TRAGEDY BEFALLS A POT PROMOTER

Burning Rainbow Farm, How a Stoner Utopia Went Up in Smoke, By Dean
Kuipers, Bloomsbury; 360 Pages; $24.95

Many defense lawyers have criticized recent federal legislation as
granting prosecutors and the police immense power in criminal trials.
But complaints about prosecutorial overreach are nothing new. Civil
libertarians and especially pot-legalization advocates have been
arguing that prosecutors, armed with civil asset forfeiture laws,
have been able to use legal weapons to take money and potentially
ruin otherwise unsuspecting and sometimes completely innocent
citizens with loose laws that effectively shift a crushing burden of
proof onto the defendant.

"Burning Rainbow Farm: How a Stoner Utopia Went Up in Smoke" by Dean
Kuipers is centered on this law, as it tells the tale of how the
threat of asset forfeiture led to the deaths on Sept. 9, 2001, of two
prominent pot-festival promoters and marijuana legalization advocates
in a military-style standoff.

In his third book, Kuipers, a deputy editor at Los Angeles City Beat,
provides an interesting look at the growth of the pot-concert
festival business, as well as the fringe elements of rural culture.

However, his unwillingness to squarely face the plain evidence of the
culpability of his chief protagonist's behavior, along with some
sloppy fact checking and poor use of history, prevents him from
delivering a truly compelling case for why the events at Rainbow Farm
were a great abuse of police power.

The book's central focus is on a volatile entrepreneur, ex-con, gay,
Republican militant libertarian and fervent marijuana-legalization
supporter named Tom Crosslin, the owner and creator of Rainbow Farm.
Crosslin tied his politics and his position on marijuana into a
potential money-making venture: He bought a farm, and in 1996, began
holding for-profit (though he almost never made money)
marijuana-focused festivals and concerts.

The legal loophole that Crosslin used to hold these gatherings
without sparking mass arrests was that he, his employees and the
concessionaires who paid to be a part of the festival sold absolutely no drugs.

The festivals began to take off, with a performance by noted stoner
hero Tommy Chong and a laudatory article in High Times magazine.
Needless to say, law enforcement officials were none too thrilled at
the thought of southern Michigan being turned into a drug mecca.

And using a variety of tactics, they began trying to shut down
Crosslin's enterprise.

Crosslin's story is interesting, but it does not lead to a damning
case against the government. Unlike many of the legitimate horror
stories about the use of civil asset forfeiture -- Kuipers goes into
depth about only one of them -- Crosslin both behaved foolishly (for
example, by enlisting the support of the vilified Michigan Militia
for security after the Oklahoma City bombing) and actually flouted the law.

Despite a mountain of evidence about Crosslin's illegal acts, Kuipers
does not really hold Crosslin responsible for his behavior.

He blames the prosecutor for a "radical misinterpretation" of a
bizarre and clearly threatening letter sent by Crosslin. He
effectively excuses a number of assaults by Crosslin, including a
drunken, unprovoked beating of a woman who was upset by his shouting
"Long live David Koresh" on the day of the Oklahoma City bombing.

Crosslin's festivals may have been pro-pot, but the police reports
cite any number of harder drugs being sold at them, a fact that
Kuipers blithely dismisses. A libertarian -- who ironically lives on
Social Security disability checks -- Crosslin also frequently takes
LSD. Knowing that the government has it in for him, he nevertheless
starts a marijuana-growing operation in his basement.

After being arrested, Crosslin publicly violates his bail agreement
by announcing that he will throw another festival, which is certain
to bring down even more pressure on him. And though Crosslin was
armed to the teeth and claimed that his farm was wired with bombs,
Kuipers fruitlessly searches the evidence -- and attempts to sully
the one witness -- to show that Crosslin had not raised his weapon
against the officers who killed him, as if whether Crosslin pointed a
gun at police were the only issue that mattered here.

Blindness to Crosslin's behavior is not the book's only failing.

Some chapters are poorly thought out, including those on the history
and politics of pot, hemp and libertarianism with discussions of
anti-hemp and marijuana conspiracy theories involving Du Pont, the
"Prison-Industrial complex" and the federal government (especially
Presidents Nixon and Reagan). Also, for a book partly centered on
political ideas, there are a number of glaring factual errors that
call into question Kuipers' basic knowledge of the political world
that he attempts to indict.

Jesse Jackson was never a South Carolina congressman; Barry Goldwater
did not take the 1964 Republican presidential nomination from Richard
Nixon, he beat Nelson Rockefeller, and it is very doubtful that his
campaign caught on with "many young antiwar idealists"; and most
important, as there is a whole chapter on a referendum Crosslin
attempted to get on the ballot, referendums are not called "the
fourth branch of government" (that is governmental administrative
bureaucracies) and they are fantastically popular, not, as Kuipers
states, "not exercised that much." Strangely underplayed is
Crosslin's partner, Rollie Rohm, the other man killed in the standoff.

The younger man, 20 years Crosslin's junior, is practically a shadow
throughout the book. He likes "partying" and smoking marijuana, and
is apparently considered a good father, but he is a portrayed as
completely passive.

His homosexuality is also described in this passive, even doubtful,
light. Though his ex-wife says she saw it immediately, she is
maligned and dismissed, and his family is cited as doubting he was
gay, despite his apparently solid 10-year relationship with Crosslin.
However, Kuipers does deign to tell us -- without even a hint that he
is randomly speculating -- what Rohm thought and felt on the last
night of his life.

There are legitimate cases of prosecutorial overreach throughout the
United States that elicit outrage from an informed citizenry, but
based on Kuipers' interview and research, the Rainbow Farm standoff
does not appear to be one of them. It was a tragedy; it just wasn't
because of the police or the prosecutors. Kuipers is just not willing
to face up to the evidence he marshaled.