WEBVTT - Rivers, Rifles & Rollers 0:00:08.245 --> 0:00:14.685 School of Humans. Okay, so it's the late eighties and 0:00:14.765 --> 0:00:18.565 the Reagan's new minimum drug sentencing laws are in place, 0:00:18.965 --> 0:00:22.005 and the nation is swept up in an anti drug 0:00:22.165 --> 0:00:25.965 just Say No fever. Thanks to First Lady Nancy Reagan, 0:00:27.045 --> 0:00:31.845 my pot smuggler dad has experienced his biggest smuggling success 0:00:31.845 --> 0:00:34.805 followed by the biggest rip off of his career. So far, 0:00:35.685 --> 0:00:39.605 He's doing primarily smaller local deals and fruitlessly waiting for 0:00:39.645 --> 0:00:43.325 the Green Beret grifterer to clean and return Dad's foolishly 0:00:43.485 --> 0:00:48.365 entrusted money. I'm headed towards high school and into the 0:00:48.445 --> 0:00:51.525 rhythmics the Indigo Girls in comedy, watching a lot of 0:00:51.565 --> 0:00:54.725 old Saturday Night Live with Gilda Belushi and the Cone Heads. 0:00:55.365 --> 0:00:59.045 At the same time, my mom's friend's family gets into 0:00:59.085 --> 0:01:04.245 a smuggling trip that goes terribly wrong. My parents had 0:01:04.245 --> 0:01:07.325 a good friend younger than them who were calling the kid. 0:01:08.005 --> 0:01:10.245 He was a carpenter and built my dad a custom 0:01:10.325 --> 0:01:13.485 case for his pot weighing scales, which my dad used 0:01:13.485 --> 0:01:16.965 to carry the scales in for local deals. Well, in 0:01:17.045 --> 0:01:20.325 nineteen eighty eight, the kid and his brother, mister High 0:01:20.725 --> 0:01:24.085 get busted bringing in thousands of pounds of pot via 0:01:24.125 --> 0:01:28.565 Oregon's Columbia River. The kid calls my dad in a panic. 0:01:29.005 --> 0:01:32.325 His brother's been busted, headed to prison, and instead of 0:01:32.445 --> 0:01:35.245 joining his brother in prison, the kid's going to flee 0:01:35.365 --> 0:01:40.645 the country with his wife and child. So the sister 0:01:40.805 --> 0:01:44.325 of these busted brothers lived across the street from the 0:01:44.325 --> 0:01:47.045 house I was born in. Remember that hippote hobbity house 0:01:47.045 --> 0:01:50.765 with a secret room. So I've known the sister of 0:01:50.765 --> 0:01:53.605 the busted brothers my whole life. She's in the rock 0:01:53.645 --> 0:01:56.045 and roll industry, and I went to school with her kids. 0:01:57.085 --> 0:01:59.725 Like the rest of the family friends I've recently discovered 0:01:59.725 --> 0:02:03.365 were also smugglers. Had no idea that this former neighbor 0:02:03.445 --> 0:02:06.845 and mother of my school friends was also involved in 0:02:06.925 --> 0:02:12.685 pot smuggling, albeit peripherally. We'll call her Grandma Bella because today, 0:02:12.805 --> 0:02:16.045 after years of working in San Francisco's rock and roll industry, 0:02:16.445 --> 0:02:20.045 her favorite job as being a grandma. As her grandchildren 0:02:20.125 --> 0:02:22.965 romped in the garden, I spoke to Grandma Bella about 0:02:22.965 --> 0:02:28.005 the abrupt and catastrophic finale to her brother's pot smuggling careers. 0:02:29.605 --> 0:02:33.325 In today's episode, we learn about the traumatic, real life 0:02:33.405 --> 0:02:38.245 ramifications of the Reagan administration's drug laws as more smugglers 0:02:38.285 --> 0:02:41.605 in our family circle were sent to prison or fled 0:02:41.645 --> 0:02:46.685 the country. I'm Rainbow Valentine and this is disorganized crime 0:02:46.885 --> 0:03:16.965 smuggler's daughter and grooving far country boden Gan State making 0:03:17.085 --> 0:03:31.685 it up. As part of this podcast is the history 0:03:31.685 --> 0:03:33.565 and the laws changing and what happens. So it's the 0:03:33.605 --> 0:03:36.845 eighties that the law had just changed two months earlier, 0:03:37.285 --> 0:03:40.565 and with my mom talking to Grandma Bella. Grandma Bella 0:03:40.685 --> 0:03:43.885 is my mom's friend whose two brothers were busted smuggling 0:03:43.925 --> 0:03:48.925 afghany pot into Oregon via the Columbia River. They had 0:03:48.965 --> 0:03:51.685 it all set up. It was a boat on the 0:03:51.725 --> 0:03:55.765 Columbia River, and that was when paranoid sisters said, are 0:03:55.805 --> 0:03:58.005 you sure you should be doing this? With a new 0:03:58.085 --> 0:04:01.845 drug plaw changes and then my only applies to cold 0:04:01.965 --> 0:04:06.645 So all these guys who've been dealing in bat for 0:04:06.685 --> 0:04:09.605 all these years thought that it was nothing and that 0:04:09.765 --> 0:04:12.205 only the crack people and so forth we're going to 0:04:12.245 --> 0:04:15.605 be getting in trouble. A drug bust is the seizure 0:04:15.685 --> 0:04:19.765 of illegal drugs by law enforcement. And after this bust, 0:04:20.165 --> 0:04:23.165 Grandma Bella's role is to get her mom out of 0:04:23.205 --> 0:04:26.605 Portland and bring her back to Mill Valley. Her mom 0:04:26.645 --> 0:04:29.245 was staying in a rental apartment used as a safe 0:04:29.245 --> 0:04:32.245 house for the trip, which means the apartment was filled 0:04:32.245 --> 0:04:36.845 with all sorts of evidence of the trip, including paraphernalia, receipts, 0:04:36.885 --> 0:04:41.045 and so much more. And whoever rents the safe house 0:04:41.285 --> 0:04:44.485 could also go to prison for five to ten years. 0:04:45.525 --> 0:04:48.605 The last thing Grandma Bella wants is for her senior 0:04:48.725 --> 0:04:52.085 citizen mom to join the rest of the family in prison. 0:04:52.765 --> 0:04:56.965 My mother to Portland and used her house, her apartment 0:04:57.525 --> 0:05:00.925 as a meeting place. So my mother's apartment is full 0:05:00.965 --> 0:05:05.285 of all this name of the boat stuff and just 0:05:05.525 --> 0:05:07.965 do you name it? So my mom is kind of clueless. 0:05:08.005 --> 0:05:12.725 She thinks it's cool because she smokes pot, doesn't think 0:05:12.765 --> 0:05:16.405 anything of it, and she thinks that it's a wild ride. 0:05:16.445 --> 0:05:19.325 And before by the time I see her again, she's 0:05:19.365 --> 0:05:23.765 talking like a pot dealer. Grandmabella's mom is defiantly resisting 0:05:23.885 --> 0:05:27.405 moving back down to Mill Valley. She has no idea 0:05:27.485 --> 0:05:30.445 that she's in jeopardy of being busted as well, and 0:05:30.525 --> 0:05:34.285 she's being totally uncooperative against her will. We're packing her up, 0:05:34.325 --> 0:05:37.325 and I'm determined that we're going to get every single 0:05:37.365 --> 0:05:40.485 thing out. So I'm going through books. Sure enough, there'd 0:05:40.525 --> 0:05:42.965 be a plane ticket, all this kind of stuff. And 0:05:43.045 --> 0:05:49.005 she's mad at meanwhile, and so I made my sister 0:05:49.125 --> 0:05:52.285 and my sister in law stamp all night. I'm like, no, 0:05:52.485 --> 0:05:54.605 you're not going to bed. Nobody's going to bed. So 0:05:54.765 --> 0:05:59.565 this is clean, and I mean clean. I just was 0:05:59.885 --> 0:06:03.005 petrified from my mother. So we get it all done. 0:06:03.125 --> 0:06:06.005 We've got everything ready. The guy with the from Mill 0:06:06.085 --> 0:06:09.325 Valley has arrived, ready to take her stuff. And by 0:06:09.365 --> 0:06:12.205 that time I've sort of got her convinced you've got 0:06:12.205 --> 0:06:14.445 to leave. Mom. She goes, oh, wait a bite. There 0:06:14.525 --> 0:06:16.645 is one more space that we forgot to get to him. 0:06:16.725 --> 0:06:21.325 Right outside her apartment is a storage area. So we 0:06:21.445 --> 0:06:23.845 go outside to the storage area and none of us 0:06:23.845 --> 0:06:26.525 are tall enough to get the stuff. So this guy 0:06:27.165 --> 0:06:32.645 from upstairs, her friend, comes down and down falls this 0:06:32.725 --> 0:06:37.765 big thing of rifles, yep, rifles, and possessing these rifles 0:06:37.845 --> 0:06:41.245 could add nine years to the sentence of anyone who 0:06:41.285 --> 0:06:45.645 had just gotten busted, which could be almost twenty years 0:06:45.805 --> 0:06:48.685 in prison. And they all have the name of the 0:06:48.685 --> 0:06:56.605 boat up gets funny, Hey, this is what I'm talking about. 