Controversial voice for many decades now is the relationship between marijuana use and other Illegal Drugs. Is the fact that more people are consuming marijuana which is lacking the face of legalization will lead to higher rates of use of other Illegal Drugs, that could be a concern or is the opposite possible that an increased use of marijuana because its legal might suppress the use of other Illegal Drugs . All these questions that we will know the answers to in a few years which is why some of us think if we are ambivalent about the legal legalization of marijuana you might learn a stunning amount for the future. Back to drunk driving. Often we get the question asked by a parent is it better for for me if my child drives stoned or drives drunk like the answer is better not let your children use any of the above if theyre behind the wheel. Its much more dangerous to drive drunk and stoned. In other words driving under the influence of marijuana and alcohol is much more dangerous than driving either under one or two in isolation. Relationship is a complicated one and i think we will have to learn a lot about before we understand where policy should be. A stunning fact was talked about prevalence a while ago, 44 of american twelfthgraders have used pot. 6 of them are everyday users so marijuana use is has been around for long time and it can be used in large quantities. We know very little about the influence of marijuana on the growing brain. Brain science hopefully now that we have the states tipping will allow for Brain Science to catch up so we can learn about what stages the brain develop in the cycle is marijuana essential in a negative way. Host angela hagan is the marijuana being sold in colorado and medical clinics etc. Isnt it domestic product . Guest most of our marijuana spread from mexico. There is highgrade marijuana produced in california so the highgrade the commercial grade is in the Single Digits thc level. There have been scary stories in the media about teenage levels of 40 and this is the marijuana that will kill your grandchildren. We hardly ever see those cases played out. Most of the upper of the marijuana thats confiscated his commercial grade. Its lowlevel thc coming from mexico. Host thats the medical marijuana as well . Guest the marijuana would be produced locally. Host is higher thc . Guest was grown to make sure not only is there a known thc level but gracious between chemical compounds in marijuana. Thc tends to get all the attention but theres another chemical in marijuana code cbd which reduces anxiety level associated with marijuana use. A trend that has been to increase thc and increased cbd which is why you see more emergency room appearances because people are using marijuana at higher levels of thc than typically used in the past that the cbd is suppressed so you cant have anxiety depressed and that is why we see emergency visits increase. Host in part of our series with pepperdine high school we talked with a Public Policy professor as well. He said hes been smoking cigarettes for 62 years and today would be easier to smoke marijuana in california than a cigarette in public. Guest i dont think thats true. He has a fun personality but it is. Thats not a prescription. These arent prescriptions made by doctors and if they were doctors would be held accountable for a higher standard of diagnosis. Anyway i wish there was a prescription requirement. Instead of the recommendation wont doctor recommend marijuana might be useful for whatever your ailment is at the clinic. But its astonishing to secure recommendation and easy to find. Host Angela Hawken again this book what Everyone Needs to know about me at Marijuana Legalization do you take a position on Marijuana Legalization in this book collects. Guest in the book i say outright that im of the four authors the most in favor of legalization for the reason i suggested. The cost of the criminal Justice System is astonishing, 750,000 per arrests for marijuana use. We are making criminals out of our relatives and children. Theres a better way to deal with this than to the criminal Justice System so im in favor of air while legalization. That said im in favor of evidence. If the early data shows this decision was a bad one i will be the strongest advocate for turning things around. It really depends on the data. Host how does the u. S. Fit in with the rest of the world when it comes to legalization issues . Guest we have seen decriminalization. People talk about the netherlands and portugal but these two states where the first jurisdictions on earth to ever allow the commercial sale of marijuana which makes this uruguay has filed suit. Whats interesting is this is left the community and a bit of a scramble. The u. S. Government is a signatory to treaties that say you have to pursue and stop the use of Illegal Drugs including marijuana. International Narcotics Control Board has sent letters to the United States into uruguay following these legalization moves and as a watchdog Body International narcotics board doesnt have a lot of teeth. A park slope at his neverland teeth. The truth is very little the States States are not signatories to international and the federal government can pursue marijuana cues in any of the states but cant require the states use their resources to pursue marijuana grocers and growers and users. The federal government has been really quiet and has taken a backseat. If they were ever going to take a mission of Marijuana Legalization and try to stop it in their tracks they should have done it now while it was in two states. The federal government has limited resources for fighting drug issues. 