Loaded: A Misadventure on the Marijuana Trail

Loaded is the story of Allen Long's trip from small-town dreamer to international high-wire artist. At first it was fun, with the pleasures of evading authorities and bringing quality herb home to eager friends. In the back of a limo, with celebrities on the phone and beautiful women on his arm, Long was in heaven.

But as the wealth grew, so did the weirdness. There was the cocaine, of course, and the surreal screwups that came from doing business stoned. But even more, what had begun as a wild scheme with like-minded pals was looking alarmingly like organized crime. Long never carried a gun, but every day he felt more like a target.

Loaded is a classic American tale, the story of a man who risks everything to pull off one huge deal in a final bid for freedom. Written by Robert Sabbag, author of the international bestseller Snowblind: A Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade, Loaded is high drama from a lost time. From mule trains in the Andes to boardrooms in Mahattan, from Mexico to the counterculture scene in Marin, from Studio 54 to the midnight streets of Miami, Allen Long is a consummate hustler, dreamer, entrepreneur, bullshit artist, and hero. His true story is as entertaining as the greatest fiction.

Back in the early seventies, one man had the idea that bringing in a planeload of marijuana from Colombia might be a profitable enterprise. If nothing else, it would be one hell of an experience... In a vintage DC-3, reassembled from spare parts to avoid FAA scrutiny, Allen Long set off for Colombia and the adventure of his life. The pot was there, all right, thousands of acres of the cleanest, sweetest plants he'd ever seen. The first load was a cinch.

Loaded is the story of Allen Long's trip from small-town dreamer to international high-wire artist. At first it was fun, with the pleasures of evading authorities and bringing quality herb home to eager friends. In the back of a limo, with celebrities on the phone and beautiful women on his arm, Long was in heaven.

But as the wealth grew, so did the weirdness. There was the cocaine, of course, and the surreal screwups that came from doing business stoned. But even more, what had begun as a wild scheme with like-minded pals was looking alarmingly like organized crime. Long never carried a gun, but every day he felt more like a target.

Loaded is a classic American tale, the story of a man who risks everything to pull off one huge deal in a final bid for freedom. Written by Robert Sabbag, author of the international bestseller Snowblind: A Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade, Loaded is high drama from a lost time. From mule trains in the Andes to boardrooms in Mahattan, from Mexico to the counterculture scene in Marin, from Studio 54 to the midnight streets of Miami, Allen Long is a consummate hustler, dreamer, entrepreneur, bullshit artist, and hero. His true story is as entertaining as the greatest fiction.

The New Yorker

"I'm the tour guide for a global gourmet-ganja holiday." So writes Brian Preston, a Canadian journalist, with just a hint of gloating, in Pot Planet, a gimlet-eyed and often hilarious account of the author's round-the-world reefer safari. With Britain's downscaling of penalties for marijuana possession currently stirring up controversy, Preston's book comes along at a propitious moment. And while Preston admits to recreational use and appears to condone efforts to legalize the drug he offers a surprisingly clear-headed view of potheads worldwide. Researching marijuana mores in twelve countries, from Canada to Cambodia, Preston rubbed shoulders -- and puffed on joints -- with devotees who fry their morning pancakes in hemp oil, discuss the subtle differences between Sweet Skunk and Bubbleberry as if they were comparing fine wines, have their last names legally changed to Cannabis, and, in the case of one enterprising Australian, dream of opening the Big Bong Burger Bar, a kind of edible-marijuana McDonald's.

In Loaded, Robert Sabbag, a reporter for Rolling Stone, offers a somewhat darker view of the herb. This true-life tall tale about Allen Long, a frustrated American documentary filmmaker who began smuggling pot out of Mexico and then Colombia in the seventies, is like a cannabis version of the film "Blow," featuring countless near-death episodes in a rickety, marijuana-stuffed DC-3. Whereas Preston eventually concludes that marijuana is just "one of those goofy adult things like booze and sex," Sabbag's more critical examination of how the stuff actually finds its way into the United States reveals a major "triumph of greed over good judgment."

Robert Sabbag is the author of Snowblind, Smokescreen, and Too Tough to Die. He is a regular contributor to Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications.