The Drug War’s Berlin Wall Is Down And So Is My Local Forest: Here’s The Connection
I’m on my yucca-framed porch swing sipping an organic Orange Julius and watching an 8,500-acre wildfire creep towards me here on the Funky Butte Ranch. Shrug. Just more climate change era chaos. I can smell and in fact feel the heat from the blaze already. Its light ash snowfall accumulating on my napping dog rather powerfully conveys the message that I’m on 41 acres surrounded by a huge ponderosa pine campfire eight miles away. My role is something like a putative marshmallow.
You can’t be a reader of these Dispatches and not realize that I’m at heart an optimist. Sure, my thinking goes, if general visibility decreases to below the official Forest Service benchmark level of “teacher’s lounge,” I will have to evacuate, for the sake of my human kids’ lungs (what to do with my goat kids is another question).
On the other hand, breakfasting to the sight of a massive smoke wall boiling over my eastern butte has a lot going for it. For one thing, how many times can one say one has so breakfasted? (It’d be my second climate change evacuation, actually, the last in Alaska 15 years ago.) Also, it vastly reassures me about having awakened today, rather than to the usual hummingbird wing alarm clock at the bedside window feeder, to an altogether more motorized aerial assault underway in my remote New Mexican valley.
This explanation was literally the bright side of potentially becoming a refugee; of temporarily abandoning the moment-to-moment silence I often describe as my health plan.
Readers of TOO HIGH TO FAIL will know why that is. It’s because the last time this many planes and choppers encircled my valley, it was to raid my AARP member neighbor for cultivating his own herbal medicine – about a dozen cannabis plants. This prior to the launch of New Mexico’s state medical cannabis program, which would today make my neighbor’s garden totally legal.
Forget about the hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars that went into that day’s cartel-ignoring Operation Annoy a Retiree Minding His Own Business. It was only the Drug War that brought automatic weapons (instead of the usual coyotes) to my riverbed, putting my family in danger. That, in fact, was what spurred me to write TOO HIGH TO FAIL, whose paperback release I’m now announcing. So to see federal aircraft employed for something other than Drug War assaults reinforces my feeling that we, the American people, are winning this one.
I’m remembering the research for the book, conducted from the front lines of North America’s longest war in 2011, with fondness. In examining a locavore approach to the post-Drug War economy in California’s famed Emerald Triangle, following small farmer efforts to brand themselves as Napa did with wine, I learned a lot about what sustainable family agriculture is. This (sustainable family agriculture) is the kind of industry you particularly tend to support when your homestead is imminently threatened by the “hundred year weather events” we seem to get on alternate Thursdays here in the Land of Enchantment these days.
Another way of saying this is that my final reflection on the irrefutable Drug Peace majority that has emerged nationwide and worldwide in the past year is: it will be terrific for the planet if the peace dividend from the end of the trillion dollar Drug War boondoggle includes putting independent, community-based farmers back in the field and sustainably bringing a multi-billion dollar industry aboveground. From what I’ve seen from Hawaii to North Dakota to Kentucky, America is ready.
I say this with confidence. I was far to the optimistic side of the punditsphere when, in TOO HIGH TO FAIL, I declared that the fall of the Drug War’s Berlin Wall was imminent. But I confess it seemed a no-brainer from the Emerald Triangle cannabis fields and strain development barns that I was studying. So as a result of stating the obvious (I mean, polls were already showing solid and growing majority support for medical cannabis in places like Kentucky, Illinois, Florida and Missouri) now I’ve become a go-to cannabis pundit because a producer can slam dunk a pitch with, “He predicted this.”
I’m not complaining. Forget about the heartland, the tipping point toward the Drug Peace now extends to the top of the old media hierarchy. I mean, you tell me. I would characterize the deciders at the Washington Post Company as accepting if not endorsing the inevitability of cannabis legalization by allowing me to publish this essay last Sunday entitled “Five Myths About Marijuana Legalization.” In fact, they assigned it.
I even got to talk about hemp in that ditty, which is what my next book, coming out later this year, is about. More on that in a future Dispatch. Same with my new syndicated Drug Peace Bumblebee column. One thing at a time.