4000 dea agents nationwide. If they were to take it on that have to do it in washington and colorado. Host what are the laws in their home country of south africa . Guest its illegal. Host illegal being jail time, illegal being a fine . Guest the legal response to marijuana use is relatively muted. They have for stories about some kid who ended up spending real time for marijuana use. That rarely happens. If someone is in custody for marijuana use is usually the result of a plea bargain or some kind of history where the judge was concerned about Public Safety records for other reasons. For example if you look at inmates serving time with marijuana charges most people would say if you look at their histories the history of the typical marijuana user in a prison has a stronger history of violence than serving for a violent charge. If you are marijuana user made it into custody there was more going on than just marijuana use. We tend to have laws that treat marijuana differently from other drugs. Often in it could be a penalty or fine. Host Angela Hawken teaches Public Policy at pepperdine. She consults for the u. N. And the state department. Cspan2 book tv this weekend. Friday night at 8 00 eastern with books on marriage equality, the obamas verses the clintons, and the autobiography of former mayor of washington. Saturday at 10 00 p. M. Eastern bobbled board interviews former counsel to president nixon on the watergate scandal. Sunday afternoon at 5 00 at the remarks president and ceo of the new york public why barry said lead on the librarys past, present, and future. Book tv, television for serious readers. Tony dokoupil recovers Marijuana Legalization talks about his father who smuggled more than 50 tons of marijuana into the United States between 1975 and 1986. This is about an hour and 15 minutes. Out his father who smuggled more than 50 tons of marijuana into the United States between 1975 and 1986. This is about an hour an minutes. [applause] okay. Im going to go first. And have an assistant [applause] i have an assistant that is coming in here with some more notes so i wont stand on that. I remember when the store was open in the early 70s. I havent been back here very much but park slope, we came out here in 1968 and bought a house 50 yards away on the other side of paul menos. This old irish lady was holding out for 40,000. [laughter] we got her down five grand, something we could afford. And then i left 20 years later having raised a family here and so its really good to be back. Writing a book about drug dealers is very alluring. A lot of people do it because you are dealing with people unless you were doing with methamphetamine dealers or heroin dealers whose product is a lot more lethal they are basically an entertaining lot. While they know there are drugs they dont really think what they are doing is wrong. Selling stuff to people who want it at a market price. Its only harmful if you overindulge. Sean licker next door which we used to call sean liquor and he would not only deliver liquor but he would deliver cash money and he would give him a check. He would cash the check, give your liquor. [laughter] i just left his son a note to say hi kevin i think his name is. Do you still deliver cash to houses along with liquor . But these guys feel very clever about themselves. Not only because they made a lot of money but because they really enjoyed their cat and mouse game with the police which is automatically usually very fun funny. They go on until they are caught but its a lifestyle that to them is as addictive as if they were putting something into their arm. And very few of them get out of it safely. Very few of them graduate to normality. Take my guide george who was the protagonist of blow, he was free and clear of the law when he and i got together and 91, 92, two years. He had been blacked out for testifying against carlos later. He wasnt out on any condition. He was sentenced to 60 years. They just let them out so he was given this incredible get out of jail free card. So we talked, but the book came out i think in 93. George got bored. He went throughout the tv shows and everything and theres nothing george could do that would engage him anywhere near as much. He couldnt do anything. He was never employed other than a manual labor when he was a teenager. So we had found this yucky indian import oforiatta whom he had smuggled pot within the 60s. He went back to ramon in 1964 and they started smuggling pot again. He got arrested right away for 600 pounds in his basement on the cape. He was behind a false wall. Didnt know how he got there. [laughter] the prosecutor waived the book in the courtroom, blow and said this man has followed the law his whole life and the judge in 1994 gave him 22 years straight up. He was 52 years old and he did every penny of it. Hes getting out in may. He missed the movie. He missed everything. Johnny depp came to the prison to learn the koran does bostons workingclass accent that is probably the actors bane of any accent. They went up there to give he and his wife a special showing of blow blowing everything but george missed the whole thing. It will be out i think its ma may 28 out of fort dix federal correctional institution. Ive lost touch with him in the last several years but he has a web site. He has a lot of people waiting for him out there. He has signed on with one of these piranhas in hollywood who will guarantee you we are going to do a lot with you george. You are going to be famous and he has for a while. Something is going to happen to him. So anyway, georgia 72 and he has had a cancer operation on his forehead, a melanoma but i think hes okay. So he is out in 72. Seller author tonight, he also knows somebody who stuck with it a long time, his old man. So this is his first book and just