Pubdate: Sat, 16 Apr 2016
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2016 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact: http://services.bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340
Website: http://bostonglobe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Sewell Chan, New York Times

HOWARD MARKS, 70, DRUG SMUGGLER TURNED AUTHOR

NEW YORK - Howard Marks, an Oxford-educated drug trafficker who at 
his peak in the 1970s controlled a substantial fraction of the 
world's hashish and marijuana trade, and who became a best-selling 
author after his release from a US prison, died Sunday. He was 70.

His death, from colorectal cancer, which he disclosed last year, was 
confirmed by Robin Harvie, publisher for nonfiction at Pan Macmillan, 
which released Mr. Marks's final book, "Mr. Smiley: My Last Pill and 
Testament," in September. No other details were provided.

Mr. Marks's drug-smuggling career started at Oxford University, where 
he studied physics and philosophy in the 1960s and peddled marijuana 
on the side. (He swore off harder substances, like heroin and 
cocaine, after his friend Joshua Macmillan, a grandson of the former 
British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, died of an overdose.)

In his 1996 autobiography, "Mr. Nice" (Donald Nice was one of his 
aliases), Mr. Marks wrote that his induction into the drug trade 
followed a chance encounter with a Pakistani supplier.

He eventually teamed up with James McCann, an Irish Republican Army 
operative, who arranged for large shipments of hashish through 
Ireland. Mr. Marks and his accomplices then laundered the proceeds 
through a staggering array of front companies. They widened their 
activities to include the United States and Canada in 1973.

Mr. Marks was arrested on drug charges in Nevada in 1976, but he 
failed to appear in court and fled. His elusiveness made him 
something of a legend; in 1979, he appeared on a stage in London, 
flanked by Elvis personators, only to disappear again. He was 
eventually arrested in the Scottish Highlands, where he had imported 
15 tons of marijuana from Colombia with a street value of $30 
million, and in 1980 he faced narcotics charges in London.

To the government's embarrassment, he was acquitted at his trial 
after arguing that he had been an agent of MI6, the British 
equivalent of the CIA (In fact, his relationship with the agency had 
ended years earlier.)

"That was intimidating, to see that he had defeated the system, that 
he had somewhat created an aura about him that he was untouchable," 
Craig Lovato, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent who helped 
bring down Mr. Marks, later told the PBS series "Frontline."

Those escapades inspired a 1984 book, "High Time: The Life and Times 
of Howard Marks," by the investigative journalist David Leigh, which 
portrayed Mr. Marks as a playboy in London and New York who was 
partial to expensive suits.

It was the United States that eventually brought him to justice. In 
July 1988, Mr. Marks and his wife, the former Judith Lane, were 
arrested on the Spanish island of Majorca and were charged, along 
with 20 accomplices.

They were accused of involvement in a drug-smuggling ring that 
encompassed - along with Britain, Canada, and the United States - 
Australia, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Pakistan, the Philippines, 
Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, and West Germany.

The authorities seized more than $9 million in cash from the group, 
in addition to properties including a 103-foot-long boat in 
Vancouver, British Columbia.

"Mr. Marks was the Marco Polo of the drug traffic," Thomas V. Cash, 
the special agent in charge of the Miami division of the DEA, said at 
the time. "He perfected smuggling methods and intricate laundering 
operations involving many countries around the globe, and this is why 
it took efforts in so many countries to complete this case."

According to the indictment, Mr. Marks's network smuggled "thousands 
of tons" of marijuana and hashish into the United States and Canada 
from 1973 to 1988. Sentenced to 25 years in prison in 1990, Mr. Marks 
was held in a high-security federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, 
Ind., before he was released in 1995.

Returning to Britain, Mr. Marks capitalized on his notoriety, writing 
his autobiography, the first of several books he would publish, 
including a novel. The autobiography was the basis for a 2011 film.

"Those of us who were old enough in the 1960s and early '70s to 
recall the smug, superior attitude [tinged with paranoia] of the 
period's hipoisie will recognize his type and wonder exactly what 
happened to all those Mr. Tambourine Men preaching drugs, sex and 
rock 'n' roll," New York Times critic Stephen Holden wrote in his 
review of the movie.

Mr. Marks also ran for Parliament, unsuccessfully, in 1997 on a 
single-issue platform of cannabis legalization.

Dennis Howard Marks was born on Aug. 13, 1945, in Kenfig Hill, a 
village in southern Wales. He was twice divorced; his second wife, 
Judy Marks, wrote her own memoir, "Mr. Nice and Mrs. Marks: Life With 
Howard," in 2006. He leaves their three children - Amber, Francesca, 
and Patrick - as well as a daughter, Myfanwy, from a previous marriage.
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