Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic

by Sam Quinones

Every narcotics agent in the 1990s had the Bloods and Crips crack warfare as a precedent, and the Colombian cocaine cowboys in Miami before that. The Nayarits weren’t that way. With faith in their addictive product, they didn’t need to shoot it out for territory. These drivers knew each other, and would stop to chat or meet for lunch. Even as they competed and drove down each other’s prices, they did so in peace. They went out of their way to avoid attention. It helped that the drivers had no investment in how much they sold, and that they didn’t use. There was no incentive for them to cut their dope. They didn’t make any more money if they cut it than if they sold it as it came. They were employees, guys on a salary, with their costs covered and a stipend of several hundred dollars a week. The last thing they wanted was violence.