Trying to find the original source that claimed that either Ricca or Accardo banned drugs. Writers like Carl Sifakis claim that Ricca's son was a drug addict so he put a ban on narcotics. The oldest source I could find for this was Bill Roemer in one of his books. This was repeated in many other books, including Gus Russo's "The Outfit." But does this story go back to before Roemer or did he start it?

For the record, Paul Ricca had two sons: Anthony De Lucia and Paul Jr. Anthony lived from 1929 to 1993, and Paul Jr was born in 1938 and is still alive. I haven't seen anything referring to either as a drug addict or being arrested for drugs.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=146153218

Another story is from William Brashler, author of a book on Giancana called "The Don." According to Brashler, Guzik and Humphreys prodded Accardo to ban narcotics.

I've wondered about this as well.

From what I can gather, at the very least dealing certain drugs was very much looked down upon.

I've heard (from a relative who worked for a mob front, in Melrose Park) that Rocky Infelice was held down for many years, because he sold heroine, in the late 50's early 60's. However there were no qualms in funding drug dealers via juice loans.

Prof. Binder addresses the Outfit involvement with drugs in the interview he just did with Joe Fosco.

I've heard basically what both of you said and, I've heard that drug dealing was tolerated just as long as you didn't get caught. Of course Ricca and Accardo would be well insulated to ensure they didn't get caught-up in any arrest, indictment, etc. WHO KNOWS ?

F1,

What were the sentences back then for dealing drugs? And how did they compare to average sentences for other crimes that mobsters were involved in?

Prof.Binder are you talking about a pal of mine John (west side Jack) Binder? He is a professor now .

I never new that he is the guy on the discover channel the resident Capone Authority. If he is he is also was a pretty good soccer player. I got to know him because I was one of one of Capones bodyguards body guards when he got older.

The guy I worked for left Capone just before Capone moved to Florida he came back to east Harlem. He was pretty much retired when he came back. He had plenty of money.

They should write a book of that guys life. One of 13 children. Mother could not afford them so she through them all in an orphanage until they grew up enough to work to help support the family. He was the first out and did so go he pulled the rest that were still inside out and paid for their schooling.

I real good guy that still had an eye for the ladies. Degenerate gambler in between games he would get blow jobs from the women working in the game. He was something.

He would on occasion do favors for guys like Salerno and others.

I don't know what the penalties were for dealing drugs back in the 30's, 40's 50's, etc.
I imagine they were quite severe, especially if federal law was applied. The fear was that the penalties would be so great that there might be a tendency to "flip" or become an informer.

For trafficking the penalties are a lot worse now than they were then. Penalties, if you went to prison, ranged from 5 to 20 years. There were a lot of variables. Now they have mandatory minimums and three strikes laws.

That makes sense because he was very active in the early 1960s working with Buccieri, Torello and Ferriola. You'd think he would have gotten made earlier. Being held back because of drugs explains it. Americo DePietro was another one too. I think DePietro and Infelice were doing it together and both were sent away for a while. Didn't hear much about DePietro later, so maybe he didn't get made.

One of the biggest lie ever told about the outfit.

thanks Gary & F1

yeah, until fairly recently...with Rockefeller type drug laws with mand. minimums..I didn't think that the penalties for drug trafficking were severe enough that LCN would veer away from that trade for fear of people turning informant.

Any ban on drug selling back then wasn't done for practical purposes(preventing people from flipping)...because the penalties weren't that much more severe than for the other stuff they were involved in.

The Outfit has issues with members getting habitually drunk, so likely the ban on narcotics had to do with how users lacked self-control and would be susceptible to informing.

I agree

On one hand, you have past examples of Outfit guys like Fifi Buccieri, Turk Torello, Rocco Infelise, etc who were known to have been involved in the drug trade. Not only were they not killed but also reached high levels in the Outfit suggest the rule wasn't total black and white. It may have been something akin to the apparent situation with Castellano in the Gambinos family. He was said to be dead set against drugs but took drug money from Patsy Conte and the Gambinos while being upset about the Gotti crew dealing. In other words, don't deal unless you have permission and don't get caught. We saw similar situations where Chin was involved in drugs but eventually becomes boss. Then he is said to be dead set against drugs but makes Barney Bellomo, who had his own history of dealing, the acting boss. Likewise Tony Corallo, who rants against dealing, but allows two known traffickers in Vic Amuso and Gaspipe Casso to take over.

On the other hand, the relative lack of drug cases involving the Outfit, both decades ago and in more recent years, suggests it has abstained from deep or significant involvement in narcotics. Especially when you compare it to the drug cases involving other families, particularly those in New York.

My understanding was that the sentences were too harsh and they were scared everyone would flip.

Obviously there has been ancillary involvement with drug dealing on a individual and crew basis, but I think the anecdotal evidence suggests that they never went all in or anything close to it. I would imagine that drug trafficking from the time it really became a thing in the 60s/70s was by and large too hot. If you become a major player you are eventually going to get caught.

It is probably the most lucrative of all criminal enterprises and as many doofuses as there are/were in the mafia, they are practically geniuses and organized better than GM compared to most criminal enterprises. If they'd wanted to get in, they had the infrastructure and aptitude to dominate the entire thing, like they did alcohol.

They didn't; to me this suggests there must have been some kind of quasi uniform decision at a high level.

Just my opinion.

Biggest Mafia myth of all...

Maybe, but if you are the country's largest organized crime syndicate and you decide to become its largest drug dealer, why do you keep piddling around with every other criminal activity the mafia has gotten arrested for for the last 60 years.

Just as in prohibition the overwhelming focus was on alcohol. You didn't really need anything else.

More rackets, more power. Money is only one aspect of power.

I think they kept it at a minimum to avoid drawing too much attention and hurting their other rackets. The Outfit had the entire Chicago area to themselves and there was so much money to be made, they didn't have to get into drugs as much as the NY that had over 1000 made guys. Another reason was that Chicago wasn't on the coast with a huge dock like NY. The NY families could control most of the heroin importation from the Middle East because it came through NY docks that were controlled by the mobbed up unions. It's harder to put tons of heroin onto airplanes and fly them into Chicago.

Outfit and castellano were def most strict in mob about marcotics especially ricca and accardo

But all five families forget about it all heroin dealers wholesale madonna scarpa gotti galante bonanno just so many but outfit not until after accardo retired and ricca died in late 80s early 90s

I dont think gigante was a dealer ivy...when he was boss