reading the bio, is certainly an impressive career. You have heard some of it but some of it that i thought was interesting was he graduated from gwu in 2003; lobby. He graduated first in his class. I have never known anybody, i have never known anybody who graduated first. Hes very embarrassed about that im sure that they went to colombia for american studies and he found his way to Newsweek Magazine when it was connected with the daily beast. Even before that when i was connected to the american mainstream. [laughter] right. My memory is hazy in that. And what interested me about it is he is a traditional jack of all trades reporter. I mean they are not around much anymore. He has written everything from a 10,000 a day corporate psychic to the last surviving veteran of world war i. The only in baltimore who adopted a white girl. We didnt fact check that. Thats an assumption. No other black fathers have come forward with a white daughter. I cant newsweek when they started and i broke from colombia journalism and they started dropping their fact checker. The checkers i interviewed, smith is the editor and said well yeah i know but a few mistakes here and there. On the cover they misspelled garry wills name on the cover of the magazine. Where was i . Black father, oh yeah. Portrait of a reclusive author of the anarchist cookbook back in god knows when and one of the more effective exposes of scientologist l. Ron hubbard. Hes a Senior Writer at nbc news lives with his wife and two children. And another one just around the corner . Thank you bruce. [applause] thank you all for coming. A lot of people in the room have been aware of this book for a long time. Its behind schedule. Fortunately behind schedule. I was supposed to turn it into years ago and legal weed was not here. I think much of the conversati conversation, people wouldnt be as interested in the book if they werent able to buy the stuff in washington now. Where do i begin . I will give you a summary of the book which is something i gave a lot of thought to. I just created the daily News Headlines from sunday. In the printed edition it was 50 tons of trouble. 50 tons was the number of poundage of weeds that my father brought in but the on line headline got a little more space. It managed to encapsulate the whole story. How a genius drug lord who peddle tons of pot became a destitute deadbeat dad with a habit. [laughter] that encapsulated perfectly. It shouldve been my subtitle but i didnt put it on there. Bruce brings up an interesting point about the feeling that drug dealers in the 70s and 80s had about themselves and was an incredibly oceanic self satisfying feeling particularly the marijuana dealers. What made it possible for me is that my old man began getting into open up about his past is i could hide behind a reporters notebook and reporters notebook and read it until they squirm a fatherson story which i did squirm a bit, i was able to tell a bigger story about outlaws and the last kind of Great American outlaw the gentleman smuggler, the gentleman dealer of that era. How did it become such a person . Unlike a knockoff prohibition where people were happy to imbibe that the gangsters were providing the boos were a different social class and considered to be separate in the 70s when marijuana explosions when marijuana exploded as a drug and incredible explosion, right, the dealers were of the same social class. You were getting it from your college roommate. You werent getting it from al capone or a gangster or a killer. This was a dramatic shift. It created a really adjusting alliance between the smokers in the dealers. Eugene debs, you probably know this some sort of political leader in the 30s. I dont know. [laughter] first in her class . Theres an actress next to the first in a class. It was a business school, come on. He said Something Like when a soul is in jail no man is free and marijuana smokers in the 70s felt like when the dealers in jail no smoker is free. So they deified these guys. If you were able to provide marijuana by the pound in mexico you were an absolute hero. In high times which is now a weird blend of rap music and gardening tips, it used to be a magazine. [laughter] its an incredibly bizarre magazine now. It was founded by one of these are relic smugglers and it did for marijuana would Rolling Stone did for rock and roll. It had huge feature stories on grand scores and wonderful adventures and it talks about the contraband elite flying in that dope air force. If put out board games where you could beat the dealer and score and monopoly cards would be doled out and he would get your comeuppance or score big. So to enter this lifestyle was incredibly alluring. My father was 24 years old in 1970 when marijuana use was taking off. In 1967 to give you an idea, 5 of college kids according to gallup had tried marijuana. By 1970, 45 had come incredible growth and by the end of the decade one in five adults that smokes in the last month. It was the peak of marijuana use in this country. We are not there yet. We are heading there. My father wanted to participate in the show. He did it first with mexican marijuana and then in the middle of the decade he was thinking well, i made some money, i have a teaching degree. I can substitute maybe i will get out. Jimmy carter came along and jimmy carter as often forgotten is very promarijuana. He ran on a platform of legalization. He nominated a drug czar to Petition Congress to pass a law to decriminalize marijuana. I think carter himself stood on the floor of congress in 1977 and had famously no drug should have a penalty thats worse than the drug itself. Front page news so of course my father was like im on the ground floor of something gigantic. So