The criminal activity was primarily selling recreational drugs whose legality has nothing to do with morals and everything to do with the profitability of competing enterprises. The broader picture here is that the profitability of SR was the result of legitimate demand for certain products. We are not talking about racketeering here. We are not talking about robbery, kidnapping, or fraud. We are talking about victimless crimes involving the sale of goods that are highly demanded.

DPR himself may have been a mean guy, assuming there is anything to this alleged murder-for-hire plot. The reality of the situation, however, is that a much greater harm has been done to society by drug prohibition itself. Millions of people incarcerated, millions of people exposed to drugs of unknown quality, and a widespread trend of soldiers attacking civilian homes in the name of the drug war. The DEA has the power to simply declare drugs to be illegal, then arrest people who possess them. The DEA is not only a police force, but also a military force (even receiving help from NORAD and the NSA) and an intelligence agency. People in foreign lands and here in the United States are being killed by our government in the name of this prohibition.

Do not think for a moment that the law is some kind of moral compass. Drug laws have a sordid history of racism, corporate hand-outs, and widespread corruption.