0:06:56.685 --> 0:07:01.005 So they're antique guns. And the reason that they are 0:07:01.085 --> 0:07:04.805 not on the boat is because they got rid of them. 0:07:04.805 --> 0:07:06.205 But they didn't want to get rid of them because 0:07:06.205 --> 0:07:09.845 they're value. The first thing is I said, gotta get 0:07:09.965 --> 0:07:12.685 rid of these, mom, so you gotta do it. Ill 0:07:12.765 --> 0:07:14.805 I'm not gonna do it. Why the hell should I 0:07:14.845 --> 0:07:17.205 have to do it. I didn't make this miss And 0:07:17.285 --> 0:07:19.645 the guy who's supposed to be driving her stuff back goes, 0:07:19.685 --> 0:07:22.925 I'll take them, Like your idiot, you can't take them. 0:07:23.485 --> 0:07:25.805 They're part of a crime thing. You want to go 0:07:25.845 --> 0:07:28.485 to jail. He's like, well, they're really good. What are 0:07:28.485 --> 0:07:31.765 you gonna do it for? Like, I don't know, but 0:07:31.925 --> 0:07:34.285 my mom is gonna get rid of them. You're gonna 0:07:34.325 --> 0:07:37.165 drive her and she's gonna find she knows the area. 0:07:37.325 --> 0:07:41.245 I don't. So they finally come back a few hours 0:07:41.325 --> 0:07:44.565 later and I go, great, where'd you put them? She goes, well, 0:07:45.525 --> 0:07:49.885 we just couldn't find any place satisfactory. So and so 0:07:49.965 --> 0:07:54.165 we put them in somebody's backyard under a log, under 0:07:54.205 --> 0:07:57.645 a log. It's just what Yeah? And I said, my mother, 0:07:58.445 --> 0:08:02.765 what if the people have children? What if those guns 0:08:02.765 --> 0:08:06.125 are loaded? Did you check them? No? I didn't want 0:08:06.125 --> 0:08:09.525 to touch that, But Mom, what if somebody gets killed 0:08:09.525 --> 0:08:12.085 as a result of this? You can't leave them there? 0:08:12.085 --> 0:08:15.245 Are you kidding? All right, let's go. So Grandma Bella 0:08:15.325 --> 0:08:17.925 and her mom rent a car to retrieve the guns 0:08:18.125 --> 0:08:22.805 from under the log, but unfortunately her mom forgets where 0:08:22.805 --> 0:08:26.765 the log is. I mean, Portland is an especially log 0:08:26.925 --> 0:08:31.205 abundant city. Numerous times I said, Mom, I see over 0:08:31.245 --> 0:08:35.405 there that there's another thoroughfare, another avenue. Are you sure 0:08:35.765 --> 0:08:38.285 you weren't on that avenue? What do you think I'm 0:08:38.285 --> 0:08:40.325 an idiot? Of course I was, and I tell you 0:08:40.365 --> 0:08:44.685 if I were, they're on this avenue. So finally, after 0:08:44.765 --> 0:08:47.485 we don't find them for hours, I go over to 0:08:47.565 --> 0:08:49.765 the other avenue and we find them right off the bat. 0:08:50.885 --> 0:08:53.725 Now I'm really ready to kill her. The next task 0:08:53.885 --> 0:08:56.885 is to figure out where to put the guns, and 0:08:57.005 --> 0:09:00.285 Grandma Bella decides to bury them in a hole in 0:09:00.365 --> 0:09:03.725 some back road in rural Oregon, lush with forests and 0:09:03.805 --> 0:09:07.245 BlackBerry brambles. We found plenty of deep poles. But the 0:09:07.365 --> 0:09:10.685 problem is every time we pull over to drop them, 0:09:10.725 --> 0:09:13.605 another car would go by. Who would then have seen 0:09:13.685 --> 0:09:17.765 our car and be and you holding rifles? Yeah? How 0:09:17.805 --> 0:09:21.365 can it be so difficult, and the movies it always 0:09:21.365 --> 0:09:24.525 looks like, oh, we're just gonna throw his body overboard. 0:09:25.165 --> 0:09:27.645 Everything's fine, And I was just so. We get all 0:09:27.645 --> 0:09:30.325 the way back to Portland where we'd started from, and 0:09:30.405 --> 0:09:35.005 we still have the damned bag of let's run the 0:09:35.125 --> 0:09:39.685 la car. So we we end up finding, yes, an 0:09:39.685 --> 0:09:43.765 industrial area that is nothing industrial and throwing them in 0:09:43.845 --> 0:09:52.005 a you know, the dubster. Stressed, exhausted, and cranky, Grandma 0:09:52.045 --> 0:09:54.365 Bella and her mom fight all the way back to 0:09:54.445 --> 0:09:56.965 a motel where they meet with the rest of the 0:09:57.045 --> 0:10:03.725 family to determine their next move. Now, the bust happened 0:10:03.805 --> 0:10:07.285 the day before. Grandma Bella he's cleaning out her mom's apartment. 