I’m sure some apologist will go on about the horrors of drug addiction.
BULLSHIT!
Powell shares the same problem as these notables. It has nothing to do with drug addiction.
I had a guy who was trying to get his time down to something he could do. It was his second time through the federal system. He had sold multiple ounces of crack cocaine to an undercover officer and we recovered a kilo of cocaine in the run back to his house. He was looking at twenty years.
It so happens that I was the cop who introduced him to the Federal system. The first time around, I tried to “flip” him. I explained that in exchange for information the court would probably give him a break. He wasn’t buying.
Eight years later there he was handcuffed, face down on the pavement. When he looked up there I was. I didn’t have to give the speech. He was ready to go to work.
We worked together for several months. This guy was not educated but he was by no means dumb. He complained about an on going hassle he was having with Federal Pretrial services. The pretrial services officer was pushing him to sign up for drug and alcohol rehab.
He argued against it because he didn’t drink or smoke or use drugs as a general rule. Yeah, he would take a hit on a joint if it was passed his way. That was more for appearances, to reassure the folks he was with. It was the same with alcohol a beer while watching the basketball game with friends. At a bar he would order a top shelf cognac more to impress than drink.
He kept telling them what I got you can’t treat. “It’s the lifestyle.” As he put it, there is no duplicating the feeling. I can walk into a dice game with $50K in the pot and all the players move to make room for me. Win or lose it don’t matter.
I can walk into a titty bar and in no time at all have all the dancers not on stage trying to sit at my table.
Dealing dope was just a means to an end.
Coincidentally, I was working an unrelated case. A poor little rich girl living in a quarter million dollar home. She liked heroin. Mama and daddy were worth a billion dollars. This chick hadn’t worked a day in her life and never accomplished anything.
A couple of months before she dropped a bastard child. Maybe it was her dope dealers kid, maybe not. The child, a girl, was born addicted to heroin. Grandma stepped in and gained custody of the child. If her daughter wanted to visit the child, she had produce a clean urine test. The new mother had never seen the child outside of the delivery room.
The grand parents were afraid baby daddy might try to assert his parental rights and effectively hold them up for blackmail. He was on parole and they wanted him off the board. I developed enough information to get a search warrant. He had a quarter ounce of heroin on him when we executed the warrant.
The interview of the “mother of the year” was not without interest. First, she acted like eight narcs tramping through her house was a garden party and she was the hostess with the mostest. She proudly admitted to a eight year heroin addiction. She seemed equally proud that daddy had sent her to a variety of rehab programs and none took. I asked how much daddy had spent for all the rehab and volunteered a $250,000 figure when she didn’t answer. She laughed, I wasn’t even close. I asked her if she had ever gone to Daddy and told him that she needed money to pay a dope debt. She looked at me like that’s a stupid question, of course.
I pointed out to her that by hitting him up for cash specifically to pay her drug debt, made Daddy part of the transaction. In effect a dope dealer. She was absolutely delighted. I could see where that information was going, next time they had a disagreement.
It suddenly clicked. My informant was right. This sorry rich girl put what he said into context. Her Mama and Daddy might be worth a billion dollars. He could be a wildly successful captain of industry. Mama could make San Antonio jump at her beck and call. Both of them were held hostage by the brainless junkie. Who had the power?
Power is a relative thing. The achievement of one’s desires may be the limiting factor in the exercise of power.
BJ Bill was the leader of the free world. His finger was near the button to start Armageddon. It wasn’t enough. Bopping a head job from Monica in the White House to spite Hillary…that’s power.
Whitey had Boston organized crime locked up for twenty years. The ultimate power trip was corrupting the FBI and playing the FEEBS back against the test of law enforcement.
The money is just a means to an end.