he doubles his input. He starts driving winnebagos full of weeds out of key west enthusiastically looking to grow further into the country. And then shortly after carters famous speech that christmas in fact this is an amazing moment in drug history and it changed my fathers life and change my life by abstention. Carters drug czar peter bourne decides, im not sure why but he decides to go to the Christmas Party thrown by deleting Marijuana Legalization lobby company grown by a townhouse in washington d. C. You walk in and he can see to the roof. Its a wild party. There are trace of joints being passed around. There are lines of cocaine as long as i in 95. There are jugglers doing psychedelic tricks with lights and the leading, the man in charge of Drug Enforcement in america walks into this party. Not only does he walk in but the rumor starts to spread and it turns out its not a rumor peter bourne wants to do cocaine. Peter bourne would have been a hippie psychiatrist always liked cocaine wanted to decriminalize it also so he said lets go upstairs and we will do some cocaine. He goes to the top for this townhouse and in full view of two writers from high times for Washington Post reporters and the founder of the first Marijuana Legalization lobby he does a one and one which is one snort of cocaine in his right nostril and one sort of coke in his left nostril. Its called a bullet. Just a twist and a twist. And so the story holds. Unbelievably the story holds for six months. And then he makes the mistake of writing a prescription for qualoods which were known as a drug for hourlong sex sessions. The press gets ahold of that and they start digging more and they go from two friend on Good Morning America the story breaks. Drugs are does cocaine at pot party. Everything america had progressed towards in terms of progressive liberal drug laws completely collapses. Jimmy porter declares a war and marijuana in my fathers life has completely changed. He still driving winnebagos out of the u. S. But Public Opinion shifted and here comes ronald reagan. He could have gotten out that he didnt. And then there was a second moment much later in his career in 1986 where he had reached his own benchmark for moneymaking if he said he wanted to make a million and it made a million and you want to make 2 million then he got to 3 million and really he has nothing. The job was successful and 15 years after starting realizing he was qualified for nothing else at this point he made an offer to sit tight. I was in a private school in a nice home we had a mercedes with the cool boat and took vacations. In 86 he still around. He comes home to us and hes retiring. We have an ethic Retirement Party in st. Thomas on a chartered yacht built for 15 people. There were 12 of us on it. Fresh fruit and red snapper fillets. Comes back to miami where we are living and all he has to do is nothing. Just nothing and hes incapable of it. Just like george yonnet sounds like. Something about entering into the business either at the beginning or in the process of becoming successful that boils the mind or something. You become incapable of certain point of doing anything else. The alarm goes off and it echoes down the decades of life and you cant go forward on a regular constrained existence and you have to do something else. You are really lucky in that you had your source in your family. Yes, lucky and not so lucky. My father was a funny sort because when i first found him, he disappeared from my life when i was 10 and i didnt know anything about the marijuana. I knew my parents were hippies and there were rumors of marijuana. So the party in the caribbean was when you were 10 . That was when i was six but in between six and 10 my father went in search of the high that wasnt dealing. He became an ethic user himself. Not of marijuana. Many drug dealers selfdestruct in socalled retirement but i think he was looking for selfdestruction. All the Escort Services and miami refused in business. It was a pretty big flameout. When i was 10 was one of reagans task force is caught up with one of my dads rings. Incredible melodrama. My stepfather told my father to high tail it out of the state. An unusual wrap up. On the one hand he was a great source because hes my father and he was willing to come in but on the other hand hes my father so he is not willing to go into the all the details. At first i had to poke them with a stick to tell me all the stuff. Im interested in young. Was he somebody who immediately caught in to the idea of being worldfamous . Well yes if you had offered him that option he would have certainly snapped it right out. I applaud george for 1200. Better quickly explain that. [laughter] well, its all very logical. There was a writer for Rolling Stone howard cohen. Howard khan was pretty wellknown back in the 80s. He wrote that Karen Silkwood book. He wrote a wonderful piece and a book thats not as wellknown on his fathers farm in michigan. But he had found george and george was testifying against carlos later in the late 80s. He was going to do georges story. George was very accessible. In the middle of this the irancontra scandal erupted and howard wanted to do blow. He was so outraged. He wanted to do a book on morality. So here he had george. George had written his own sto story. A small part of it was true. It was this big fat manuscript that have a lot of stuff in it. So he was starting with that and but then he was seized with this vision of morality in the government. That was the time so his agent was my agent. So he called my agent and said well ive got to do this story and ive got george here. Is there anybody that might be ingested. Sarah called me up and so i dont know. George is living on