0:10:07.925 --> 0:10:11.085 She explained to us what happened. The ship previously used 0:10:11.085 --> 0:10:14.245 for research but converted and they were to meet out 0:10:14.285 --> 0:10:17.925 in the middle of the ocean somewhere and exchange money 0:10:18.525 --> 0:10:24.045 per hash And I'm nervous, but I think, well, they're 0:10:24.085 --> 0:10:27.285 also smart, and they hired this guy who's was a 0:10:27.325 --> 0:10:31.245 professor of drama at some university to be the captain 0:10:31.325 --> 0:10:35.245 of the ship, and he's a smart guy. They're all hippies. 0:10:35.725 --> 0:10:38.805 I just need to echo, Grandma Bella. These smugglers hired 0:10:38.845 --> 0:10:43.205 a hippie drama teacher to be the ship captain, absurd. 0:10:43.605 --> 0:10:46.885 The way they got arrested was there was too much 0:10:46.925 --> 0:10:50.285 of the product, which means when the boat came back 0:10:50.325 --> 0:10:54.565 to shore they had to spend three days making extra containers. 0:10:55.165 --> 0:10:58.805 And my brother who got caught, had to rent a truck, 0:10:58.965 --> 0:11:02.845 an extra flatbed truck. He put it his own name 0:11:02.925 --> 0:11:06.165 in his own credit guard who was terrible as a smuggler. 0:11:06.205 --> 0:11:10.205 I'm telling you now, this is absolutely taboo in smuggling. 0:11:10.845 --> 0:11:15.485 Never use your real name. He knew that they were 0:11:15.525 --> 0:11:18.565 following him when he pulled out, and the way they 0:11:18.565 --> 0:11:22.125 had gotten caught was the DA and some customs officials 0:11:22.125 --> 0:11:25.165 and somebody else were coming into port. They saw the 0:11:25.205 --> 0:11:28.045 boat and the custom guy because I bet you that's 0:11:28.085 --> 0:11:31.725 a smuggler boat, and the other one said, nah, it's 0:11:31.725 --> 0:11:34.925 just a research ship. So they took a little bit 0:11:35.165 --> 0:11:38.885 and they watched it, and my brother said, you know, 0:11:38.925 --> 0:11:42.205 they were following him. He didn't know what to do. 0:11:42.325 --> 0:11:46.285 This is mister high. He had millions of dollars worth 0:11:46.285 --> 0:11:48.885 of stuff in the back of the truck that he 0:11:49.005 --> 0:11:52.405 felt he was responsible for, because he said, if it 0:11:52.405 --> 0:11:55.045 weren't for that, I would have driven a truck into 0:11:55.085 --> 0:11:59.405 the bay, into the ocean and taken my chances. He 0:11:59.525 --> 0:12:03.005 pulled over at a truck stop, and he kept trying 0:12:03.005 --> 0:12:05.885 to get a hold of the other brother. He couldn't 0:12:05.885 --> 0:12:07.325 get a hold of him. And then one of the 0:12:07.365 --> 0:12:09.885 guys came over and said, don't you think this has 0:12:09.965 --> 0:12:13.485 gone on long enough? And my brother said, yeah, late eighties, 0:12:13.725 --> 0:12:15.565 And so he went out to the truck and he 0:12:15.685 --> 0:12:18.605 gave them permission to search, which he shouldn't have done. 0:12:18.605 --> 0:12:21.165 Oh God, but they would have just gotten it. He 0:12:21.365 --> 0:12:25.765 just was sick of it too. Now. Grandma Bella's young brother, 0:12:25.965 --> 0:12:29.045 my dad's friend who built him a customed scale carry case. 0:12:29.285 --> 0:12:32.725 The kid was not on the ship when the DA 0:12:32.885 --> 0:12:36.725 busted everyone. The kid and the rest of the family 0:12:36.765 --> 0:12:40.125 were at the motel trying to figure out what to do. 0:12:41.165 --> 0:12:44.365 And that's when the kid decides to flee with his 0:12:44.485 --> 0:12:50.325 wife and kids to Central America. Meanwhile, Grandma Bella's family 0:12:50.365 --> 0:12:54.045 bonded together to try and help her older brother, mister High, 0:12:54.725 --> 0:13:00.685 with his impending trial. We hired a lawyer, we took 0:13:00.685 --> 0:13:03.525 out a huge amount of money on our house to 0:13:03.645 --> 0:13:06.445 pay for it, and his wife was going to pay 0:13:06.525 --> 0:13:09.325 us back when she sold her house, but