
Smuggler's Blues
A True Story of the Hippie Mafia
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Narrated by:
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Richard Stratton
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By:
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Richard Stratton
About this listen
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.Listeners also enjoyed...
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An unrepentant true crime memoir about the life of a man who sold and used cocaine daily for thirty-eight years. A man with over fifty years of involvement with illegal drugs starting at the age of thirteen. Offering a fair and balanced account of how drugs and drug dealing affected his life, those closest to him as well as the lives of others. This is a different kind of drug dealer story. The kind you don't hear. The kind they don't want told.
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His raw honesty.
- By larry crowder on 04-09-25
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No Angel
- My Harrowing Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels
- By: Jay Dobyns, Nils Johnson-Shelton
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Getting shot in the chest as a rookie ATF agent, bartering for machine guns, throttling down the highway at 100 miles per hour, and responding to a full-scale, bloody riot between the Hells Angels and their rivals, the Mongols - these are just a few of the high-adrenaline experiences Jay Dobyns recounts in this action-packed, hard to imagine, but true story of how he infiltrated the legendary Hells Angels.
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"I would avoid this one..."
- By Chris on 12-27-12
By: Jay Dobyns, and others
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The Wizard of Lies
- Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust
- By: Diana B. Henriques
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
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Who is Bernie Madoff, and how did he pull off the biggest Ponzi scheme in history? These questions have fascinated people ever since the news broke about the respected New York financier who swindled his friends, relatives, and other investors out of $65 billion. Many have speculated about what must have happened, but no reporter has been able to get the full story - until now. Diana B. Henriques of the New York Times has written the definitive book on the man and his scheme.
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The best of 3 madoff books
- By Angela willis on 03-18-13
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Sonny
- The Last of the Old Time Mafia Bosses, John "Sonny" Franzese
- By: S.J. Peddie
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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John "Sonny" Franzese reportedly committed his first murder at the age of fourteen. As a "made man" for the Colombo crime family, he operated out of his Long Island home specializing in racketeering, fraud, and other illicit deeds he would deny to his dying day. His career in organized crime spanned over eight decades - and he was sentenced to fifty years in prison for robbery. This is the true story of an old-school Mafioso as it's never been told. Newsday reporter S. J. Peddie interviewed Franzese in prison and uncovered a lifetime of shocking secrets from the legend himself.
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Absolute BS
- By Lingerfelt on 04-20-22
By: S.J. Peddie
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The Mastermind
- Drugs. Empire. Murder. Betrayal.
- By: Evan Ratliff
- Narrated by: Evan Ratliff
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The incredible true story of the decade-long quest to bring down Paul Le Roux - the creator of a frighteningly powerful internet-enabled cartel who merged the ruthlessness of a drug lord with the technological savvy of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur.
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Being too reliant on consensus backfires occasiona
- By El Alamein on 07-17-19
By: Evan Ratliff
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Saltwater Cowboy
- The Rise and Fall of a Marijuana Empire
- By: Tim McBride, Ralph Berrier Jr.
- Narrated by: Wes Talbot
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1979, Wisconsin native Tim McBride hopped into his Mustang and headed south. He was 21, and his best friend had offered him a job working as a crab fisherman in Chokoloskee Island, a town of fewer than 500 people on Florida's Gulf Coast. Easy of disposition and eager to experience life at its richest, McBride jumped in with both feet. But this wasn't a typical fishing outfit.
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Great made even better by the fact it's non fictio
- By Porkchop on 01-11-18
By: Tim McBride, and others
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Black Mass
- Whitey Bulger, The FBI, and a Devil's Deal
- By: Gerard O'Neill, Dick Lehr
- Narrated by: John Rubinstein, Christopher Evan Welch
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In this gritty New York Times best-seller, the true story of a crooked deal between the FBI and the Irish Mob is exposed. By providing a penetrating look into the mean streets of mid-1970s South Boston, the author shows how two kids from the neighborhood cross paths again years later, ending in the biggest informant scandal in FBI history.
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Excellent!
- By John L. Mahan on 06-18-15
By: Gerard O'Neill, and others
What listeners say about Smuggler's Blues
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- Jay Friesen
- 03-05-23
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.
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- Philip Anderson
- 04-06-20
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!
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- Kayla Burgess
- 01-12-21
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!
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- tim
- 12-10-23
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?
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- Matt
- 03-08-17
Enjoyable
Well written and interesting. Author lived and interesting life. Reminds one of the saying about quitting while one is ahead.
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- 1984AD
- 02-15-18
Amazing
An awesome book!!! A word of warning, though... once your start listening, it grips you entirely. Hard to put down.
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- Stephen T. Cooksey
- 05-07-18
Enjoyable
I enjoyed every minute! I'd like to see some of his other books here on audible.
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- Lynda K
- 10-22-24
Fascinating
This was a great read. It’s fascinating and entertaining as heck. I certainly didn’t want it to end the way it did but I guess it was inevitable. The guy just wouldn’t quit!! Lived his life exactly the way he wanted…with no regrets it seems.
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- Gator
- 06-12-23
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.
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- Yelena Caron
- 07-19-23
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.
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