POT SMUGGLER'S STORY IS MOVIE MATERIAL

Canadian Brian O'dea Lived The High Life, Then The Low Life, Then
Wrote It All Up In A Thoroughly Engaging 'Confession'

HIGH: CONFESSIONS OF A POT SMUGGLER, by Brian O'Dea (Random House
Canada, 358 pages, $34.95).

There was a time not long ago when the marijuana smuggler enjoyed top
spot in the counterculture's pantheon of heroes.

They were unarmed soldiers of fortune, and romantic outlaws.

Before the rise of hydroponics, cloning and indoor grow-ops, it was
up to the smugglers to meet the demand of the vast and growing
markets for marijuana.

Back in the day, mule trains carried bulging packs of pot out of the
mountain jungles of Colombia down trails to protected coves on the
coast where sailboats waited to take on loads of herb. Or small and
large planes flew to South America, landed on dirt runways, picked up
loads of weed, and headed back north.

Ocean-going ships packed their holds with tonnes of dope from
Southeast Asia, cruised across the Pacific Ocean and transferred the
contraband to smaller boats off the West Coast, which brought it ashore.

In the late '70s, author Robert Sabbag set the stage with a book
called Snowblind: A Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade.

The book quickly achieved cult status, and cemented the smuggler's
reputation as counterculture hero. In 2002, he did it again with
Loaded: A Misadventure in the Marijuana Trade.

Then came the movie Blow, starring Johnny Depp as the smuggler George
Jung, who established the cocaine market in the U.S. in the '70s. The
movie was based on Jung's memoir called Blow.

An enterprising Canadian director should do the same thing with Brian
O'Dea's remarkable book about his remarkable life.

Brian O'Dea came of age in 1970s Newfoundland just as the
counterculture blossomed in this country.

For decades, he smuggled marijuana into the United States, made
millions of dollars, got hooked on cocaine and quit cold turkey.

Then he started helping junkies, coke addicts and alcoholics quit
their habits and shake their demons.

Then he was busted by the Drug Enforcement Agency in California and
did 10 years hard time on Terminal Island.

The book is a quick and engaging read. One chapter details important
milestones in his life. The next chapter relates his experiences in prison.

The book makes a moving and human case for the decriminalization of
drugs by detailing the stories of some of the Terminal Island inmates.

Many of the inmates are serving sentences of 10, 20, 30, 40 and even
50 years for marijuana-ecstasy-cocaine-heroin offences.

The U.S.-led war on drugs sees killers get less time than marijuana smugglers.

At one point in the book, O'Dea writes about a short exchange he had
with a fellow inmate, Dean.

"How's your living area with the return of los Cubanos, Dean?"

"Noisy, but we have got a pretty good corner where I am now."

"Who's in with you?"

"Mark and Rosenburg and one other guy I don't think you know,
Cummings, a murder-mutilator. He killed some buy and chopped off his
hands, feet and head and put them together on a hill without a torso.
They never did find the torso. Some kind of white supremacist."

"How much time did he get?"

"Six years. Manslaughter. They couldn't find the torso."

This book has as much to say about the crisis in American prisons as
it does about marijuana smuggling, and both subjects make for a
fascinating read.

O'Dea made international headlines when he took out a newspaper
advertisement in the mid-1990s that said, in part: "Having
successfully completed a 10-year sentence, incident-free, for
importing 75 tons of marijuana into the United States, I am now
seeking a legal and legitimate means to support myself and my family.

"Business experience: Owned and operated a successful fishing
business, multi-vessel, one airplane, one island and processing
facility. Simultaneously owned and operated a fleet of
tractor-trailer trucks conducting business in the western United States.

"During this time I also participated in the executive level
management of 120 people worldwide in a successful pot-smuggling
venture with revenues in excess of $100 million."

These days, O'Dea lives in Toronto, where he works as a television
and film producer.

This book is a very good read.