The argument I’ve heard is the US mafia opposes members dealing in drugs because the long sentences of 25 to life are enough to make many members turn states evidence and testify against higher ups in the mafia.
But the penalty for murder is also 25 to life, and the mafia seems perfectly content to engage in murders.
Is it because murders have fewer witnesses while drug dealing has a huge network of people involved? I don’t get why they’d say crime X has a huge penalty that may cause someone to testify against their boss, so don’t do that but crime Y which also has a huge penalty is ok.
Many times they murder because someone broke Mafia rules. In Goodfellas Tommy killed Billy Batts without permission . Billy was a made guy. So Tommy broke a rule and got whacked for that, that’s what really happened not just in the movie .
Also plenty of them deal drugs even though it’s against the rules. Many times for murders the only people who know about it are Mafia guys who are not going to tell the cops in most cases.
My understanding was that it was frowned upon (in some families) because they’re more likely to flip when they have a long sentence hanging over them. Also, I thought I’d heard in some of the movies that they didn’t want their people dealing with drugs for fear of them getting addicted and losing their ability to do what they need to do (WRT the mafia).
If movies and TV shows have taught me anything, it’s that even when the boss says no drugs, there’s so much money in it for them, they do it anyway, as a side hustle.
Lack of opportunity might also be an answer. Illegal drugs are a profitable business and the Mafia is no longer a powerful force in organized crime. Other stronger criminal organizations may have forced them out of the business.
The reality is that as far back as Lucky Luciano, the mob has been in the drug business. In 1959, Vito Genovese — who gave his name to one of the five New York families — was imprisoned on drug charges, as was his low-level crime family soldier Joe Valachi. Drugs have generated billions of dollars in income for the mob over the decades.
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FBI documents do indicate that bosses such as Paul Castellano and Vincent “the Chin” Gigante in New York and Angelo Bruno in Philadelphia banned members of their organizations from getting involved in narcotics. But that wasn’t based on a moral opposition to drug dealing. Rather, it stemmed from the realization by those bosses — who already had more money than they could count — of the tremendous legal jeopardy that came with narcotics as the federal government amped up the war on drugs in the early 1970s. And gangsters have testified that bosses such as Gotti, who banned narcotics, still knowingly accepted tribute payments from underworld drug dealers. The hypocritical message: Don’t deal drugs, but if you do, I get a piece of the action.
and also it was Chicago that mainly banned its members from dealing drugs because the boss after al capone paul “the waiter” ricca 's son became a heroin addict and it was a deeply traumatic experience… now at some point that softened to “nothing harder than pot” in the 80s/90s
But the one thing that the godfather book did get right was some families originally didn’t want to get into drugs simply because it was the worst thing you could do at that time … . like the don said to sollozzo " the judges didnt care if a man drank whored or gambled and would look the other way but would sit hard on and not respect anyone who was involved with drugs…
but officially it was left up to each family except when legal help was needed as a “favor”
I think your information is way out of date. Didn’t Sammy “The Bull” Gravano start an ecstasy ring in witness protection, of course he also squealed but do you think that was really the first time he felt in drugs, and it goes back way before that.
Didn’t they also let the blacks deal drugs for them just like Christians let Jews engage in usury for them? A vicarious moral transgression so to speak.