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ment model every administration has nonetheless embraced the latter. The chief inadequacy
of this model was that it did not work. The reactive approach to drug trafficking did
not and could not produce the kind of prom] decisive resolution to be expected from war.
As each subsequent administration assumed power, it found quickly that the drug problem
h not gotten any easier, and the answers remained as elusive as they had be for its predecessor,
whom it had recently criticized for failing to devise lasting solution to the
national drug problem. One after another, each would solemnly take seats beside Hamlet,
clinging to a law enforcement strategy, the evil of which they knew, rather than fly to new
ones they knew naught of.
I’M NOT A GANGSTER; I’M A BUSINESSMAN 588
The expanded local law enforcement model that prevailed in law enforcement circles
in the late 1970’s was clearly inadequate to describe what government agencies were confronting.
Drug trafficking was no longer a simple aggregation of individual crimes, each
with a relatively localized effect. Drug trafficking had become an industry, generating
wealth on such a scale that it did far more than make individuals rich and afford them a
lavish lifestyle. It had actually begun to put amounts of money large enough to be accurately
described as capital into criminal hands. True, earlier recent instances of criminal
capital accumulation, such as the money made on illegal alcohol, gambling and prostitution,
which provided the capital to develop the Las Vegas gambling industry, did occur,
but these did not match the scope of the international operations being observed in drug
trafficking. Among the traffickers, money was being made hand over fist, and was rolling
in faster than anything law enforcement had previously experienced. In a single generation,
street criminals could hope to amass sufficient money to expand into legitimate
enterprises, effectively shielding themselves from the criminal origins of their fortunes.
Worse, drug traffickers could become economic forces in the poverty-stricken countries
where many of their operations were based. They were developing and cultivating social
and political influence, acquiring their own constituencies, and even entering foreign governments
themselves. Mario Puzo’s “Godfather,” Don Vito Corleone, could be speaking
about these drug traffickers when he proffers his wry quip that he is not a gangster, but a
businessman. To be sure, Don Corleone surpassed the status of common criminal. By the
early 1980’s, many drug traffickers too had become businessmen of sorts. While they
exercise substantial influence on entire countries, their objectives are not political or revolutionary,
but economic.
One should regard drug trafficking for what it is: a global, clandestine criminal industry.
This description distinguishes it from the widely held view of drug trafficking as simply
a large grab bag of individual crimes. Although the phrase “international drug
trafficking industry” has since gained general acceptance, the term “global” is a key element
of this working definition of drug trafficking. The distinction represents more than
just a literary preference. While the term “international” may flow nicely in papers and
588 Comment by Vito Corleone from the Mario Puzo/Francis Ford Coppola “Godfather” book and
cinema series.
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