions of dollars from the new lucrative racket and became Mob leaders while still being in their mid 20’s. The bad thing wasn’t that the gangsters were making a lot of money but instead it was the hundreds of dead bodies which were left on the streets of Chicago on daily basis. So my point is that by now the gangsters didn’t care much about the narcotics racket but they were not out of it. By now they were larger than life and they needed a “sanctuary” from their everyday pressure and so many of them turned to narcotics. I believe that the first contact the gangsters had with narcotics was through the prostitution racket. You see, the guys who were involved in “pimping” prostitutes, they usually gave narcotics to their “workers” so they can be more relaxed with their costumers and at the same time dependable from their masters. For example, the infamous Guzik crime family used to beat and rape the girls and at the same time gave them booze and narcotics and later placed them in their brothels across the South Side. The father Max Guzik together with his sons Harry, Sam and Jake ran a large prostitution racket in partnership with the Italian Mob and some of the brothers had been convicted of kidnapping young girls and forcing them in to lives of prostitution and narcotics. So my point is that the gangsters saw what was the real power behind narcotics and what would people do just to get them.