THANK YOU FOR NOT SNITCHING

When you're truly in a narcotic task force's crosshairs, they might
give you a signal in the form of a simple rhyme: "Give us three, and
we'll set you free." This couplet, most effective when recited by an
agent perched on the lip of his chair, muscles tensed and ready,
should be interpreted to mean that if you incriminate a handful of
marbles law enforcement would rather play with, they'll drop those
pending drug charges. And in an era of federal mandatory minimums
that work like dispassionate Pez Dispensers handing out tart, 10-
year prison bids for such crimes as, say, thinking about dealing
America's most commonly used illicit drug, marijuana (a decade for
planning, not selling), getting a suspect to "flip" on someone else
can be a process smoother than photosynthesis.

So what's with Jason Weaver - father, husband, and until recently,
restaurateur and hydroponics supplier praised in the local daily and
the Current for taking soil-free gardening beyond the realm of toker
technology? Couldn't he save himself, and tell on you?

The longboarder who affixed his surf moniker to his year-old coffee
bar and deli would not own Big Kahuna's on Ashby and North Flores
after today. The equipment from Jason "Big Kahuna" Weaver's other
business, Casa Verde Garden Supply and Hydroponics, also housed in
the 4,000-square-foot-building on Ashby, would be dismantled and
shipped to Del Rio, and on to indoor farmers in Guatemala and
Honduras. It was Thursday, August 10, less than two months before
Weaver, 31, would report to a federal prison (actually, a tent
compound in Beaumont, Texas, surrounded by barbed wire) and begin a
three-year sentence for conspiracy to grow and sell marijuana.

Weaver spent most of the morning patching up the building painted in
bright green sativas and dark-green indicas, spotted with Tiki gods
drawn in a style that's part Marvin the Martian, part Polynesian pop.
Inside, soul-surfer beach and fishing trip ephemera, and a 2006
Richard De La O painting of a white-winged figure slaying a green
demon (the artist said it was Weaver vs. the DEA).

In the kitchen, Weaver made pepperoni pizza subs and assured the man
in the white plastic lei, Jesse Gonzales, that he would make a phone
call and get him another job prepping and cooking. And Weaver sat
across from the Current, using Murphy's Oil Soap to scrub foaming
caulk from his fingers, sharing what was on his mind on this last
day. He came off sounding a little bit like the doomed and insightful
old guy in Tuesdays with Morrie.

"I go away on September 29," he said. "I'm not looking forward to it,
but I'm sure I'm going to learn from it.

"My saying is, 'Enjoy life, because you don't know what's coming from
one day to the next.' When I wake up in the morning I thank my god,
because everyone's god is different." Weaver riffed on about life
lessons, about his new ankle tattoo, something he can carry into
prison to remind him of his 9-month-old daughter (a sea turtle) and
6-year-old son (a squid). And then he added, with some bitterness:
"And I would say that you can't control people."

That last bit of wisdom was rooted in his experience with the
childhood friend who helped manage the garden-supply shop Weaver and
his wife, Tracee Wilkerson, started online in 1999, shepherded to a
half-million dollar business by 2002, relocated in 2003 to a
Fredericksburg address, and into the Ashby building in 2004.
Somewhere during the course of events, Weaver said, his friend flipped.

Weaver told the Current that said friend signed an affidavit
incriminating him and, in exchange, received four years probation.
This could not be confirmed. The U.S. Attorney's officials who
handled Weaver's case are on vacation, but Weaver's attorneys assured
the Current that all information related to flipping is confidential;
that no representative of the legal process could divulge anything
about whether or not the government offered a deal. If it's not in
the plea agreement, a matter of public record, it's secret.

Let's be absolutely clear: The government had incriminating evidence
against Weaver. He says he was an unapologetic pot-smoker (as are one
in seven Americans, according to the marijuana-policy watchdogs at
NORML). Now subject to drug screenings as a condition of his $100,000
bond, his green-blue eyes look into the middle distance as he fondly
recalls kayaking in Port Aransas and lighting up a bowl with just a
magnifying glass (because matches would get damp).

