Doing Time
Page 31
WANTED; PILOT — Low time okay, we train. Smoker okay; drinker okay; no medical required. We supply aircraft, fuel, some expenses. Should be able to navigate, land on remote strips. No fringe benefits; possible government supplied food, lodging, retirement. Some risk. Pay $50,000~$500,000 per trip.
Trade-A-Plane never printed this ad. It never showed up in the Miami Herald. But it’s correct. Openings exist. The ad is perhaps a little misleading. The real truth about drug smuggling is a lot like picking at an artichoke. You have to pull off a lot of cover to get to the heart.
Neither Forbes nor Fortune magazine publish any special editions about the size and extent of the illegal drug industry in the U.S. They should. If they did, the figures would show the business of selling illegal drugs to be far and away the biggest and most profitable business in the country. No one knows the total number of players, but if you estimate the employment figures for occupations we track on the “ami” side we can gauge employment totals. We have eight hundred thousand lawyers, eight hundred thousand police, six hundred thousand jailers and fifty thousand employed in the judicial system. If almost half the people imprisoned in this country were charged only with drug crimes, easily a million Americans draw legal employment strictly because of the prohibition laws. Lots more Americans sell drugs. Total employment: in the millions. The drug trade generates somewhere between $100 billion and $300 billion per year in gross revenues. Somewhere between the total sales of AT8cT, IBM, McDonnell Douglas, and the total sales of the entire auto industry.
This massive flow of illegal drugs into the U.S. continues for only one reason. It’s big business with big profits. The government refuses to admit it, but spending $50 billion a year on the “war on drugs” only makes the situation worse. Illegal drugs remain a problem primarily because someone defined them as illegal. The prohibition of drugs creates a 99 percent profit margin, encouraging people of all ages and occupations to enlist.
Wars may be hell for the victims, but they do create jobs. No one — not the dopers, certainly not the government — wants the public to recognize what really goes on behind the screen of smoke. Figures divulged by Charles B. Rangel (D), Chairman of the House Select Committee on Narcotics and Drug Abuse, suggest that in 1985, some eighteen thousand flights carrying illegal drugs entered the United States. That’s about one flight every thirty minutes of every hour, every day, every week, every month of the year. Once every twenty hours, a planeload was captured — a humiliating 3 percent of the total flights. How can a “war on drugs” be so ineffective? As Congressman Rangel said, “It is so easy to smuggle drugs into our country by air that it would take an absolute idiot to get caught.” A brief history of the drug trade may help put the picture in perspective.
Marijuana forms, and always has formed, the foundation upon which the house of drug smuggling was built. To a certain extent, the polarization of the body public caused by the seemingly endless slaughter in Vietnam played a part in the expansion of the drug trade. Young people, tired of cynical government claims of victory after bloody victory, listened to prophets like Dr. Timothy Leary. They “tuned in, turned on, and dropped out” at a record rate. If the pow-ers-that-be lied about Vietnam, was it not also possible that the government lied about the demon weed, marijuana? They tried it, liked it, and purchased record amounts.
Tractor-trailerloads by the hundreds and thousands passed from Mexico into the southern border areas of the U.S. through the late 1960s. Customs inspectors equipped with bulging wallets and very dark tinted sunglasses somehow missed most of these loads. As demand increased, a few World War II and Korean War vintage DC-4s, DC-6s, Convairs, and Martins made clandestine trips into long-abandoned Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona landing fields.
In 1970, the retail price for an ounce of grass ran about five dollars— “a nickel bag.” A plane of Iocoweed might be worth $100,000 wholesale; hardly worth risking the value of an airplane. The still minimum value of the illicit cargo demanded low-cost ground transportation. Then the federal government stepped into the act, increasing not only the profit but also the demand for drugs.
Up until 1970, drug crimes actually fell under violation of tax laws, the Harrison Tax Act of 1914 and the Marijuana Tax Act of 1938. During the campaign for governor of New York in 1966, Nelson Rockefeller began using the term “war on drugs” to great political benefit. Never one to miss a political trick, Richard Nixon pressed Congress for sweeping new drug laws initiating the concept of mandatory sentencing for what had been in the past relatively minor violations of tax laws. By 1971, Nixon had slammed the door on the trailerloads of grass. The massive flow of reefer into the border states stopped — for about three and a half seconds.
In economics as in politics, nature abhors a vacuum. As long as demand exists, supply must follow. The price of grass shot up to fifteen dollars an ounce. When first turned back at U.S. border stations, the Mexican truck drivers shrugged a sigh of resignation and headed for the nearest airport. The fledgling bands of more-or-less amateur smugglers entered what would prove to be a golden age of aviation lasting years. What had been a tiny trickle of cargo planes across the border turned into a flood. As the price of grass went up, so did the price of planes. A DC-3 cost $50,000 in 1970 and $150,000 in 1985. You could track the price of either grass or airplanes just by knowing the price of the other.