the cape. He had gotten free of prison. He had gotten his deal for testifying against carlos. He was free. There was a woman who would take care of his two pack a day camel habits plus twos tours a day. That was never with george when he did not have a bottle of doers that day. I went out to see him and we got along fine. Hes a very gregarious. The movie doesnt paint him anywhere near as gregarious and funny as he is. Hes a person when it comes into the room everybody turns and says george is here. So we got along well and so i told my agent that yes i will take them over. We wrote a book proposal and it was successful so we paid howard cohen 1200. Any idea how howard cohen feels about the movie . Ive talked to him since. He wished me very well. He never wrote his book. He was very gracious. I made a lot of them he said so i didnt feel bad. But these guys are very easy to approach. So i had to make a deal with george. Being a journalism professor im always challenged on making deals with the people you write about. You are partnering with them. And as a matter of fact when the book came out there were several reviewers, one in particular wrote the boston globe very angry that there was a deal. That i gave george money, gave him 100 a day plus expenses for all the time he was with me. He had a part of the movie. We didnt know there was a movie but i had them all signed up. So i think they reviewers said you know the guy is a reporter. Why dont you tell your students at columbia about paying for stories and doesnt that compromise the whole thing and what you do about that . I said youre absolutely correct. It compromises the whole situation and heres how i deal with it. One, if there is no other way to get the story and you want to do the story than you would pay. Then pablo came out. There was this well, he is talking to george. This guy who delivered a new presence who has been an informer. In the polls of his 45 and should some in the head. George said at that point he felt the told petra and i would wait here. I couldnt check that. There was no new way i could find out. It certainly seemed in character but. So that is the only thing. So that was the i wrote about it. Because i wanted to do it. I tried to check everything. It certainly is a constant subject for discussion. Of the way i got around the problem of having many sources, all of whom were happily sideways during the years in question was to take my fathers point of view as the one i would go with it but i went with the written record followed by my fathers memory. If he didnt remember and there was no written record at what with the most plausible. Bjorn so a great person to have here tonight. His character is someone who my father would have looked down upon quite dramatically george began as of marijuana smuggler and transition to cocaine. And this was something that most people did because to make money you could make a Million Dollars of what you could fit into a backpack. It was like smuggling pixie dust with marijuana to make that same Million Dollars you needed a ton of extremely pungent plan matter. It was like smuggling elephants into the country. And so to stick with that when you had this very easy source of revenue on the side you had to be passionate about what you were doing in your head to look down on cocaine. So the defining characteristic of this particular character i tried to highlight and that my debt represents, the defining characteristic is marijuana is peace and love. We are parents to find the government that has a silly prohibition. Cocaine, that is the sole killer. We will bring that into the country. We will use it like bags of flour. [laughter] honestly. One line at a time. Thats for sure. As soon as he heard about it. I mean, speak the herbalists launcher, you know. Marijuana when, you get into trouble with the judge once. He could not see what the problem was. Transporting of plant across an imaginary geographical line. But he was i remember him saying to my he went and he got caught for marijuana. His mother turned amend the. For sure. I talked to the fbi agent who arrested him 1972. And george b. , part of his interested, the psychodrama of his life. I mean, i identified with it. At a lot of similarities. A father was use the denigrated by the mother. The father was raised upper cut in georges eyes as a loser. He could not make it in the oil business. The mother, this is outside of boston. The ad kneels in boston were quite prominent. There was nobody here old enough to remember. The preface clubs was donna kneele. You were raised in the 40s and 50ss. That is what he turned on the morning for radio city and to seek the she was fooled by him. So she played him his whole life. And she which talked to george as the paradigm of success, his fathers brother who was a commander in the navy, an officer. Would put his sword over the fireplace. Would put dollar bills on the Christmas Tree and give everybody end of these elaborate presents. At the airport. They thought he was george. The cocaine smuggler. He wasnt. He was the august commander, retired commander. So i asked the fbi returned in george, who call to. Was it the mother. He said, no, not directly. So the mother called the article called the fbi. That is the way i interpreted that. A lot of confusion in the life of these drug dealers, particularly the big ones. People in the media during the 70s and 80s were very interested in covering drug smugglers. Running operations that were of military precision. That narrative camino, runways and militia. They have in tow equipment. When they are the equal to the american military. Journalists love the story. The American Government loves the store because the American Government is using a ridiculous amount of technology to pursue these individuals. One clip by keeping my desk at work from 1982. The news brief. And says of a boat carrying a small rock ohara warcraft colluded coastguard and Navy Destroyer and four jet fighters for 27 hours on fried apply. Can you imagine that . So and be when that person gets caught they got that far. In florida so many bills of marijuana got tossed overboard as a result of idiocy, that captain john bad and the pursuit of the cops. People would reel them in with rods and get skirt grouper. Cops seldom. So when you were doing your boat you would go and answer to your father in a room . Well, we went on a little road trip. My father felt quite hard and ended up the petitioner in cambridge. He went to prison for marijuana smuggling but never face charges for tax fraud. He still is saw the Social Security for is front companies. So he lives in Public Housing in boston and your Social Security check the increase savings of as on an unfunded some of its troops. We went to miami, new york, check topic. It was entertaining because he had to cut he conducted himself like a guy with 5,000 in a spoof. He walked through the palace hotel and the possibility of the place. But he was wearing of thrift store polo shirt with blue of the sludge in the front. Had a happy face sweat stained. Wearing gloves. His toes littler exhibit from an archeological dig. Everyone is polish. He has more presence than any of them because he is operating in the realm of memory. As one moment in particular were rare at the plaza. Cahuenga always trying to cool their heels from walking in central park. Applause a dozen like that. They immediately give you a menu n. Y. U. To order a 6 diet coke or get out. They did that to us. My father immediately west the menu back to the waiter and said , we wont be having any today. Jenny looked down the nose of the week and a waiter skirting. Then there was another. One of my fathers Favorite Hotels in new york city was the park hotel overlooking one of the last private green spaces in the city on the east side lower east side. End he went in there and it had just undergone a quarter billion dollars overall. It did everything. And the New York Times reviewed it and said it was absolutely grand. My father walks around like it was a ruined car. And then as were walking out he looks at the chandelier and gives it the middle finger. That isnt real crystal. It turns out he was right. It was cast resin. He knows his chandeliers. You were looking your father was so soft george was hard to travel with. He was a football player. Big shoulders. This ready beatles hair cut. Just hung down he usually had a Brown Leather jacket. So he looked like something, somebody who should be under arrest. Plessey had this incredible alcohol addiction. He had stopped cocaine. He never took any cocaine. He never really had the interest scotch was his best friend. So our deal was the once he started drinking scotch he was just impossible. He would get belligerent. He would get stupid. He would that he would get threatening to strangers. So i made a deal with him that he could drink beer. Were going to do this, this is going to be a famous book and movie making millions. Youre going to drink beer. That said. He could drink 10,000 years. Are you covering his expenses . In for a nickel and for a dime. And for a diamond for dollar. Yap. I covered everything. So he could drink beer all day long. The moment he started belly of to the barn. Double doors water back. He talked in this crowley voice. Doubly threatening. I knew that the day was over. But we at that point had not eaten anything but when we traveled all over. We had not eaten anything, whether it was down in the bahamas of florida are mexico are california. The cape, where real went. So he would start. We would pick up a restaurant. We would go into the restaurant. By now and george had maybe three or four double dewars water back please the maitre d, you know, some of this one out in a minute. This guy was trouble. He approached george. George said, excuse me sir. We are all for their beautiful. All these have the tables. Youre gonna let me in here or i will reduce is poised to matchsticks. And so we get kicked out. And we would have to go to some little Chinese Restaurant somewhere in some alleyway. I started going to restaurants earlier. I would not tell georgia was going. I would at least try to get the bread tray down before george bush showed up. A major deal would go like this and we get kicked out. So he was and remember a particular wanted to get in. He was put in prison in mexico enduring go. This was an interesting experience because being in a mexican prison i have done a lot of work for the Ford Foundation. This was an interesting experience because being in a mexican prison because i had done a lot of work for the Ford Foundation and prisons and i was interested in prisons. Ive never been in a mexican prison and they are supposed to be horrendous and everything. I wanted to go down there so i called the warden in advance and said coming down. This guy was there. He was very agreeable. Come on up so we were in moscow on going up the coast and george with his everlasting good judgment got thursday and stopped by. We stopped by the road and there were some kids selling this really evil looking fluid and george says and 15 minutes later, i dont feel so good. He passed out. I had to dump him in the hotel in basel i and prisons are kind of interesting on weekends they bring out the hibachis and cook chicken. Their girlfriends, and. The music and guitar. And it seems very good. But i imagined what went on if he made enemies or something else, there was absolutely no official protection. Anyone. Very interested in making marijuana dealers, unbelievable he wrote geniuses, ceos of pot. All kinds of these crazy headlines. And so did general story, there is no sunset. I dont think that exists. The experience, the corona enterprise in general. You dont get into it this plane and their something about the glory. Coeval. And that was a journey that these guys signed up for. So not, at the end. There were like, funk. We need to get, because otherwise we are one hand clapping. A tree falling in the was with no one around. We want to fa we need to get caught because otherwise we are one hand clapping and a tree falling in the woods with no one around. We want to be famous. We want to be known, so there is a magnet. These guys were drawn to absolute ruin at the end. And even if you just pick at the old media stories you can find the bumbling part of the narrative. Journalists work really hard to foreground the amazing characteristics of some of these guys and then therell be some little detail they cant hide that gives it all away. There is one particular a guy named bruce who said was the biggest dealer on the west coast. He worked for four years. He had a failed tropical plant business, and actual tropical plant business in florida before he went west west. Then he tried a yoga studio on that failed and then he became the captain of a pot navy and all this crazy stuff. After four short years he gets busted and how does he get busted . Oh by the way the best part was he had an electrified stairway in his his house and he built a special security chamber. He left his notebook with all of his contacts in dannys. [laughter] after all that. Thats like the steakhouse of marijuana. It could happen to anybody really. Should we open it up to questions . Yeah. Im sure we covered everything so no one has any questions. What is your dad think about the book . My dad read the book and called me and had a long list of things he wanted to say and they were all really small things. It was like you know you misspelled bail on page 206. [laughter] so bale. Yeah ive got it now. I have other problems with grammar and he was building to something significant. He finally gets around one minute before we hang up to this point and he was like tony i dont think you got it. What do you mean . You didnt get my appetites. There are not enough hookers in the book. 100 accurate but including a five sum that was not sufficient for him for true documentary accuracy. What is your mom think of the book . She said i feel like i want to throw up. She supported the bug and has been generous with her time. She went to some dark places in recapturing the story for me but now that its out she doesnt want to look at it. She doesnt want any part of it. She is confused herself how she willingly participated in such a life for so long. I read a sociologist longterm ethnography of the california dope scene which is the same as the east coast dope scene and it has this profile of an old lady ak mom and my place and i think at the end of the ethnography the woman felt confused and wanted to throw up also. My mother also is a character type. She dug up some of his cash and put it toward my education. She has some property on the islands. Im just kidding. [laughter] shes fine now. Any other questions . I heard you on fresh air. You said something a little bit more about your dad and his retirement and i know who you are talking about. The ones who choose to continue a retire and places like that. And your strikes me as very resourceful. You really described him getting into it at the right time when the pendulum was swinging that way. The same scene rings true now. Might dad is the same age, not quite the same situation but my two closest friends one dad was a bank robber and also [inaudible] and the other one is a carpenter. Thats the thing, if you choose those places is kind of a resourceful choice. Is also consistent with the ability to see yourself from the outside. You have an internal narrative that is semantic and you are giving stage church and so yourself. What is a great setting and a gracing . Harvard. Im going to clap from the grass on spring day and watch the girls go by. Thats what they did. There are a lot of resources around for people too. There are restaurants and not necessarily certainly urban, partly but if you have readings. With probably have one with us here tonight somewhere. I dont want to embarrass anyone. [laughter] any other questions . How much was your father aware of the politics at the time and how much was he aware that in retirement and how that influences career . He was extremely aware of the politics. It was a dead giveaway that you were a drug dealer. He was aware of the politics and acted directly in response to them. In the present he was walking down the street recently and a guy with a clipboard trying for legalization and massachusetts came up to him and he enthusiastically contributed his signature. Then he went to the quaker meetinghouse again the resources and had circle time every wednesday. He told the story about signing the petition for Marijuana Legalization. My father went to the Old Folks Home and try some extremely powerful modern marijuana im like the stuff he was bringing and andy said it brought back all the old memories. He thinks legalization is the final confirmation of his heroic lifestyle. Him and everyone else who kept marijuana in the country with when the government was trying to push it out are the self described rosa parks of legalization. [laughter] you said you have this kind of lecture is lifestyle before all went south and you didnt really have a sensible is going on even after he left. What did you think about bringing in that lifestyle . What