instead they 0:13:09.405 --> 0:13:12.525 seized her house, even though it had nothing to do 0:13:12.685 --> 0:13:16.605 with the bust man. They'll get anything they can, so 0:13:16.725 --> 0:13:20.525 we went into debt just like and I learned that 0:13:20.605 --> 0:13:23.485 it is your business what your family is doing, because 0:13:23.925 --> 0:13:27.285 you pay for it too. They're not out there as 0:13:27.325 --> 0:13:30.645 an island of like, oh, leave me be, You're just paranoid, 0:13:30.685 --> 0:13:34.445 which is what the other brother liked to say to me. 0:13:34.485 --> 0:13:39.045 And no, it turns out I wasn't paranoid enough. And 0:13:39.685 --> 0:13:43.885 I mean I remember going into my Central American brother's 0:13:43.925 --> 0:13:49.165 closet and just smelling his clothes and crying, knowing that 0:13:49.245 --> 0:13:51.445 I wasn't going to see him till God knows when 0:13:52.005 --> 0:14:02.125 he had to be on the run. My mom and 0:14:02.205 --> 0:14:05.245 dad knew very little about this trip when it was happening. 0:14:05.765 --> 0:14:08.085 They heard about it, but they didn't know any details 0:14:08.165 --> 0:14:12.605 until now after we talked with Grandma Bella. What was 0:14:12.765 --> 0:14:16.405 clear to my parents and to Grandma Bella was that 0:14:16.445 --> 0:14:21.885 the trip was poorly executed. Grandma Bella's brothers took a 0:14:21.965 --> 0:14:36.005 lot of extreme risks without taking extra precautions. I just 0:14:36.085 --> 0:14:39.765 thought they overstretched their imagination. They didn't really know what 0:14:39.805 --> 0:14:43.605 they were doing. They had, you know, antique guns didn't work. 0:14:44.045 --> 0:14:48.205 It wasn't properly thought done by proper the proper way. 0:14:48.325 --> 0:14:50.405 I mean, why are they taking a big boat into 0:14:51.165 --> 0:14:55.765 a big river system that's you know where there's like 0:14:56.005 --> 0:15:01.445 all those those gatekeepers, the Homeland Security people, I mean 0:15:01.485 --> 0:15:04.365 they were there then to the coast guard. You just 0:15:04.405 --> 0:15:07.485 didn't go round too thirty mile limit with your load 0:15:07.565 --> 0:15:12.125 of rifles, and you know, they didn't know the rules. 0:15:12.965 --> 0:15:16.805 You had to stay within your boundaries of knowing what 0:15:16.845 --> 0:15:22.525 you were doing big time. You know. Probably that's why 0:15:22.565 --> 0:15:27.965 we've survived because we were cautious. So you felt they 0:15:27.965 --> 0:15:30.685 didn't They were not meticulous, they were I felt that 0:15:30.725 --> 0:15:36.285 they weren't um professional. I mean they had all the 0:15:36.445 --> 0:15:41.845 receipts for the boats and they had nothing together right 0:15:41.885 --> 0:15:44.525 like they Grandma Bella told us they had made t 0:15:44.605 --> 0:15:50.325 shirts with their smugall name. Yeah, oh god, yeah, that 0:15:50.485 --> 0:15:55.045 was unbelievable. No, my parents never did trips like this, 0:15:55.725 --> 0:15:58.125 which is one of the reasons they never got caught. 0:15:59.125 --> 0:16:01.645 My dad remained in one role during his twenty two 0:16:01.725 --> 0:16:06.085 years smuggling career as a distributor. My dad never won 0:16:06.125 --> 0:16:08.325 on the boots he says he didn't want to get 0:16:08.365 --> 0:16:10.925 that close to the flame. Well I knew was that 0:16:11.045 --> 0:16:19.245 demandatory minimums were absolutely byzantine, you know, and that just 0:16:19.285 --> 0:16:24.885 don't get caught. I mean there was there was one rule, 0:16:25.525 --> 0:16:29.125 don't get caught. He asked me for help, and there 0:16:29.205 --> 0:16:32.925 was nothing I knew to do there, I mean I didn't. 0:16:33.165 --> 0:16:36.285 It was such that I had no details of any 0:16:36.365 --> 0:16:39.165 kind other than he was scared to death and he 0:16:39.565 --> 0:16:43.645 got out of down very quickly and with his wife 0:16:43.645 --> 0:16:48.325 and kids. Grandma Bella's brothers were whiskier than my parents 0:16:49.005 --> 0:16:54.005 and took fewer precautions. And also they did this Afghani 0:16:54.085 --> 0:16:58.565 Hash Columbia River trip right after Reagan's minimum drug sentencing 0:16:58.645 --> 0:17:04.645 laws were bolstered, and unfortunately they experienced the harshest consequences. 