“American “culture” is the market for what the Hispanic gangs are selling.”
But we had the same thing. Before Hispanics moved in, blacks owned it, and before that the Mafia owned it...all the way back to prohibition.
I think there is more acceptance of drugs than there used to be....i.e. look, you too can be just as screwed up as a Hollywood superstar....or as screwed up as your next door neighbor.
I remember when being a druggie was a huge stigma. And I can’t defend the mafia, of course, and not that I was there, but seems to me those times were not as horrendous as what we’re dealing with now.