Smuggler's Blues

A True Story of the Hippie Mafia

By: Richard Stratton

Narrated by: Richard Stratton

Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Goodfellas meets Savages meets Catch Me If You Can in this true tale of high-stakes smuggling from pot's outlaw years.

Richard Stratton was the unlikeliest of kingpins. A clean-cut Wellesley boy who entered outlaw culture on a trip to Mexico, he saw his search for a joint morph into a thrill-filled dope run, smuggling two kilos across the border in his car door. He became a member of the Hippie Mafia, traveling the world to keep America high, living the underground life while embracing the hippie credo, rejecting hard drugs in favor of marijuana and hashish.

With cameos by Whitey Bulger and Norman Mailer, Smuggler's Blues tells Stratton's adventure while centering on his last years as he travels from New York to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley to source and smuggle high-grade hash in the midst of civil war, from the Caribbean to the backwoods of Maine, and from the Chelsea Hotel to the Plaza as his fortunes rise and fall. All the while he is being pursued by his nemesis, a philosophical DEA agent who respects him for his good business practices.

A true-crime story that sounds like fiction, Smuggler's Blues is a psychedelic road trip through international drug smuggling, the hippie underground, and the war on weed. As Big Marijuana emerges, it brings to vivid life an important chapter in pot's cultural history.

©2016 Richard Stratton (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Interesting

The gratuitous, graphic descriptions of sex acts are a dead giveaway that the person may have inadequacies in that department but the rest of the story is pretty good.

Enjoyable

Well written and interesting. Author lived and interesting life. Reminds one of the saying about quitting while one is ahead.

Amazing

An awesome book!!! A word of warning, though... once your start listening, it grips you entirely. Hard to put down.

Enjoyable

I enjoyed every minute! I'd like to see some of his other books here on audible.

Very meh

Stratton has a moment in the book where its a little cringy about how he drones on about women, black women in particular. He comes off a little pervy and creepy. Several times throughout he loses himself and more importantly, the reader. Very mediocre book The story had its moments, but towards the end, it felt rushed to finish.

Amazing story very entertaining… But…

Wonderful story very exciting literally on the edge of my seat. Most of the book. The last couple hours is where it feels like. He’s rambling a little bit and I don’t think he spent enough time talking about his arrest in the aftermath it was really only the last 10 minutes of the book.

An amazing story of an artist who lived life his own way

Anyone who can write and perform a real life story like this true life tale of hubris and imagination deserves his place in literary history along side his personal friend Norman Mailer.
A story that takes off like a bullet and never slows down for a moment!

what is going on with the sequel!

audible get this man's other books on the service asap! come on! how are we not able to finish the story!

the lebanese hash connection

a good book with some great stories of smuggling advetures centering on a huge load of hash from lebanon and what it took to put it together and make it happen and how it unfolded. only down side was chapter 11 where he carried on about and repeteing the words "p*ssy and c*nt" specificly about those of black women. got kind of offensive. but other than that it was a really good book. good enough that i've listened to it twice now. just didn't care to much for his narration. not a fan of authors narrating their own books. maybe that's just me though?

Mildly entertaining, at best.

If you’re looking for 8 hours of a self loathing hippies confessions wrapped in a mildly entertaining story you might like this book. Perhaps if he stuck more to the story than his mindless ramblings using every adjective in the dictionary it would been better.