The Weed Runners

June 10, 2013
Since the legalization of medical marijuana in California in 1996, a lack of uniform regulations has made the business climate for dispensaries tempestuous to say the least, and in some cases individuals who trade in illegal drugs or have ties to organized crime are best poised to take advantage of the new market. Investigative journalist Schou (Kill the Messenger) spent three years studying these pioneers, nearly getting arrested himself on more than one occasion. He calls the quilt of local rules and enforcement “a nightmare where nobody benefit,” except corrupt officials. Possession limits have “fluctuated wildly” and penalties are “ever-changing,” while a popular municipal strategy has been to allow the number of dispensaries to skyrocket before passing an ordinance retroactively, charging extortionate licensing fees and pursuing lengthy prison sentences against the owners and employees of any businesses that don’t pay up. Conversely, the veneer of legality is only skin-deep—one licensed grower admits that he sells 95% of his crop on the black market, and admits that “medical marijuana is… a marketing term.” While the vignettes are entertaining, the book was written before a massive crackdown decimated the industry in California, and before Colorado and Washington unexpectedly voted to legalize recreational marijuana. In a brief epilogue, Schou warns smokers and entrepreneurs in those states. Agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

July 15, 2013
A portrait of a popular proposition running afoul of federal drug enforcement agencies. When OC Weekly investigative journalist Schou (Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love and Its Quest to Spread Peace, Love, and Acid to the World, 2010, etc.) began his research, medical marijuana had been well-established as legal in California. As a result of Proposition 215, which legalized the use and possession of medical marijuana, dozens of workers at hundreds of local dispensaries were employed, large windfalls in taxes on transactions at marijuana dispensaries were collected, and people with all kinds of ailments were medicated across the state. By the end of Schou's investigation, medical marijuana's legalization was under severe attack from federal and local governments intent on returning to the status quo, when lines were starkly drawn between law enforcement and the underground cannabis economy. Schou's investigation showed that the tensions between law enforcement and "legal" marijuana growers and distributors in California had never truly abated in the decade since the pioneering proposition passed. Anti-marijuana politicians and district attorneys had (with some reason) suspected all along that "medical marijuana" provided an excuse for longtime drug smugglers and dealers to grow their recreational weed businesses under the color of law. One of the most fascinating characters in Schou's story is Lucky, an entrepreneurial dealer and distributor with a state-of-the-art pot farm in the state's Emerald Triangle; his involvement in the weed economy goes back to the early 1980s when he ran with the son of a Mafia don. But Schou also looks at many of the victims of the federal crackdown, people who have tried to comply with often draconian (and corrupt) local laws because of their sincere belief, often from personal experience, in the medicinal powers of marijuana. Occasionally scattershot but valuable look at the way California's medical marijuana law and the crackdown against it have affected people of all walks of life.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 1, 2013
The term weed runners, conjuring images of moonshiners, is really an anachronism. Today's weed runner is a businessman who dispenses a legal drug whose customers all have a documented medical need for itand if you believe that last bit, we've got some trainwreck we'll call Purple Urkle and sell you at inflated prices. Although this is a story of a perfectly legit businessthe growing and dispensing of marijuana for medical purposesit has elements of the drug's more disreputable history (scams allowing many to obtain marijuana under misrepresented circumstances). Focusing on the last few years, which have seen big changes in the ever-more-legitimate marijuana industry, Schou tells the story by looking at its players: the Big Kahuna, owner of a medical-marijuana collective (with 30 employees and health insurance for all); Racer X, a delivery driver for the Big Kahuna who later became manager of his storefront dispensary; and Steele Smith, a highly vocal marijuana activist and tireless self-promoter. Readers expecting a Hunter Thompsonesque account of pot dealers may be surprised: this is, ultimately, a business book (although one written with panache).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)