0:17:07.085 --> 0:17:10.085 Grandma Bella's oldest brother, mister High, got out of prison 0:17:10.125 --> 0:17:13.685 a couple of years early for good behavior. Her other brother, 0:17:13.805 --> 0:17:17.125 my parents friend, the kid, still lives out of the country. 0:17:19.085 --> 0:17:22.565 Coming up, we hear from another counterculture smuggler I've known 0:17:22.605 --> 0:17:25.685 for forty years, a good friend of mine who spent 0:17:25.805 --> 0:17:32.605 three years in a federal prison for poct I'm Rainbow Valentine. 0:17:32.885 --> 0:17:56.205 This is disorganized crime. We'll be right back. When I 0:17:56.285 --> 0:18:00.485 was sixteen, I worked for my hippie elder friend Gracie Albright, 0:18:00.845 --> 0:18:04.845 making thousands of pounds of tabouli in five gallon buckets 0:18:04.845 --> 0:18:07.725 for a music festival in exchange for free tickets and 0:18:07.845 --> 0:18:11.525 VIP access. And despite being up to my elbows literally 0:18:11.765 --> 0:18:15.565 in citrus soaked cracked wheat for a week, it was 0:18:15.605 --> 0:18:19.085 the most fun I've had while doing manual labor. Okay, 0:18:19.125 --> 0:18:23.645 I've just landed in Vencino County. There she is driving 0:18:23.725 --> 0:18:27.045 up in her badass heavy duty truck. If I were 0:18:27.045 --> 0:18:30.125 to cast Wonder Woman's mom, it would be Gracie Albright, 0:18:30.605 --> 0:18:34.725 almost larger than life. Greasie Albright is strong, confident, brave, 0:18:35.245 --> 0:18:41.085 enormously compassionate, brilliant, hilarious, and the most spectacular maker of amazing, 0:18:41.205 --> 0:18:45.285 large scale things comparable to a Broadway spectacular, Burning Man 0:18:45.325 --> 0:18:50.165 installation or Hollywood extravaganza. Gracie is the kind of person 0:18:50.365 --> 0:18:53.365 you want with you during the apocalypse because she will 0:18:53.405 --> 0:18:57.445 make sure you survive and thrive. I met her when 0:18:57.445 --> 0:19:00.685 I was six via my hippie theater community, the same 0:19:00.685 --> 0:19:03.765 place I'm at. Candy Can. A couple of years after 0:19:03.805 --> 0:19:06.925 I helped her make thousands of pounds to Bouley, thousands 0:19:06.965 --> 0:19:09.685 of pounds of pot caught up to my friend and employer, 0:19:09.725 --> 0:19:13.125 Gracie Albright. She spent several years in federal prison in 0:19:13.125 --> 0:19:17.005 the nineties for pot. Now Greasy experienced what my parents 0:19:17.125 --> 0:19:21.005 luckily avoided, and I wanted to find out how she'd 0:19:21.045 --> 0:19:24.245 been caught and what prison had been like for an 0:19:24.245 --> 0:19:28.605 ethical counterculture outlaw. Well, one of the things that really 0:19:28.645 --> 0:19:32.045 blew my mind is that when I walked in past 0:19:32.165 --> 0:19:34.365 where the glass door shut, it was actually just a 0:19:34.405 --> 0:19:36.805 big glass door. You walked in the door and went 0:19:36.965 --> 0:19:40.285 banged behind you. I got this huge pain in my 0:19:40.325 --> 0:19:44.885 breast and I said, oh my god, Patrick Henry, give 0:19:44.925 --> 0:19:48.485 me liberty or give me death. Who knew that freedom 0:19:48.565 --> 0:19:52.645 was something you actually physically felt in your breast. My 0:19:52.725 --> 0:19:55.205 breast was sore for a few weeks until I got 0:19:55.285 --> 0:19:58.005 used to it. It was the strangest thing. It was like, 0:19:58.485 --> 0:20:01.805 I had no idea. It kind of blew me out 0:20:01.845 --> 0:20:09.485 of the water that one. So. Gracie worked in pot 0:20:09.525 --> 0:20:12.485 smuggling for about five years as a driver this is 0:20:12.485 --> 0:20:15.405 the mid eighties. She also had her own business, a 0:20:15.445 --> 0:20:18.965 straight job and pot smuggling was always a side hustle, 0:20:19.165 --> 0:20:22.685 providing her with extra money for prasias centrals, like going 0:20:22.725 --> 0:20:25.285 to the dentist. And I mean, it wasn't an intentional 0:20:25.605 --> 0:20:29.605 move on my part to become somebody that was selling marijuana. 