Was Vito Corleone Right about Narcotics?

[Capetan Mihali]

I don't know about the Cosa Nostra itself, but when the Harrison Narcotics Act went into effect in 1914, there was a solid quantity of morphine/heroin and cocaine addicts.  So somebody must have been in the business of moving large quantities of narcotics well before the 50s.  (IIRC, though, prosecutions for pharmacists dispensing too liberally only really picked up in the 30s, when marijuana was criminalized and booze was decriminalized.)

[Jacob]

Watching The Godfather again.  I've always wondered if Vito wasn't in some sense right about the influence of narcotics on organized crime-Vito and his generation were able to court politicians fairly openly, and the Mafia, for all it's brutality, was more often interested in gambling, extortion and loansharking rather than ruining entire neighborhoods with narcotics.  There does seem to be a shift in the nature of the business from grey-area mobsters such as Bugsy Siegel to the heroin and cocaine based gangs that rise to prominence in the 60s and 70s. 

With that said, most of what I know is from movies.  Were the gangs already moving to narcotics at the end of prohibition?  Was it inevitable that the profits narcotics would bring would make narcotics gangs  dominant?

I don't think Vito had a choice, to be honest. Organized crime is a systematic phenomenon, it arises where the conditions are ripe for it and hard drugs is the perfect set up.

[Razgovory]

Luciano did time for dealing heroin back in 1916 or so.  And he was the main instigator and shaper of the modern mafia.  So no, they didn't have much problem with drug dealing.  I know a few individual bosses did, but they were ignored and eventually killed.

[The Brain]

In the words of Meja it's all 'bout the money. Not taking the drug money was never a realistic option, and if the Mafia hadn't taken it they would have been relegated to the minor leagues.