My perspective is that we all make mistakes..I wound up getting divorced, but, I guarantee that you couldn't have talked me out of being with her and marrying her. In retrospect, it was the worst decision of my life.
Point being that I think that Ben at that time(he was in his 20"s) felt invincible.
He had money and power. He told me that he went to parties where everyone was smoking pot..judges,lawyers..he knew them all.
Is this different from Miami and other places around he country?..
hardly.
At that time(in the 80's),the awareness or lack of was non-existant.No one gave a damn and it was a cool thing to do. Supply and demand.
I do think that all of these guys thought they were above the law...
obviously,not the case.
Not one of those guys thought they would ever get caught..things were lax then..certainly not today's awareness and standards.
If it wasn't for drugs,188th would most likely never have been what it became. All these guys were dirty..even Aronow.No secret.