And here’s the one thing at this time: I’d so love it if you’d use this note to help me launch the TOO HIGH TO FAIL paperback pre-order with flair. (Not Office Space flair. Stephen King pre-order flair.) I’d so appreciate it if you’d broadcast this missive through your social, professional and familial networks. The link to order is: Amazon
Specifically, I think it’ll take about 100,000 paperback pre-orders to convince my editors to issue a commemorative and forest-saving hemp edition of the book next. So you can help change policy while laughing at an in-the-field description of the Drug War’s final battles. Also there’s a fun new afterward in the paperback edition about the peace dividend we can look for when our worst policy since segregation finally ends. Seems like when a great nation makes its occasional blunder, it really goes for it. Gets it out of its system.
OK, thanks as always for your support. It’s so appreciated here on the possibly soon-to-combust Funky Butte Ranch. A strong launch helps me as a writer, but, more importantly, ending the Drug War will immediately have a direct impact on my life: It’ll keep automatic weapons out of the riverbed in which my children play.
Oh, yeah, the TOO HIGH TO FAIL paperback release live event tour is on. I’ll hit New Mexico first, then the Pacific Northwest and Arizona, then California. East Cost and Midwest dates are shaping up. Check out or book events at: http://dougfine.com/events/.
With more thanks than you can imagine, more thanks even than you might think necessary, but I believe there’s never too much appreciation,
Doug
Funky Butte Ranch, New Mexico
P.S. This Dispatch gives you a lot of opportunities to link to the Amazon page for TOO HIGH TO FAIL, including the e-version, and these are absolutely great, but I’d be remiss not to remind folks who live near actual bookstores (remember those?) that such are a terrific option also. And there’s Barnes and Noble and Books a Million, too.
TOO HIGH TO FAIL MEDIA
Conan O’Brien: http://dougfine.com/media-appearances/
New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/books/review/too-high-to-fail-by-doug-fine.html?_r=0
Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-legalizing-marijuana/2013/06/07/9727eac4-c871-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html
C-Span/Book TV: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/TooHi
Book Talk: http://www.mendocoasttv.org/CoastCurrents_23.html#featured
Daily Beast: http://www.thedailybeast.com/videos/2012/08/12/too-high-to-fail.html
MSNBC: http://tv.msnbc.com/2012/12/08/is-the-war-on-drugs-finally-going-to-pot/
Huffington Post Live: http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/506b11f002a76025c20003e7
Salon: http://www.salon.com/2012/11/01/marijuana_prohibition_hanging_by_a_thread/
BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19336816
ReasonTV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI22wehAl7Y
Doug Fine’s DRUG PEACE BUMBLEBEE Column: Syndicated by Alternet, each week, the author of Too High to Fail pollinates the Drug Peace Message via meetings the world over with cannabis-friendly folks from all walks of life: http://nationalcannabiscoalition.com/2013/04/the-drug-peace-bumblebee/
REVIEWS OF DOUG FINE’S TOO HIGH TO FAIL
“Fine has written a well-researched book that uses the clever tactic of making the moral case for ending marijuana prohibition by burying it inside the economic case.” -Bill Maher in The New York Times
“Fine examines how the American people have borne the massive economic and social expenditures of the failed Drug War, which is ‘as unconscionably wrong for America as segregation and DDT.’ A captivating, solidly documented work rendered with wit and humor.” –Kirkus (Starred Review)
“A well-researched journey into the world of legal cannabis farming and a funny, maddening account of [American] farmers’ travails under federal persecution on an island of legality.” –Outside
“In his entertaining new book…(Fine) successfully illuminates an unusual world where cannabis growers sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to (friendly law enforcement) while crossing their fingers against the threat of federal raids. This informative book will give even hardened drug warriors pause.” –Publisher’s Weekly
“An important book.” -Michael Pollan
Comments
Rick G says:
June 14, 2013 at 3:03 pm
Doug I heard you on Coast to Coast, saw you on C-Span and read you in the Washington Post. Loved it all. I’m ordering five paperback copies of Too High to Fail now not just because this war needs to end but because you’re such a fascinating writer. And funny. Thanks for everything. Can’t wait to read.
Sonja L says:
June 14, 2013 at 3:39 pm
Every time I read something from you it truly moves me, and makes me want to stand up and help fight the good fight!!! C’mon, let’s get to those 100,000 pre-orders of the “Too High to Fail” paperback edition — or more!