0:20:29.765 --> 0:20:32.325 I was actually doing other things. Yeah, if you thought 0:20:32.325 --> 0:20:33.845 asked me what I was doing, I wouldn't tell you 0:20:33.885 --> 0:20:36.605 I was a marijuana person. And in fact, even when 0:20:36.645 --> 0:20:38.285 I was doing a lot of it, it wasn't the 0:20:38.325 --> 0:20:40.125 main thing about what I was doing. It was just 0:20:40.365 --> 0:20:42.565 a side deal. You know. It was great. You could 0:20:42.565 --> 0:20:45.165 fix your teeth, you could take a vacation, paint us 0:20:45.205 --> 0:20:47.845 the picture of what you didged and walk us through 0:20:47.965 --> 0:20:50.045 what you were doing, and then walk us through. I 0:20:50.125 --> 0:20:54.485 was driving to the site and loading a rented RV 0:20:55.005 --> 0:20:59.085 full of suitcases, and then coming up to San Francisco 0:20:59.845 --> 0:21:02.885 and parking at the airport where suitcases are completely common, 0:21:03.045 --> 0:21:06.565 and people would come pick it up, and a few 0:21:06.565 --> 0:21:08.845 weeks later they I'd go down and collect the money 0:21:08.845 --> 0:21:11.685 and drive back. I asked Greasie how they masked the 0:21:11.725 --> 0:21:14.965 cannabis aroma on the road. Her answer is so simple, 0:21:15.085 --> 0:21:20.085 so obvious, and totally brilliant. We'd load up for the 0:21:20.125 --> 0:21:23.445 return trip, and we'd cook bacon and eggs and then 0:21:23.485 --> 0:21:26.485 we'd have bacon hamburgers, and then we'd have bacon on 0:21:26.525 --> 0:21:29.765 our steaks. And we know we were we wore plaid 0:21:29.845 --> 0:21:33.365 shirts and we called it the bacon Mobile and bacon Moobile. 0:21:33.445 --> 0:21:35.925 One time we were in a hotel and we had 0:21:35.925 --> 0:21:38.885 a whole load in the hotel with us, and I 0:21:39.045 --> 0:21:41.965 was spraying like deodorant spray in the air because he 0:21:41.965 --> 0:21:44.645 could just smell it through everything. And I set up 0:21:44.805 --> 0:21:50.085 smoke alarm and I went, you know, so there was 0:21:50.285 --> 0:21:54.965 there was you know, moments did what happened? Nothing? Nothing 0:21:55.085 --> 0:21:56.685 that you know what happened is we all got a 0:21:56.685 --> 0:22:04.165 big adrenaline rush. Even though she wasn't a full time smuggler, 0:22:04.405 --> 0:22:06.805 Greasie also had to figure out things like how to 0:22:06.885 --> 0:22:11.045 launder her money. She worked in hospice in San Francisco 0:22:11.245 --> 0:22:14.725 during the AIDS crisis of the nineteen eighties, and she 0:22:14.805 --> 0:22:17.525 did a true fuck you to the man to clean 0:22:17.565 --> 0:22:20.045 her money. Might be one of my favorite parts of 0:22:20.085 --> 0:22:24.125 her story. So the gay boys were really pretty pissed off. 0:22:24.485 --> 0:22:26.725 All the gay boys that were dying of AIDS. I 0:22:26.805 --> 0:22:30.125 knew them because I'd been in the Castro working hospice shifts. 0:22:30.725 --> 0:22:34.765 There was at that time a tremendous number of the 0:22:34.885 --> 0:22:39.765 gay population. Their mates were already dead, their parents may 0:22:39.765 --> 0:22:43.765 not accept them, and they didn't have children yet because 0:22:43.805 --> 0:22:48.245 that hadn't gotten normalized, their actualized, and so boy did 0:22:48.245 --> 0:22:51.045 they need hospice. And not only that, they were pretty 0:22:51.085 --> 0:22:54.045 pissed off, many of them, because I mean, that whole thing, 0:22:54.085 --> 0:22:56.685 if it's the gay disease, so it's not important to us. 0:22:56.805 --> 0:22:59.725 Kind of attitude that seemed to exist on some level. 