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This chapter gives an overview of the drug trade surrounding the seedless cannabis sativa—the marijuana plant used for the potent, high-grade Thai sticks. Such wares fetched a premium price on American soil, and their trade continued to addle the Nixon administration even in the face of a much larger threat—heroin trafficking. Given how limited a commodity this prime quality, perfectly dried and packaged Thai and Laotian pot was, in the 1970s it was a seller's market with no end in sight. Unlike other drugs whose distribution was tightly controlled at the upper levels by syndicates, the Thai marijuana trade was controlled only by the laws of supply and demand.

This chapter describes the beginnings of a lucrative trade in Thai sticks on Pattaya Beach, Thailand. The surfer scammers there found a clientele among the hippies and American expats, who shared little more than the fact that the Vietnam War was the defining event of their lives. In the midst of this the scammers took advantage of local norms and customs to build a more hospitable area for these customers in which to facilitate trade of Thai sticks. Among the key players in such ventures were the “fixers”—middlemen who scored deals and won the trust of foreigners, creating that vital link between the local suppliers and their foreign clients.

This chapter describes the complicated routes taken by American scammers in negotiating the Thai marijuana trade, as Thai sticks were carted from farms in their rawest form, changing hands several times until the final product was smuggled into the United States. Contrary to the popular misconceptions of the time, the marijuana trade did not operate under a neat pyramid structure, but was largely informal, disorganized, and heavily based on the laws of supply and demand. Another issue the American law enforcement had to face at the time was the fact that the demand for marijuana came from American soil. At the other end, foreign scammers often found themselves at odds with the local culture—many of them failed to realize that the Thais could be vicious negotiators in their own right after years of experience with foreigners attempting to take advantage of them.

This chapter chronicles the smuggling operations of scammers—surfer, hippie, and otherwise—in the Kuta Beach in Bali, part of the Hippie Trail. Although there were plenty of setbacks during any given operation, the payout was often quite lucrative. Even as the U.S. government pressured other nations to crack down on the drug smuggling operations within their respective borders, informal operations such as the ones Mike Ritter conducted were sufficient for maintaining the surfer lifestyle. And while the waves at Bali were ideal for the surfer lifestyle, a chance encounter with Thai sticks at a stopover in Bangkok would pave the way for a new drug hitting U.S. soil.