Larry Lavin: Philly’s Former Cocaine King Tells All.

In the mid-1970s, Larry Lavin started attending dental school at Penn. As he says in the podcast, “Things were so different back then.” Drugs flowed freely and casually. In his sophomore year, he joined a fraternity, where one of the brothers sold pot. Larry took his minor operation and expanded it. Soon he was BMOC, the biggest pot dealer at Penn. He wasn’t making a fortune, but the dental student, who had grown up poor, was enjoying the spending cash.  But in the late 1970s, there was a national crackdown on pot. And as the orders got larger, it became harder to get the smelly and bulky substance distributed safely. Enter cocaine. As Larry said, “Why carry an elephant on your back when you can carry an elephant in your pocket?” Lighter, much easier to transport…and addictive. Larry would study all day, then get to work at night, running his rapidly expanding empire.  By the early 1980s, the one time frat pot dealer was a multimillionaire, and looking for ways to diversify (as JGT said in the podcast, “Larry was Stringer Bell.”) Enter Mark Stewart, who encouraged him to pour his money and resources into the music business. Soon they had an artist, Frankie Smith, with a big hit, the Double Dutch Bus. Larry was greasing palms in the music business, trying to make the song a hit. Little did he know that the songs success would actually bring down his drug and music empire. Find out how in the latest installment of the Philly Blunt!  Links:Johnny Brenda’s: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram