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. what's 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 doesn't 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 can't 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: it's 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. she along with three other co-authors "marijuana legalization" what everyone needs to know, maru -- marijuana legalization.info if you would like to go to the web site. >> tony dokoupil who covers marijuana legalization for nbc news 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. [applause] >> i have an assistant that is coming in here with some more notes so i won't stand on that. i remember when the store was open in the early 70's. i haven't 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 it's 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 don't really think what they are doing is wrong. selling stuff to people who want it at a market price. it's 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 it's 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 wasn't 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 there's nothing george could do that would engage him anywhere near as much. he couldn't do anything. he was never employed other than a manual labor when he was a teenager. so we had found this yucky indian import ofori-atta 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. didn't 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. he's getting out in may. he missed the movie. he missed everything. johnny depp came to the prison to learn the koran does boston's working-class accent that is probably the actor's 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 it's ma may 28 out of fort dix federal correctional institution. i've 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 he's 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. he's very embarrassed about that i'm 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 didn't fact check that. that's an assumption. >> no other black fathers have come forward with a white daughter. >> i can't "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 exposés of scientologist l. ron hubbard. he's 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. it's 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 wouldn't be as interested in the book if they weren't 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 should've been my subtitle but i didn't 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 reporter's notebook and reporters notebook and read it until they squirm a father-son 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 weren't 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 don't know. [laughter] >> first in her class? >> there's 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] it's 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 pro-marijuana. 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 that's worse than the drug itself. front page news so of course my father was like i'm 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 carter's famous speech that christmas in fact this is an amazing moment in drug history and it changed my father's life and change my life by abstention. carter's drug czar peter bourne decides, i'm 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. it's 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 it's 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 let's 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. it's 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 hour-long 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 father's 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 didn't. 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 he's 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 he's 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 can't 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 didn't 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 wasn't dealing. he became an ethic user himself. not of marijuana. many drug dealers self-destruct in so-called retirement but i think he was looking for self-destruction. all the escort services and miami refused in business. it was a pretty big flameout. when i was 10 was one of reagan's task force is caught up with one of my dad's 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 he's my father and he was willing to come in but on the other hand he's 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. i'm interested in young. was he somebody who immediately caught in to the idea of being world-famous? >> 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, it's all very logical. there was a writer for "rolling stone" howard cohen. howard khan was pretty well-known back in the 80s. he wrote that karen silkwood book. he wrote a wonderful piece and a book that's not as well-known on his father's farm in michigan. but he had found george and george was testifying against carlos later in the late 80s. he was going to do george's story. george was very accessible. in the middle of this the iran-contra 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 i've got to do this story and i've got george here. is there anybody that might be ingested. sarah called me up and so i don't 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. he's a very gregarious. the movie doesn't paint him anywhere near as gregarious and funny as he is. he's 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? >> i've 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 didn't feel bad. but these guys are very easy to approach. so i had to make a deal with george. being a journalism professor i'm 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 didn't 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 don't you tell your students at columbia about paying for stories and doesn't that compromise the whole thing and what you do about that? i said you're absolutely correct. it compromises the whole situation and here's 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 couldn't 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 father's point of view as the one i would go with it but i went with the written record followed by my father's memory. if he didn't 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. that's 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 george's 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 40's and 50's's. 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 father's 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 wasn't. 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 70's and 80's 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 o'hara 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 won't be having any today. jenny looked down the nose of the week and a waiter skirting. then there was another. one of my father's 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 we're walking out he looks at the chandelier and gives it the middle finger. that isn't 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. we're going to do this, this is going to be a famous book and movie making millions. you're 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. you're 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. and i was interested in prisons. i had never been in a mexican prison. they are supposed to be horrendous. so are called the award. this guy was there. very agreeable. come on up. so we're were going up the coast and george with his everlasting good judgment got thirsty and we had to stop by the road. there were some kids selling this really evil looking fluids. and george, 15 minutes later, i don't feel so good. so he passed out. drives up to the rego. i really wanted jurors there. turnout these mexican 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 don't think that exists. >> the experience, the corona enterprise in general. you don't 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 be famous. we want to be known. even if he does pick up the old media storage, the bumbling part of the narrative. journalists work really hard canadian basic characteristics of some of these guys. and then there will be some little detail checks. forty years. a failed tropical plant business and that an actual tropical plant business in florida before he will west. and then he became a captain of the pot navy, fortune 500 of pot and all this crazy stuff. he got busted. how did he get busted to back by the way, he had an electrified stairway in this house of build a special security chamber. the odyssey eventually get up and stellar temecula in his notebook with all of this context. [laughter] >> my debt read the book and he called me and he had a long, long list of things you what a sick. you know, a mist on page 206. you know. a think he got it. i did. not enough workers in the book. [laughter] apparently five scenes with workers was not sufficient for have. in for true documentary accuracy >> what is your bond think of the book? >> she said -- she supported the book and has been generous with her time, the issue went to some dark places in recapturing a story for me. now that it is out should does not want to look at it breezy doesn't want any part of it. she's confuse yourself how she participated in such a life for so long to read the sociologists long-term iconography of the california doe the scene which is basically the same as the east coast hubs in. it had this profile. the iconography my mother of it's a it certain character type. i love her, and she raised me in the absence of my father and dug go saw this cash and put it tore my education. so any other questions to back. [inaudible question] place very source vote. the way you describe and getting into it the the not quite the same situation. by two closest friends apparently an uneasy. >> with that's the thing. >> is also consistent with the ability to see yourself from the outside. an internal narrative that is cinematic. it's like giving direction to yourself. one of the great scenes, unblock us from going to wash up. think about the past. that is what they do. >> a lot of resources for people restaurants. a is this then there's that. but necessarily every community readings. or we have all lost of regular with us tonight somewhere. adelle want to embarrass anyone. >> aware of the politics of the time? be retirement. how to influence. >> he was extremely aware of the politics of. : ascribed to it. a dead giveaway as you were charged either. he was very aware of the politics and reacted in direct response to them. he was walking down the street recently. a guy with a clipboard try to usages for legalization and massachusetts came up to have. it brought back all the old memories. legalization is the final confirmation of his rosa parks of legalization. anyone else to back. >> you have this kind of luxurious lifestyle. he did have a sense of what was going on the u.s. after. what did he say was that laughs out? your sense of how your family worked. >> by father bought and sold and develop property and vermont which did. kaythree curvatures bid to all kinds of amazing stuff people living in vermont are now been completely constructed out of drug money. just leave money but make clean money come out. and then when the cut too much of a hassle the judge about for a guy trying to start a boat company pleaded still exists. and so he got a boat. it was a great pope. he got above lessons. i thought this would lead to it. in no, kids don't know. you can lie to your kids. they don't know. they don't know what happens. >> he was a regular. >> i did not know he was a large-scale drug dealer until i became a father myself and decided to get to the bottom of my father and no more robbers. of a journalist now. confined of things. i did a local search for records and found a cocaine possession charge. and i call the national archive of a long shot, 1 percent of all the documents that the government produces. they sent me his indictment. page one through 14 of what was 01 under something page file. three overlapping indictments of all of his friends. then i knew. i called my mother and said i have this interesting document here. what to you know about that. flooded with the motion. regard to tell you. i had heard talk. the drug use. like it assumes that it's just kind of pathetic. so i am a young kid, a teenager, in my 20's when this is being talked about. my assumption is that plans are not actual ton level marijuana dealers. it would be preposterous paribas >> he just left. it was consistent with his generals is leaving. and i thought the -- i saw women from maryland to florida to miami to maryland because we were afraid of hurricanes. in fact a real reason was because most of father and my father's of a partner at had a