VLVL 3 Zoyd and Hector

[pynchonoid]

--- Don Corathers <gumbo at fuse.net> wrote:
[...] 
>Maybe I missed it, but I don't find any evidence that
>Zoyd and his
>housemates were doing any serious dealing at the
>beach house. They are
>consumers, and if they're dealing at all it's selling
>two or three 
>ounces
>out of a quarter to defray the cost of their own
>stashes, a pretty 
>common
>practice in those days. 

Exactly.

>At that level, they are 
>essentially useless as
>informants, 

Late '60s, early '70s, pot supply lines (in
California, Arizona, and Texas at least) weren't as
long and complex as they later became -- more common
than you might think for a house full of hippies like
Zoyd's to nominate a couple of folks to drive down to
the border and score a pound or two to bring back,
break down, bag up, and sell to their friends.
Following them to bust the guy who drove a truckload
of pot up from Mexico and offloaded it to dealers on
the US side of the border would be quite a coup for a
narc. But generally the narcs made their careers 
dicking around with low-level consumers and low-key
dealers-to-friends like Zoyd and his pals -- that's
who got arrested and jailed back then.

>and it's ludicrous to compare them to 
>organized crime.

Yes, at Zoyd's level.  But you don't have to climb
very high in the hierarchy to find disturbing
similarities to the Mafia, as early as the late 60s
and certain into the 70s. Pot distribution quickly
became a big, complex business  (which Pynchon spoofs
in M&D's marijuana tree episode).  LSD, too. 



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