REGRETS? EVEN DOPE DEALERS HAVE A FEW

True Crime

Confession Rings Hollow In Ex-Con's Tale Of How A Son Of Privilege
Became A Big-Time Drug Peddler

High: Confessions of a Pot Smuggler

by Brian O'Dea

Random House Canada,

358 pages, $34.95

There was a point, about halfway through Brian O'Dea's High:
Confessions of a Pot Smuggler, when I felt an urge to put it down and
forget it. It wasn't that it was badly written, which it isn't, or
that its material (organized crime, prisons, redemption) isn't
interesting, which it is. It's just that I didn't like the way the
book made me feel -- old and conservative.

Instead of the subtitle "confessions of a pot smuggler," it would be
more accurate to say "confessions of a pot and cocaine smuggler."

And there were several points when the word "confessions" rang
hollow. It seemed like he was romanticizing or rationalizing or
revelling in telling old war stories, but hardly confessing.

O'Dea doesn't stop to speculate on how much damage illegal drugs have
done to the societies of Colombia or North America. Never does he
hint at what his connection was to such organized crime groups as
outlaw bikers and traditional mobsters.

At the same time, he seemed to assume that others should be purer than pure.

While O'Dea helped moved boatloads, truckloads and shiploads of drugs
for several years, he still feels strangely comfortable judging, and
even lecturing, others.

Perhaps the reason the book bothered me so much at the midway point
was that I wanted O'Dea, now a Toronto film and TV producer and a
married dad, to appear a little more repentant and a lot more open
about his younger self.

Instead, he seemed to see himself as something between a victim (he
was molested by a priest as a young boy), a philosopher (he writes
about "the setting, the food, the drink, the women -- it was all
empty and wonderful") and as a crusader of sorts (when he was shipped
north, from an American prison to Millhaven near Kingston, a fellow
prisoner told him, "Change all of this, Brian. You're the man. Change
it for us.")

O'Dea had plenty of breaks in life. His family was well connected in
Newfoundland business and political circles. He was smart and
apparently charming and certainly knew how to tell a story. He had
plenty of options. He chose to move drugs.

His confessions only came after he was arrested and his options were
cut. Even then, he still seems more proud than confessional.

Talking of the prison system, he writes: "The core of me -- my
integrity, my humour, my loyalty, are all inaccessible to it."

One wonders what constitutes the integrity of a drug trafficker. And
what's the loyalty of someone who sells out even his family for
profit and powder?

At another point he writes: "Bob was a gentle and idealistic
capitalist, a laissez faire pot smuggler who shied away from
everything else. He was well liked, honourable ..."

I'm sure Bob had plenty of good points, but it's scary to think
idealism and honour have been debased to the point that they describe
career drug traffickers.

Still, I read on, and couldn't help but be impressed by the book's
structure, as it cuts back and forth from O'Dea's life in the drug
trade to that inside prison.

The dialogue helps the story flow, although I doubted the
authenticity of supposed verbatim conversations, despite the alleged
use of his prison diaries. I'm sure he didn't tape them or make
notes, and he was often wasted on drugs himself -- but there they
are, page after page of conversations.

O'Dea does offer insights. Among them, I found it interesting when he
writes that he found Canadian prisons more violent than their
American counterparts, and that convicts here seem to run the show.

In the end, for all my reservations, I'm glad I completed my reading
of High. When I finally set it down, I decided it would be too glib
to simply dismiss O'Dea as one of those annoying people who think
they're insightful simply because they've fried their brains with dope.

Yet it would also be a mistake to herald him as some kind of
philosopher, as he might have us believe.

It's a myth to think that just because the system has flaws, somehow
criminals can be noble or honest.

Star reporter Peter Edwards has written eight non-fiction books, four
on organized crime. Northern Connection: Inside Canada's Deadliest
Mafia Family is to be released next month