The last pirate

By Tony Dokoupil

Subjects: Journalists, united states, Editors, Journalists, Families, Journalists, biography, Biography, Pharmaceutical industry, Marijuana industry, Drug trade, Family

Description: "NBC News"senior writer Dokoupil offers a gripping examination of his longtime marijuana-dealing father, as well as a researched look at the evolution of American narcotics laws. In the early 1970s, Dokoupil's father, also named Tony, dropped out of graduate school to deal marijuana. Dokoupil recounts how the smuggling and distribution business ran and contextualizes it within the Great Stoned Age. Partly the history of a generation, yet very much a family story, the tale darkens dramatically with the father's precipitous, if inevitable, decline and fall.