Reviews
Journalist Barcott (The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird, 2008, etc.) goes on a long, strange trip to document the changing fortunes of Big Dope.Fortunes is the operative word: There's plenty of money to be made in the marijuana business, and there are countless variations that can be found in the industry trade shows the author pops in on at various points in this engaging book. As he observes, it was the days of Richard Nixon that saw both a sharp upswing in prosecution for drug offenses and a loosening on the edges of various hemp-related crimes. Even in places such as North Carolina, not everyone bought Nixon's call for the death penalty for dealers, and several states "passed laws that made the possession of small amounts of pot legal or, at worst, a minor infraction." The pattern holds today: In Barcott's two case studies of Washington state and Colorado, possession and use of pot are legal, and the federal-state divide looms very wide-even as the public perception of marijuana is radically changing, such that in 2013, 58 percent of the respondents to a Gallup poll favored legalization. No stranger to on-the-ground research, the author secured a medical marijuana card, and he takes readers on a grand tour of dispensaries, potions, tinctures" and his own blown mind: "When you absorb more than 40 years of messages about the horrors of marijuana, walking into a dispensary where it's all on display, without shame or fear, can be an utterly disorienting experience." Yet, silly title aside, Barcott's book is entirely earnest. As the author notes, the feared explosion in crime has not happened in those test-case states, but its opposite has, while instances of racially based injustice and needless prosecutorial expenses have fallen dramatically. Will the rest of the country follow suit? To judge by Barcott's useful book, you'd do well not to bet against it.-- Kirkus Reviews ""Weed the People"...did provide an engaging look at the flux we are undergoing today."-- Bellingham Herald/Bookmonger "In engaging, well-reported vignettes, Barcott undergoes with the reader a kind of parallel self-education... By the end of his persuasive and surprisingly inspirational account, Barcott is again an occasional smoker who can separate his bourgeois habit from the unwashed hordes at Hempfest."-- Seattle Weekly, Journalist Barcott (The Last Flight of theScarlet Macaw: One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird, 2008,etc.) goes on a long, strange trip to document the changing fortunes of BigDope.Fortunes is the operative word: There's plenty of money to be made in themarijuana business, and there are countless variations that can be found in theindustry trade shows the author pops in on at various points in this engagingbook. As he observes, it was the days of Richard Nixon that saw both a sharpupswing in prosecution for drug offenses and a loosening on the edges ofvarious hemp-related crimes. Even in places such as North Carolina, noteveryone bought Nixon's call for the death penalty for dealers, and severalstates "passed laws that made the possession of small amounts of pot legalor, at worst, a minor infraction." The pattern holds today: In Barcott'stwo case studies of Washington state and Colorado, possession and use of potare legal, and the federal-state divide looms very wide-even as the publicperception of marijuana is radically changing, such that in 2013, 58 percent ofthe respondents to a Gallup poll favored legalization. No stranger toon-the-ground research, the author secured a medical marijuana card, and hetakes readers on a grand tour of dispensaries, potions, tinctures" and hisown blown mind: "When you absorb more than 40 years of messages about thehorrors of marijuana, walking into a dispensary where it's all on display,without shame or fear, can be an utterly disorienting experience." Yet,silly title aside, Barcott's book is entirely earnest. As the author notes, thefeared explosion in crime has not happened in those test-case states, but itsopposite has, while instances of racially based injustice and needlessprosecutorial expenses have fallen dramatically. Will the rest of the countryfollow suit? To judge by Barcott's useful book, you'd do well not to betagainst it.-- Kirkus Reviews