From 1971 well into the middle 1980s, much of the Mexican crop crossed the border via airmail. The sophistication of the dopers increased as the efforts of the state and federal authorities increased. Larger profits allowed new investment in the latest transportation and communication equipment. As the price of illicit drugs continued to climb, the size of an aircraft necessary to fly a profitable load decreased as well. By 1985, a $30,000 Cessna 206 could easily carry a cargo of grass worth $400,000 wholesale and an ancient DC-3, costing $150,000, could deliver a $10 million load,
Meanwhile, the increase in price of grass had attracted new growers in all the Caribbean basin countries, and the center of gravity of the drug trade had shifted gradually eastward several hundred miles. The history of drug smuggling efforts in the Caribbean closely followed the Mexican model. Rather than tractor-trailers, at first fishing trawlers, then full-size oceangoing freighters carried marijuana north from the reefer-producing countries around the Caribbean basin. By 1985, the increased Coast Guard patrolling of the few natural ocean smuggling routes put a halt to the freighterloads of Colombian weed. A few trawlers tried to pick up the slack, but suffered unacceptably high losses. As the price escalated, cargo aircraft carried an ever increasing share of the contraband haul. The cost of an aircraft could be recovered perhaps tenfold with one successful trip. Decaying, well-worn, used and abused large cargo planes flew load after load of pot until every airstrip in the Caribbean was dotted with a fleet of worn DC-3s and other cargo planes. As their presence began to draw unwanted attention, a fleet of smaller, less conspicuous Cessnas and Navajos equipped with high-performance engines and long-range tanks started to converge on every airfield in South Florida and the Bahamas.
As the drug runners became increasingly slick, well-heeled, and experienced, the nature of the business started to change. Reacting to the natural laws of supply and demand, drug traffickers and smugglers realized that aircraft capable of carrying a load of grass worth perhaps $100,000 wholesale, could carry a load of coke worth $20 million wholesale. The traffickers started carrying trickles of cocaine from Colombia and heroin from Mexico to the primary drug markets of Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, and New York. The smugglers sort of figured that they might as well be hung for sheep as for lamb. Because of its increased availability, the much more dangerous cocaine and heroin continued to drop in price, thus increasing demand. So we traded a minor marijuana problem for a major hard drug problem,
During the 1970s and well into the early 1980s, a few well-financed, well-organized groups controlled most of the flow of drugs into the United States. On a clockwork basis, the DEA or Customs would make
a highly publicized bust of a “major drug-smuggling ring.” Much to their dismay, they found that every time they smashed one “drug-smuggling ring,” ten more sprang up from the remains of the group. Maintaining an accurate account of the number of “major drug-smuggling rings” busted would require IBM’s biggest and latest mainframe.
It is 1988. Dozens of flights leave Jamaica or Haiti or Belize or Cuba each day carrying planeloads of reefer. Many airdrop their loads to waiting fast boats off the coast of Florida. A few continue to make a low-level entry into the U.S. to land in Florida, Georgia, or South Carolina. The retail price of grass is up to $150 an ounce. Flocks of Cessna Turbo and Piper Senecas with up to three thousand miles in range carry paste from Bolivia and Peru to Colombia for processing into cocaine powder. Increased government intervention has only resulted in importation of far more of the truly dangerous drugs, in greater use of violence, and in runaway crime associated with drugs.
Few drug pilots make it to retirement. The chances of getting caught are slim. The chances of getting killed, whether in an accident, or by fellow drug gang members, are high indeed. Most drug dealers value pilots a little less than a good plane and little more, just a wee bit more, than a quart of lukewarm spit. Drug traffickers, those organizing smuggling attempts, are similar to every other sort of businessman. They seek minimum risk, minimum cost, and maximum profit. Pilots are viewed as rubbers — to be used and then discarded. Drug pilots are the first to be killed, the first to land in jail, the first to be snitched upon, and the very last to be paid.
The drug lords never advertise the whole truth about smuggling. For the one drug deal that succeeds out of three or four attempts, the pilot gets very well paid indeed. Sometimes. After all, anyone going to all the trouble to set up a drug deal has already broken numerous laws. Why not steal too? Who else is easier to steal from than the pilot? Who is he going to complain to?
Every smuggling strip in the Caribbean has a refuse pile nearby built from the remains of planes that “almost” made it. Every flight is flown overweight, often out of center-of-gravity limits, always right on the edge of the flying envelope, and most with submarginal equipment.
I flew in Vietnam from 1968 to 1970. I remember an area just south of the DMZ called Helicopter Valley. From a vantage point a few thousand feet in the air, you could look in any direction and see the wreckage of dozens of crashed helicopters. The thought of the hundreds of young men killed in battle over a few pockmarked hills no one really wanted anyway still leads to depression. And the ultimate crime in any pilot’s mind is breaking an airplane for no reason at all.
Colombia is worse. Jamaica is worse. Bimini Island, some forty-five miles off the coast of Florida, keeps a bulldozer permanently stationed next to the runway just to clear the wrecks of drug flights. The authorities in Bimini created a mountain of the wreckage, which serves as a constant reminder of mortality. It’s like walking into someone’s home and seeing a casket used as a dinner table.