is your sons . I thought my father bought and sold and developed property in vermont, which he did. He had a great Housing Company there and paid three carpenters and the master woodsman guy who would do all sorts of wonderful stuff. They sold the property. There are People Living in houses that were completely constructed out of drug money. Wind got too much of a hassle and no longer was on the job front anymore he would get a job for a guy trying to start a boat company. The book Company Still exists and my fathers friend is the vice president. He got a charter boat license and i thought that is what he did too. Kids dont know. You can lie to your kids. They dont know a lot. I didnt know he was a largescale drug dealer until i became a father myself and i decided to get to the bottom of my father. I said no more rumors. Im a journalist now and i can find out things. I did a local search for Court Records and i found a cocaine possession charge. Then i called the National Archives on a longshot archives keep 1 of the documents that the American Government produce in the stories that americans want. Ised the of the criminal records of Anthony Edwards dokoupil and they did. They sent me his indictment which was page one through 14 of what was 100 something page file. It was three overlapping of all his friends and that i knew. I called my mother and i said i have got this interesting document here. What do you know about that . She was flooded with emotion. We were going to tell you. [laughter] what had she told new . Nothing come of zero. I heard my folks talking about their drug use and i knew they sold a little bit but a kit assumes anything their parents are doing this kind of pathetic. Im a young kid. Im a teenager and in my 20s when they talk about it in my assumption is my parents are dealers. What did your father run away from . He just left. It was consistent with his general leaving. I thought we moved from florida from miami to maryland because we were afraid of hurricanes. [laughter] and in fact the real reason was because my stepfather and my fathers other partner had a long proffer session with the new england Drug Task Force on a beach in Fort Lauderdale and it laid the whole story out. Three indictments came down in the aftermath of that and more than a dozen guys and my stepfather was like we should move. We should go. We didnt tell anyone on my fathers side of the family where we were going. That tweet actively lied. We said we are going to tallahassee we went to maryland and i never saw them until the engine that was born in and my grandmother got sick and someone googled me. If you are interested, heres your fathers address. How do you feel about him as a person . Was he your hero and what were your emotions . When i was a kid all fathers to matter how pathetic they are and that being heroic. Then when he left my image of him was an addict so i internalized societies view of an addict which is extremely l low. So when i found out he was a drug dealer for other people that would be a crushing blow that to me is hes not just a drug addict, hes a dealer. Hes a criminal, awesome. [laughter] what about now . What about now . The key moments of his lifeline up perfectly with the key moments of history of marijuana in this country that it seemed as though he could not possibly have made any of their decisions. Theres a certain inevitability that takes over when i lay his story out. It feels like there could be no other way. So i understand and to understand is to forgive. Ive been watching the wire lately. Ive been watching one through three now and its supposedly an accurate portrayal and i dont know if you have seen the wire. What is it . An accurate portrayal of guns that were brought in and distributed in baltimore. David simon was a former reporter for the baltimore sun. I mean, do you find that because these two stories dont really jibe with that whole the wire, the police catching people on wiretaps and all these sorts of you know drug buys and Police Informants or criminal informants and all that sort of thing. So im just curious or thoughts on that. Well two points. The wire, they are dealing crack and heroin, right . Is a categorically different kind of animal involved in that business. I dont know much about how it works really but a different individual gets involved and also on the Street Corner level i have no idea what happens there because georgia think was bringing it in. This had nothing to do wit with at all, ever. They were very high up in the wholesale business. He didnt know, other than some of the guys he would hire from boston mob to help protect him, oh and there was where he was and am very and he was given this class on black kids to teach and they werent going to accept any of his teaching to get a ged and he told them on the side that they would teach them how to smuggle if they would get their ged. George did not want to get thrown out of the school but now, this level has nothing to do with the wire. I dont think they asked themselves the question. My father actually was the guy. His partners would bring it in the sailboat and if they load was eight times he would call a guys to take a ton of a ton of peace and where we go after that no one would know. No one pays up front for the entire bale or the entire fonts of the money washes back and when it washed back in small bills he would get excited because it was straight money. That enduser is like music or getting laid. What precipitated your stepdad telling on your dads . I havent read the book yet. So, and 86, the gang decided to one do one last job and have a huge job. Everyone got rich and they were all supposed to go off
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