Weed

Green, Hardback, Green Spine "WEED", "Adventures of a Drug smuggler" in white text.

0060122528

United States and Central America

Adventures of a Dope Smuggler

1st Edition

267

364.1'57

HV5805.K35A3

8.5" x 6" x 1"

Good

RARE 1ST EDITION: JERRY KAMSTRA WEED MARIJUANA SMUGGLER MEXICO PSYCHEDELIC 1974

WEED : ADVENTURES OF A DOPE SMUGGLER
By Jerry Kamstra
Photographs by Eugene Anthony
Published by Harper & Row, New York
*****RARE VINTAGE 1974 FIRST EDITION*****
This book is a HARDCOVER in very good condition with front and back endpage maps of Mexico marijuana producing areas and with 267 pages with glossary plus another 32 pages of vintage black and whites photographs of marijuana marihuana cannabis plants, growers and areas.
The dust jacket is also in very good condition with some light edge wear mainly on the upper top front, side and back, of the dust jacket.
CONTENTS
Preface
The Border
The Road
The Mountains
The Coast
Glossary
FROM THE COVER == Jerry Kamstra has been smuggling marijuana from Mexico into the United States since the early 1960s. In 1966, while smuggling 200 kilos of mota (the choicest part of the marijuana plant) into Arizona from Michoaca, he was arrested by U.S. Customs. He was sentenced to two years in the federal penitentiary. His sentence was suspended and he was placed on five years' probation.
Sometime thereafter, while Kamstra was living in San Francisco, he was approached by Life magazine to take one of their photographers, Eugene Anthony, into the heart of Mexico to do what no gringo had ever accomplished-to go up into the mountains where marijuana fields flourish and to photograph them and the campesinos who tend them. The offer was too attractive for Kamstra to reject, although he knew the journey was fraught with danger. He sneaked out of San Francisco to avoid his probation officer and returned to Mexico.
This highly readable book is about marijuana and marijuana smuggling but it is also about Mexico itself. What started out as a simple photographic expedition turned into a major smuggling operation involving a ton of marijuana and the hair-raising means- ocean and air-used to bring the weed into the States. This absorbing story reads like an adventure novel-but it's all true.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR = Jerry Kamstra was born in a mining camp in a shack buried under thirty-five feet of snow. His father, a Dutch immigrant, made his living as a hard-rock miner. His mother was the daughter of a fruit tramp, Nettie Cody, a distant relative of Buffalo Bill Cody.
By the time he was fourteen, Jerry had broken his arms eight times and had read every book in the Colton Public Library. He has traveled in Mexico for over fifteen years, spent time in every state, lived with the growers in the mountains, and knows all the back roads. Since then, he has worked as an abalone and salmon fisherman, construction worker, trucker and marijuana smuggler.
Jerry Kamstra is the well-known American author and poet and a member of the beat generation, he is most widely known for his novel of the top-selling books Weed: Adventures of a Dope Smuggler and The Frisco Kid which details his experience living in North Beach in the 1950s, at height of the beat movement, among many other literary achievements as a poet, editor and publisher. He is a designer, artist, lecturer and educator. He lives in Santa Cruz, CA.
MARIHUANA , LSD , Hashish , HASHEESH
REVIEW == Life magazine approached Kamstra with a proposition while he was on probation for smuggling 200 kilos of weed: take a Life photographer (Anthony), and journey into the heart of Mexico and photograph it's marijuana fields and the "campesinos who tend them." The offer was too attractive to Kamstra, so he split San Francisco, avoiding his probation officer. This volume represents their journey
REVIEW == J.K., long-time-weed-smuggler, tells his story of making a documentation for the LIFE mag. on Mexican weed and how it makes his way up north. Lively written this book provides a whole bunch of information on weed, Mexico and Mexicans in general and history of both.
His story ends up with buying a whole Marijuana-field in the mountains of Guerrero and how it is harvested and brought to the states. A must if you're into smoking, Mexico, traveling or just having fun reading exciting smuggler-stories.
Jerry Kamstra weaves a fascinating tale of what was involved smuggling marijuana over the Mexican border in the 1960's, and touches on his own views of Mexican and American culture. This is a must read of fans of Hunter Thompson.
REVIEW == This book is fantastic! This author actually became a smuggler to finance his monthly bills for the purpose of allowing him time to write a book. Coincidentally the book he wrote was about his smuggling heritage.
He is a phenomenally gifted author to begin with. By choosing to write about what he knew best, he delivers a tale that is rich and compelling. It gives the reader a sense of the dynamics of a smuggling operation but, more importantly, it brings to life the farmers who are simply trying to earn a living and feed their families.
It's a real story told by a real person with real life concerns and needs. It's worth every penny you spend to buy this book.
REVIEW == 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 1960'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-1950'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.