Reefer Men
by Tony Thompson
Hodder & Stoughton, HK$128
It looks - and reads - like a crime novel but Reefer Men is a true story about a group of 16 drug smugglers who made their fortunes getting Americans high. Theirs is an audacious tale with simple beginnings. When a marijuana 'famine' hit the US in 1969, savvy university students began a small-scale operation transporting grass over the border from Mexico.
These groundbreaking efforts with easy profits spurred a push in the 1980s by professional smugglers, who focused their energy on dope from Thailand. Headed by Brian Daniels, the posse met regularly at the Superstar Bar in Bangkok's red-light Patpong district to organise shipments to Australia and the US. The book chronicles Daniels' move upmarket on marrying a Thai woman with military connections, which led him to study how to improve strains of marijuana and pack it more efficiently for shipping. Then came plans for a final heist that would allow all concerned -
if successful - to retire in style. It didn't go to plan. Tony Thompson does a commendable job in detailing, as the subhead says, 'the rise and fall of a billionaire drugs ring', but the story suffers from a lack of sources. Not that this bothers movie-makers. A film version, possibly starring Brad Pitt, has been mooted.