OrgoCowboy says:
June 14, 2013 at 4:08 pm
You blessed people are going to make this Too High to Fail paperback pre-order goal a reality! Thanks beyond words. Order, help bring about the Drug Peace and, let us hope, a hemp edition at: http://www.amazon.com/Too-High-Fail-Cannabis-Revolution/dp/1592407617/ref=tmm_pap_title_0/187-2766050-7350558?ie=UTF8&qid=1330625413&sr=1-1
RA in Virginia says:
June 27, 2013 at 4:27 am
Doug- you’ve made someone who thought she wasn’t interested in drug policy realize how vital it is, to Americans and the world. Thanks for writing Too High to Fail. I’m doing what I can to make sure everyone orders the paperback edition.
OrgoCowboy says:
June 27, 2013 at 4:30 am
I love hearing that, RA. Thanks for keeping the paperback orders coming. Now back to the wildfire.
Dan D says:
June 27, 2013 at 1:28 pm
Doug, what you write, your style, syntax, and razor-edge wit is unparalleled. Translated into contemporary post-college babble: you write books like an Earth-loving, literary badass. And because of that, I wanted to formally thank you.
Marie says:
June 29, 2013 at 2:29 pm
I’m loving reading about your adventures in the southwest New Mexico desert. Way to go. Thanks and I’m trying to pace myself as I make my way through your books and Dispatches!
OrgoCowboy says:
July 14, 2013 at 5:01 pm
Your support is nutritious for me, Dan and Marie — I’m jamming on deadline for my industrial cannabis (hemp) book (working title: King Seed) coming out on hemp paper in February.
Charles says:
July 15, 2013 at 5:56 am
I just finished Too High to Fail last night — been reading it all across Alaska. Sorry to see it end. Can’t wait for what’s next. Thanks.
Alan says:
July 15, 2013 at 5:37 pm
Doug, you are putting out some mighty fine work. You doesn’t parse
words and know that of which you speak.Emily says:
July 22, 2013 at 4:03 pm
Thank you for all the work that you do raising awareness about this amazing industry. It’s time to end prohibition!
Chris Whiteman says:
August 20, 2013 at 9:44 pm
Hey there,
A friend of mine sent me “Too High to Fail”. Well done! After reaching the end and reading all 3 epilogues (haha) I was hoping to see the next report already out. This industry is gaining a lot of momentum toward legitimization and things are moving fast as you noted in your your final report of the book. You did a fantastic job of researching and writing this book. I hope the book is successful enough to warrant another issue in this ongoing chronicle.Helen Williams says:
August 25, 2013 at 4:03 pm
Doug, having lived in Ukiah for 27 years and raising my 3 now grown children there- reading your excellent book was a lot like a trip down memory lane. I now reside in Oregon. I think it would be very beneficial for you to put a note in the front of the book that this is not a book that should be read casually, or part way. This is a book that demands every page from the Authors Notes to the very last page be read.
I am 60 years old, my husband is 62- we see the benefits of this invaluable herb on a daily basis. From our 42 year old friend dying of ALS, to our friends who served in IRAQ and still wake up with terror nightmares from the bomb that took the lives of his friends, to the Vietnam Vets with back pain from multiple unsuccessful surgeries. The list could go on and on- I am getting involved by going to Salem, writing letters to my officials – even to President Obama- and coming out of the closet with my professional friends in my business as well as my community volunteerism. Please keep up the good work and the good fight! Enough is enough! STOP THE INSANITY! Thank you for your excellent journalism.Zach says:
October 16, 2013 at 5:53 am
Wow, what a great read! I devoured this E book style via kindle and a iPad. To suggest you have a grip on emerging industry would be the understatement of the year.
It’s refreshing to hear so many of these growers refer to themselves as farmers first, stewards of the land first, capitalists second. Who knows where this industry is going, the edible side alone is huge and the surface has only been scratched.
One thing I would hope you could delve into further are what are the advantages of making going green, well green? For example how does plain jane hemp compare as a biomass material to switch grass or other high yield materials already in use? How about hemps use in various building materials? I could see a book in that already. I’ve been told, but have no verification of, that hemp fiber based cloth and or cordage is prized for its ability to not mold and rot like other natural fabrics., there’s another article!
Good luck in the future and will do the occasional Google search to see what your upto as well as visit your page.
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