THE BOOK: During the mid 1980's Howard Marks had forty three aliases, eighty nine phone lines and owned twenty five companies throughout the world. Whether bars, recording studios or offshore banks, all were money laundering vehicles serving the core activity: dope dealing

Marks began to deal small amounts of hashish while doing a postgraduate philosopy course at Oxford and soon he was moving much larger quantities into Europe and into America the equipment of touring British rock bands. The academic life began to lose its allure. At the height of his career he was smuggling consignments of up to fifty tons from Pakistan and Thailand to America and Canada and had contact with organisations as diverse as MI6, the CIA, the IRA and the Mafia. Numerous newspaper profiles, books and television documentaries have been devoted to Howard Mark's life. Touched with humour charm and candour, Mr Nice is his own extraordinary story.