WEED: Adventures of a Dope Smuggler

A hustle -- but it scores. Kamstra -- who has a curious combination of a head's ethereal sensibility and a pusher's street smarts (although he claims never to have been one) -- started smuggling mote between Mexico and California in the early '60's when the traffic was still easy, before hippie dudes overran the scene, before the Texas Syndicate organized in a big way and before the U.S. cracked down with Operation Cooperation (until then the Mexicans shrewdly left our problem to us). The tawdry side to the dope culture, economically complex (in the mid-'50's a kilo -- 2.2 pounds -- could be had in the interior for $2; this year the wholesale price is between $35 and $100, retailing in, say, San Francisco for up to $500 a pound) and relying on tight connections up and down the line (from the campesino who grows it in virtually inaccessible mountain fields to you -- if you're so inclined -- rolling a joint). Sharpen your machete to get through the ten-foot weeds here -- then sit back and toke some Acapulco Gold. Definitely not for the anti-pot lobby, though.