very long proffers session with the new england for taskforce. the little story about. three indictments came down we should go. we did not tell anyone. we lied. we went to maryland. the internet was born. my grandmother, someone google me. if you're interested. >> howdy will but that? we will feel like you're here. what about your emotions? >> more than our fathers to but no matter how pathetic they are. and then when he left, and internalize society pushing extremely low. so when i found out he was a drug dealer, for other people that would be a crushing blow. from the it was amazing. he's a criminal. awesome. using said. what about al, now i understand. i mean, the key moments of his life. it seemed as though he cannot possibly. and a certain inevitability that takes over when i lay his story out. here is like it could be no other way. to understand is to forgive. >> watching the wire and lately. i mean, i have been watching it is supposedly an accurate portrayal breed i don't know if you have seen it. but an accurate portrayal baby brought in and distributed pitbull and dave simon was a former reporter please do you find -- these two stories don't really jive with that whole wire police catching people on wiretaps and all these sorts of drug buys and police informants in that sort of thing. and just curious your thoughts on that. >> well, two points. i mean, they are dealing crack and heroin. so categorically different kind of animal involved in that business. i don't know much about how it works really. it is a different individual that gets involved. also on the street corner level i have no idea what happens there. george was. it -- >> george never tell what -- this had nothing to do with those of all ever. they were very high up in the wholesale business. he did know where -- other than some of the guys you would hire to protective he never noon. he was at ten very. he was care in this class of black kids to teach. they were not trying to except any of his teaching to get a ged people decide that he would teach them how to smuggle if they would get their gigi. it was air conditioned and there. jurors is not want to return of the school. but on this level that has nothing to do with the wire. >> i don't think my father was the guy in that tall grass. he would be there to receive it. if the load was eight times he would call eight guys. a ton of peace. where it went from there he had no idea. the money, no one pays up front. so the money washes back. when it washed back in small bills my father would get excited. he had some conception of the end user but the he was doing marijuana. that end user is writing music ended late submitted. >> your. >> so in 86 the gang decided to do one last job predicted a huge job. everyone got rich debate and they all were supposed to go off at live private lives. my father and his supplier, the most prolific smuggler of the reagan era to he did one more jobs with them all bring he used to be involved and, boston guys to and then he disappeared. well, that ring in boston, they had a low shot. eventually the irs notice that all the loans were going to friends and family. they get busted. they get indicted for marijuana sober. so that al qaeda was like a boy who is a supplier. we want to find an. in portugal. and who living it up and a big coastal community. he had a for a. he was driving fast all around the place. the could not find him for a long time. in the court records are all these references. what did they say? will lau less they one of. they don't know areas. but eventually the local authorities are like a boy who is this correct go with a ferrari. this guy is an idiot. identify him successfully plead he gets busted at the dentist's. the put him in a portuguese jail. his girlfriend is pregnant. he does not like jailed. the plus to the prosecutor flies over and says talk and we will be you out of your. okay. all talk. he comes to the states and caused my stepfather who is the level of other and actively father and me. he says -- he calls our house and asks my stepfather to be for a drink. so he's out and ordered to turn someone else. most of the other coast of the bark. i busted. of cooperating. you should too. here's the phone number. they're is a film. above cannot do this. and then making the stuff out, he says i wasn't going to do it but they said there are going to break down the door and take you put you in foster care bust your mother. i got it right the guys are going to be safe at that agree to talk. >> a step that was a popular? >> yes. >> i did not know that. [laughter] craigslist the father was the island guy. there were able to get it but had no market. they get together. there were like a way to we need each other. >> city know anything about it said ted? >> no. i didn't know there were partners. you told me? i don't remember who told me. some government source told ed and i confronted loss of father about it and the $8 to is that he told me the euros story. he said go to the bar. his is a west virginia. coach of the party get the papers of and you'll see indeed i got immunity for you. i saved you guys. he drinks like george allen. it's not right and half of the house. d'agata paper. a comeback the fancy letterhead a lead in league with drug enforcement task force to the big leap signature from the unsecured call the last of father was protected. who. >> have a private school. >> unfortunately i was there long enough to landry. >> the same sources. the process. >> i mean, i had their names. they have to give testimony special agent david farley comes to the stand and lace up the whole architecture. he was quoting dillon constantly tearing his life. he was blessed in fort lauderdale

Related Keywords

New York , United States , Miami , Florida , Canada , Temecula , California , Iran , Vermont , Boston , Massachusetts , China , Portugal , Colombia , Georgia , Michigan , Washington , District Of Columbia , Bahamas , The , West Virginia , Mexico , Fort Lauderdale , Netherlands , Colorado , Hollywood , Uruguay , Maryland , Cambridge , Cambridgeshire , United Kingdom , Ireland , Poland , South Africa , Polish , America , Canadian , Chinese , Mexican , Portuguese , Irish , American , Scientologist L Ron Hubbard , Angela Hawken , Jimmy Carter , Dave Simon , David Farley , Al Qaeda , Howard Cohen , Peter Bourne , Ronald Reagan , George Allen , Johnny Depp , States , George Bush , Howard Khan , Jimmy Porter ,