The winding down of the war in Southeast Asia marked the transition period of drug usage for Americans. As the war shifted from a battle to keep the Viet Cong from invading Hawaii to a holding action, boted and scared American troops began to consume hard drugs as never before. The stage was set for increased drug use, a crime level never seen before in American history, and corruption in government reaching every level. Just as with every prohibition.
The two wars share more similarities than differences. Few take the time to understand how we became entrenched in either. No one even discusses how we might get out of the “war on drugs.” With both we have a history of atrocities, abuse of government power, and needless waste which goes hand in hand with all warfare. With Vietnam we destroyed the cream of one generation, with the “war on drugs” we seem destined to totally destroy generation after generation; leaving the bills for our great-grandchildren to pay.
At the start of any war it seems glorious. Maybe the good guys do wear white hats, just like on TV. Eventually, in the mud and gore of the battlefield, all uniforms tend to look alike. Nobody ever won any war. All that ever happens is that one side loses more than the other. Like all wars, this war is fought mainly by our young people: our most precious resource. Perhaps it’s time to declare a victory and go home. For our kids’ sake.
1989, Dade Work Camp
Florida City, Florida
No Brownstones, Just
Alleyways & Corner Pockets
Full
J. L. Wise Jr.
I.
Hot bothered nights …
street corner hype &
neon signs winking to def jams’
rhythms jumping
the juke joint;
Mad Dog
T-bird
& greasy fatburger’s stench
reeks from sweaty pores
of nickel dime poolhall hustlers
busting nine-balls &
OOPS
upside the heads of
bluesed out screwballs;
where fanged flies on a mission
ignore the
ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK
signs
like kamikaze daredevils
free-basing poppies &
practicing the serious art
of hara-kiri;
a 15-story highwire act featuring
odiferous mongrels howling unmolestedly
off key
in schooiless breezeways up 14th St.
sporting flat-top fades on second grade
boys rolling dice
drunks
cursing like Popeye the Sailorman
& breaking down gats & Macs
as a skillful trade;
where cornrow-weaved
cornbread and swine fed
bow-bellied hoochies
double-dutch into labor.
Salvation dies too many deaths
in this palefaceless metro
where first-of-the-month checks
arrive a little & too late again
straight shooters
“jingle it, baby .. .”
& face-cracking Wet Willies*
flood Afrika’s blood.
II.
The buck stops here
headlining Monday’s toilet paper
after rendezvous in pissy gangways
between swingblade strawberries*
doing their best James Cagney
impersonations &
oversexed
overweight
outraged corporate America
(The Brave?)
ganked
stunted
jacked and permanently dissed
screaming for mercy
911
(it’s a joke in our town!) frigid wives
ł “Face-cracking Wet Willies” are More cigarettes laced with PCP, which — if “good” — cause a grimace.
ł A “strawberry” is a woman who will do anything for a hit of crack, including selling her body. (JLW Jr.)
& the AIDS hotline;
where storefront philanderers
preach 666 Hail Marys
in atonement for satisfying sins
with an idea when the indoctrination
began
but none of where hell or this alleyway
end
determined to discover brownstones
still
in corner pockets full.
Hot bothered nights …
but unstrange bedfellows.
1994, Potosi Correctional Center
Mineral Point, Missouri
Americans
Jon Schillaci
Mr. Srinivasan
instructs us to call him “Babu”
because no one can say
his name —
perverted letters mate
unnaturally, heretic
bloodlines (sex in high school
was like sports: we did our
best and hoped someone
important saw).
This country
Absorbs into its blondness
darkness and we began
in darkness —
I wonder how a Hindu
falls in love in Texas.
I wonder where Ann Nguyen went
(who threw her books into my
hands and knew English
enough to say, “You are my
boyfriend,” no matter what
I thought) —
who kissed engulhngly yet was
so tiny her ring sat only
a crown on my fingertip —
I thought I was the most
powerful chain-link boy
in school.
Mr. Srinivasan
was born in Rusk (a tiny
Texas town which still
dreams of the Republic)
and speaks only English.
His drawl is John Wayne or
Ross Perot and once in
Texas cows were sacred;
once in high school a girl
from Vietnam was more
beautiful than America.
1998, Ramsey I Unit, TDCJ-ID
Rosharon, Texas
For Sam Manzie
Jon Sdnllaci
Who, at fifteen, raped and killed a boy
Rattled in daysleepd reams the taste of space
Filled with www.com and photographs
Of himself caressed by strangers.
The lady says (the lady with the hat
That says, “I am a lady,1’) Sam Manzie
Should be chained or photocopied,
Paper clipped to hell Still I think
Of your fingers and think someone
Should hold your hand
(should hold you down:
Did you think he would rise after the weekend
And harrow hel) to retrieve you?) but they
Reappear. They rise and sign autographs, give cred
To James Cameron’s Hollywood for their
Annual resurrection