Years ago, I read several books and articles about the Hells Angels and how they changed, during the late 70s to early 80s, from a wild motorcycle gang into a national drug syndicate. Through the 80s, and into the early 90s, the Hells Angels were the main manufacturer and wholesale distributer of meth in the USA. The quality of their meth was very high and they prided themselves on making the best. And they didn’t tolerate competition.
Now, people are cooking up this stuff all over the place. I haven’t heard any real mention of the Hells Angels being a big supplier of meth in a long time.
What happened to change this? I wouldn’t think that there would be so many people cooking this stuff up if the Angels were still big into it. Did the law just finally come down on and bust so many Angels that they are no longer the source they used to be?
Economics really, that’s just my WAG. The Angels, Bandidos and other motorcycle clubs were drawn into the public eye around the time that methamphetamine was becoming a common street drug. They already took the stuff to stay up and party, so it was natural for them to become the middlemen. I doubt that they seized the opportunity as much as they were already there and fell into it. I think that it’s safe to assume that sales and distribution grew through the Seventies.
Monopoly power is a wasting thing though, and there is no freer of market than in illegal goods. Competition showed up in the form of a bunch of addicts cooking cold medicine in their kitchens. Regulation showed up in the form of law enforcement agencies who could put a more significant dent in the supply by convicting just one or two biker cooks than they could by raiding a score of kitchens and bathrooms. The big gangs were an easier target for regulation than their competition and they lost market share.
There’s also a little bit of marketing in there, in that American motorcycles drifted out of fashion. Not as many people were attracted to bikers, and this reduced sales.
One factor may have been the change in status of phenylacetone (phenyl 2 propanone, P2P), which was the precursor used in the old style labs operated by the outlaw biker gangs. It was made a controlled substance in 1980, and became increasingly harder to obtain. They had to start synthesizing the P2P to make the speed out of. The “amateur” meth labs making it from OTC pseudoephedrine medications proliferated after that.