0:23:00.245 --> 0:23:03.485 So if you give more than a nine nine hundred 0:23:03.645 --> 0:23:07.205 and ninety nine dollars to a bank or to anybody, 0:23:07.685 --> 0:23:10.485 they have to say where they got it, if it's cash. 0:23:10.525 --> 0:23:13.685 So I got to give my lawyer nine hundred ninety 0:23:13.725 --> 0:23:16.165 nine dollars because the government really wanted to know how 0:23:16.205 --> 0:23:18.565 I was paying for my legal help. And my lawyer 0:23:18.645 --> 0:23:21.885 said to me, they're gonna subpoena this information. You have 0:23:21.965 --> 0:23:24.885 to get me personal checks. So I came home and 0:23:24.925 --> 0:23:26.685 I went, oh my god, I've got to give him, 0:23:26.965 --> 0:23:29.125 you know, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars or the 0:23:29.205 --> 0:23:32.525 personal checks. And so I went and I gave cash. 0:23:33.205 --> 0:23:35.125 The gay boys saved me to people that were dyeing 0:23:35.245 --> 0:23:38.965 the whole community, the whole castro took. They went out 0:23:39.005 --> 0:23:41.685 and found the dying boys to give me personal checks 0:23:41.725 --> 0:23:45.605 for ten, fifteen, twenty thousand dollars and they took the cash. 0:23:46.045 --> 0:23:48.605 And so when the government wanted to know where the 0:23:48.645 --> 0:23:50.925 money had come from, there was like pictures of all 0:23:50.925 --> 0:23:53.005 the texts, but all the people that had donated were 0:23:53.045 --> 0:23:56.365 gone and then and it was just they loved that 0:23:56.485 --> 0:24:00.525 they could do that last or they probably still did 0:24:00.605 --> 0:24:14.005 more revolutionary acts after that. So Gracie never technically got busted. 0:24:14.405 --> 0:24:17.245 There wasn't a moment where she was caught red handed 0:24:17.285 --> 0:24:20.005 in the act, and there was no evidence she'd been 0:24:20.045 --> 0:24:27.045 a smuggler, but the government got her on conspiracy. Gracie's 0:24:27.045 --> 0:24:30.445 indictment transpired in the early nineties when the government was 0:24:30.525 --> 0:24:35.125 avidly enacting Reagan's mandatory minimum sentencing laws, aiming to imprison 0:24:35.165 --> 0:24:39.845 as many drug offenders as possible, and conspiracy to commit 0:24:39.885 --> 0:24:44.365 a drug offense was considered as bad as executing the misdeed. 0:24:44.805 --> 0:24:47.285 Here's Bill Panzer, the cannabis attorney I chatted with in 0:24:47.365 --> 0:24:53.045 episode three. Conspiracy is when two or more people agree 0:24:53.125 --> 0:24:57.685 to do something illegal. And they take at least one 0:24:58.045 --> 0:25:02.245 step in furtherance of the conspiracy. But yeah, conspiracy as 0:25:02.285 --> 0:25:06.605 a fell in the Under federal law, the conspiracy potential 0:25:06.645 --> 0:25:10.085 penalty would be the same as if you completed the conspiracy. 0:25:10.765 --> 0:25:14.485 So Gracie got caught because someone she worked with was 0:25:14.605 --> 0:25:18.965 caught and facing imprisonment. They turned a dime. They rolled, 0:25:19.605 --> 0:25:22.365 which means to turn in others to the cops in 0:25:22.445 --> 0:25:28.605 exchange for freedom. With Reagan's harsh mandatory minimums, rolling on 0:25:28.725 --> 0:25:31.685 your colleagues was one of the only ways to save 0:25:31.725 --> 0:25:35.445 your own skin, you know, Mandatory minimum sentences, people going 0:25:35.485 --> 0:25:39.885 away for her redness, amounts of time for cannabis, which 0:25:39.925 --> 0:25:41.885 no one should go to jail for cannabis period, and 0:25:42.005 --> 0:25:45.445 other drugs too. I mean, you know, it's you know, 0:25:45.485 --> 0:25:47.685 it's like almost it's okay to kill somebody, just don't 0:25:47.725 --> 0:25:50.165 smoke a joint while you're doing it. You had these 0:25:50.245 --> 0:25:56.005 draconian sentences, which then because of the only way out 0:25:56.005 --> 0:26:01.325 of it was to cooperate. It changed the industry. A 0:26:01.325 --> 0:26:04.405 friend of mine who recently retired, who did this ship 0:26:04.445 --> 0:26:07.165 for like forty or fifty years, you know, always had 0:26:07.205 --> 0:26:09.805 a hat in his office, a little baseball cap that said, 0:26:10.405 --> 0:26:13.685 nobody talks, everybody walks, and there was a lot to that. 0:26:13.925 --> 0:26:16.285 And you know, and look when you when you got 0:26:16.325 --> 0:26:18.925 a twenty one year old kid and you're threatening him 0:26:18.925 --> 0:26:20.845