Thai Stick - Surfers, Scammers, and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade

Thailand¿s capital has been home to smugglers and adventurers since the late eighteenth century. During the 1970s, it became a modern Casablanca to a new generation of treasure seekers: from surfers looking to finance their endless summers to wide-eyed hippie true believers and lethal marauders leftover from the Vietnam War. Moving a shipment of Thai sticks from northeast Thailand farms to American consumers meant navigating one of the most complex smuggling channels in the history of the drug trade. Conducting hundreds of interviews with smugglers and law enforcement agents, the authors recount the buy, the delivery, the voyage home, and the product offload. They capture the eccentric personalities who transformed the Thai marijuana trade from a GI cottage industry into one of the world¿s most lucrative commodities, unraveling a rare history from the smugglers¿ perspective.

List of contents

Foreword by David Farber
Introduction
Maps
1. Surfers
2. The Hippie Trail
3. Kuta Beach
4. Thai Sticks
5. Pattaya Beach Ground Zero
6. The Great Circle Route and the Sea of Grass
7. The Gold Rush
8. Pirates and Perils
9. Multitons and Mother Ships
10. The DEA Gains Ground
11. Confidential Informant
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the author

Peter Maguire and Mike Ritter

Product details

• Authors: Maguire, Peter Maguire, Peter Ritter Maguire, Maguire Peter, Mike Ritter
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.01.2014
• EAN: 9780231161343
• ISBN: 978-0-231-16134-3
• No. of pages: 272
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology; Thailand, Sociology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Criminology, LAW / Drugs & the Law, Drugs trade / drug trafficking, Criminology; asian history