Five years before the Prohibition of alcohol, the government took measures to deal with the addiction crisis blamed on narcotics, which we’re once viewed as ‘wonder drugs,’ by limiting public access to Opium, Morphine, Heroin, and Cocaine.
Although the move made it more difficult for addicts, the laws simply opened the doors for enterprising criminals ready to supply the demand. Arnold Rothstein’s infamy may have been built on a reputation for gambling, real estate and bootlegging, but what history still seems to brush over or neglect to address regards A.R.’s ‘other’ lucrative, international business venture – Narcotics.
Rothstein’s business model ushered in a brand new kind of gangster; ambitious young hoods who would be shaped into globetrotting agents of drug smuggling and set the stage for America’s first drug cartel.
America's First Gangsters