Robert Sabbag - Snowblind. A Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade

Howard Marks

Snowblind made me and a million other scammers feel totally at one with our profession, and I am greatly honoured to be asked to write an introduction to this re-issue.

I obviously wanted to re-read it. My copy had long disappeared in one of many busts, so I called a host of friends, libraries, and bookshops in what became an increasingly difficult search. Eventually, Olaf Tyaransen of Dublins Hot Press temporarily parted with his copy, and I determined to discover just how much, if any, Robert Sabbags book had dated in almost two decades.

I was travelling by train to London after a mad one in Manchester and I fished out Snowblind. In no time, I was wondering why I hadnt made a point of re-reading it years sooner. I blamed availability. There was so much Id forgotten (an occupational hazard): the insightful articulation of how scamming is no more than a combination of waiting and winging it, preceded by the most labyrinthine of plans, fall backs, and security procedures, all somehow executed by personnel well off their trolleys; the explanation of how cocaine use was probably the most important factor in enabling America to understand the metric system; and most of all, the definition of dope, Natures way of saying high.

I was in the only carriage that allowed smoking. Dope-heads were bonding with yellow-haired old ladies, pipe-smoking gentry, and stressed-out executives. Lights and skins were shared with grace and pleasure. I smoked a joint.

A million centuries ago, plants said High to animals. Roots and seeds seduced tongues and stomachs. Vine, leaf, and resin interplayed with hand, heart, and mind. Drinking, smelling, and sucking were the order, but not the regulation, of the day.

And Nature said, Higher.

A pyramid here and a pyramid there.

Gargling, sniffing, smoking, puking, and starving for God, Siva, and the Sun. Wholl have the booze? Wholl have the blow? Wholl have a line? Who gets the fun?

Ive got the dope. But stick to my brand. Use any other dope, and Ill kill you. Dont do this. Dont do that. That fruity stuff is verboten.

Nature asked, Why?

So fuck you, and lets smuggle cider into the Garden of Eden? Adams apples are shite. Eves cool. She calls it a SCAM. Smuggling Cocaine, Alcohol and Marijuana. But is the Snake a grass?

A legacy of murderous priests, psychopathic megalomaniacs, bloodthirsty colonialist rapists, sadistic puritans, non-inhalers, and other manifestations of sinister evil have ensured that chemically induced changes of states of mind are rewarded by imprisonment and other socially acceptable forms of torture. The Society of Satanic Spoilsports feel comforted by our suffering. Our happiness disturbs them. Congratulations to alcohol. Its done well in the rat race for the survival of the fittest psychoactive. But not without Gods creative efforts in blood transfusion: the wine of Christ: Do this and forget your short-term memory problem.

Murdering Spanish bullies fronted up as Gods servants and discovered that Indians from the Andes had been chewing coca leaves for three thousand years, getting high, and not getting come-down hangovers. Were Catholic priests really convinced that the effects of the leaf resulted from a pact between the devil and the Indians? Not really, but nothing haunts fraudulent missionaries more than heathens getting high. The Indians worked harder when stoned, so coca didnt bother purveyors of the Protestant work ethic as Nature said, High. But its a lie.

The Satanic Spoilsports saw the workers were in too good a groove. They didnt lose their breath, didnt feel tired, didnt feel hungry, and felt very sexy. And what was worse, they shared their highs with Blacks. Bang them away. Lock them up. Call them murderers, rapists, and friends, except Uncle Tom. Nature said, Try.

So how can we get the leaves we want, the herbs we want, the grapes we want. Nature said, Lie.

And it came to pass that the world became full of scammers. Never before have so many laws been broken without a single pang of conscience. False names, forged passports, phoney driving licences, money laundering, tax evasion, customs dodging, stolen vehicles, illegal planes, false documents, lies, lies, and lots more new lies. Who cares? Its all for the cause. Its not our fault they wont let people get high. Anyway, the world of international dope dealing is fun. Its fucking great!

I began my dope smuggling career in the late 60s. Twenty years later, I was busted by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and was looking at life in prison. Had I not been busted until 1993, the same quantity of dope would have guaranteed me the federal death penalty by lethal injection. Zachary Swan, the paradigm of dope dealers and central character of Snowblind, would have also been sentenced to death had he performed his scams today rather than in the seventies.

An early copy of Snowblind was personally delivered to me by a New York dope dealer on December 31st, 1979. It could have been Zachary Swan. It wasnt. He was called Billy Bronx. But Billy Bronx and I had just landed fifteen tons of Colombias finest weed on a remote Scottish island. Short-wave radios, walkie-talkies, scanners, nightscopes, Zodiacs, pulleys, anoraks, thermals, jeeps, ropes, formed a new tidemark as a mountain of marijuana heaved out of the sea near Holy Loch, the bastion of British/American defence. The Loch Ness monster had turned into the marijuana Messiah from the Highlands. The 90s will be cool. Carters compassion will take care of Thatchers brass. Wed better start the next scam before they legalise the shit, said Billy Bronx. Read this when youre chilling out, Man. Its on toot, not reefer, but its really about us kind of guys. Its the only book that has ever been written about scamming. It will always be the best one.

Within months, I could not meet a dealer of any dope who was not reading (or had not already read)