Weaver is represented by one of the nation's best drug-defense gurus,
San Antonio lawyer Gerald Goldstein. Goldstein helped clear Hunter S.
Thompson of multiple charges stemming from an illegal Colorado raid
that turned up four sticks of dynamite and the usual Fear and
Loathing suspects: cocaine, LSD, marijuana. Records show the
investigation into Weaver and four associates (including his alleged
informer friend) took place between January 2003 and the end of March
2005. Hundreds of marijuana plants were seized on Weaver's properties
in West Rockport and his hometown Floresville (and on the property of
associates locally). By April 2005, Weaver was arrested, and entered
a plea agreement rather than face trial and be subject to a mandatory
minimum 10 years for conspiring to grow up to 1,400 marijuana plants
with the intent to distribute. He was sentenced in May 2006, and
waived his right to appeal.

But it was during the course of the investigation, Weaver said, that
he had the option of going free, when the regional narcotics task
force would camp across the street at San Pedro Springs Park, then
show up with a yearbook filled with photos of 300 dirtless gardeners
who came from as far as Buda, San Marcos, and Corpus Christi to buy
indoor-lighting systems, hydroponic systems, and organic nutrients -
instruments used by NASA, 4-H clubs, orchid societies, schools, and
marijuana growers.

"They told me from the very beginning, 'Give us three and we'll set
you free, buddy,'" Weaver says. "I may be stupid or arrogant, but I
said it's got to stop right here. This is going to ruin someone
else's life." He says he burned customer records and played dumb.

Drug agents routinely rely on compromised informers to investigate
homegrown marijuana cases for two reasons, according to National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Executive Director,
Allen St. Pierre.

(1) Pre-1980, the majority of marijuana came from outside the U.S.
(read: South Asia, Central America, Canada, Mexico, and Jamaica).

"The domestic product, it was like someone lit up hair in a room,"
St. Pierre, 41, said, slandering our American weed forebears, at
least the ones cultivating in Amherst, Massachusetts, in the '60s and
'70s. And as the government worked to eradicate international
shipments and stomped on outdoor year-round grow operations in sunny
Florida, South Texas, Arizona, Hawaii, and the infamous green
triangle in Humboldt, California, a new DIY generation of home
brewers took root. Magazines like High Times and Sinsemilla Tips
taught them how to harness a technology used in the age of the Roman
Caesars and set up thousand-dollar grow systems in their closets.
Today, drug-enforcement officials say indoor-growing operations
produce a more potent drug than their two popular pot-producing
rivals, Mexico and British Columbia.

(2) It wasn't long before law enforcement started flying down city
grids with infrared scanning devices mounted on helicopters to see
whose closet was thowing off heat, to detect the high-intensity lamps
used for indoor-marijuana growth. In 2001, the Supreme Court said
hoo-rodding around the skies looking for hot spots was an invasion of
privacy, a warrantless search, and a Fourth-Amendment violation.
Which sent our law-enforcement Icaruses back to the ground, sometimes
digging through curbside garbage without a warrant, sometimes
subpoenaing UPS shipping records from garden-supply stores, and, St.
Pierre said, often asking someone to "give them three ... "

Goldstein said folks have been sentenced in connection with the Big
Kahuna's case, and more probably will be. "It's a never-ending
spiral," the lawyer said. "As a consequence, people will do almost
anything to avoid that punishment."

So the question remains: Why, if he could, didn't the Big Kahuna hand
over some bigger fish, spare his family (he and his wife are in
counseling) and his business?

"My wife, she said 'You're protecting friends and customers over your
family,'" Weaver said. "She's been with me 12 years, and she's always
scolded me, and there's been many times where she told me so, and not
to trust people. I give everyone that opportunity and I say shame on
you, not shame on me.

"And this way," he adds, "I don't have to worry about someone
plugging me or beating me with a bat or burning down my place."

Big Kahuna restaurant will be closed for renovation through August,
then reopen under new ownership.