Structuring Mr. Nice: Entrepreneurial opportunities and brokerage positioning in the cannabis trade

A case study of the career of international cannabis trade smuggler, Howard Marks ( a.k.a. Donald Nice), is conducted to investigate the crucial, yet oft-overlooked network mechanisms inherent in drug distribution chains. Using Marks' recent and substantially detailed autobiography of his 20-year participation within and around importation links in the cannabis trade, a series of analyses are conducted with specific convergence on the makings of his personal working network as well as on how this relational structure served in embedding the various entrepreneurial opportunities that triggered 14 importation ventures and 41 consignments therein. Marks' career demonstrates that the capacity to broker and seize information benefits needed and sought after by others allows some participants to achieve more control of entrepreneurial opportunities in illegal trades as well as explaining variations in success from one phase of the career to the next. This relational argument offers an alternative to more conventional instrumental violence explanations concerning the attainment of competitive advantage in illegal business settings.