The passage of the 18th Amendment did not diminish Americans' desire to drink alcohol. Criminal organizations provided a simple question of supply and demand. According to Hales & Kazmers "This great demand and the simultaneous illegalization of alcohol opened up a new illegal market that gangsters could develop and monopolize." (6) Organizations began to illegally import, sell, produce, and distribute alcohol as a source of revenue. Smuggling became the new business and organized crime became the CEO. Smuggling was not only an opportunity to accumulate large profits, but according to Demleitner "a way to gain respectability, status and power". (701) The relationship between politics and organized crime had