Before Walter White of Breaking Bad started manufacturing meth, people had to import their hard drugs. Localvores couldn't abuse illegal substances, because very few of those illegal substances were made proudly in the U.S.A. In the 1980s, when No Country for Old Men is set, heroin was smuggled into the U.S. over the Texas-Mexico border. It's a dirty, violent, awful business that creates many complications. Hey, it's supply and demand: the Mexican drug runners are supplying it because the Americans demand it.
Questions About Drugs and Alcohol
- Was Llewelyn right to take the drug money he found? If not, what should he have done with it?
- How has the War on Drugs in the United States changed since the time portrayed in the novel?
- Sheriff Bell becomes increasingly hopeless throughout the book because he is unable to stop the drug trade. Is there he anything he could have done differently to stop it?