Californian True Crime: A Killing in Cannabis

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Hello, my name is Andrew Keen.

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Welcome to Keen on America, the Daily
Interview Show about the United States.

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Hello everybody.

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Uh, people always talk these days about
profound change in America, but I wonder

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whether some things have stayed the same.

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Certainly our fetishization of
drugs and the war on drugs, uh,

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Trump of course, invaded, uh.

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Venezuela, at least for a
day in the name of drugs.

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He has a war on Fentanyl.

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And the more it seems to me as if we talk
about the war on drugs, the less we know.

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My guest today has a new book out,
not in theoretical terms on the war on

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drugs, but a, a book about a killing
in cannabis, which in some ways brings,

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I think a lot more enlightenment
to the complicated subject of.

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Drugs, illegal and otherwise
in the United States.

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Um, my guest is Scott Eden, the
book, 'A Killing in Cannabis' has

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already got a rave review on the
New York Times and he is joining

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us from, uh, Chile, uh, New Jersey.

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Uh, Scott, congratulations on
the new book, especially the

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the New York Times Review.

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Thank you so much.

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Uh, I don't wanna get too theoretical
with you, but do you agree with me that

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there's a lot of nonsense in America?

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Talked about drugs.

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Uh, yeah, I mean there's
a lot of nonsense.

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Talked about, just about every subject,

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particularly drugs and these,
this obsession with war on it

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of stopping it coming into the
country and all the rest of it.

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Yeah, I mean, it's, it's always
been, um, this whack-a-mole.

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I mean, really, is it ever going to
be, I mean, staunched completely, no.

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Uh, and it's done.

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I mean, it's just, it's obvious
that it's done more damage the

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war on drugs than, than problems.

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It's solved.

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Um, and you know, the, the book that a
Killing and cannabis focuses obviously on,

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on the, on the wheat business, which is

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somewhat different, which is
supposed to be legal, right?

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So, so tell me the story.

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It's a remarkable story and of course.

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Like many remarkable stories.

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It's a true story.

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Yes, it is.

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Uh, yeah.

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And set in California, in Santa
Cruz, California, and it takes place

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a beautiful Santa Cruz.

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We were talking about
it before we went live.

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One of my favorite, I I'm in San
Francisco, one of my favorite

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places outside San Francisco.

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It's, it's very much of
the Bay Area, but, um.

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It's a story about, you know, and
here's another part of the Bay Area.

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It's a story of a tech executive who
along, along with it was a whole wave

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of people from like the Silicon Valley
kind of world, business world who decided

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to, uh, found cannabis startups when
California recreationally legalized.

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Uh.

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In 2016 by, you know, by the, the
plebe site, you know, the, um, voting

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measure in the same Trump year as Trump
was elected for the first time around.

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But that, that like sparked this
huge wave of people, you know, who

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would, would try to get then licenses
to create cannabis companies.

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And, uh, the, the person at the center
of the story, the ultimate victim of a,

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of the murder was a named Tushar Tre.

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Yeah, he sounds like a rapper to me.

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Although, of course, um, he wasn't, or
like many rappers, he ended up murdered.

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But that's another story.

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He was a, uh, you know, well-respected,
um, by his peers, uh, cannabis, or

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not cannabis, a tech entrepreneur.

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He had had his own company re net.

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He was sort of, um, you know,
uh, in, in the, in the internet

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side of, of the, of the business.

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He'd, he had come out to Santa Cruz.

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He was actually raised, born and raised.

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Not born, but um, grew
up in Westchester County.

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Outside New York City, his mother

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up the road from you.

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Should we, should we not let
East Coasters come to California?

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Are they, they're gonna turn into
drug criminals of one kind or another?

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Too late for that.

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I mean, people come to select,
especially in the.com boom.

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People were coming from all
over, you know, and there it's

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sort of a, a rep prise, right?

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Like, um.

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Here.

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He came to stand.

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He came to Santa, to the Bay
area to participate in the.com

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boom, when he was pretty young.

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He's still in his twenties.

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Is he a good guy with this, this too
Sha He, he looks a little like a ra.

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Certainly.

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He's not around anymore.

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He has the name of a rapper.

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Was he a classic bro entrepreneur?

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What distinguishes him from

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wave

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of wave after?

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Startup entrepreneurs that
come to Northern California.

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He was an ind in of
Indian American heritage.

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Um, his mother was, uh, and both
his parents were from India.

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He, his mother though, was a,
kind of, was a really well known,

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uh, computer scientist, like
a, like database engineering.

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And she worked for IBM for many years.

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And she, um, you know, kind of helped
him create this company in, in the

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Bay Area when he was just starting out
in the, in the nine, late nineties.

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And it was a, a company that's like one
of the first to like design websites

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for corp for companies, many of which
were Silicon Valley startups themselves.

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And so he was sort of in early on that.

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And his, his,

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oh, he was, uh, like the
original Levi's in the Gold Rush.

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He was selling the picks to the miners,

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sort of, yeah.

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I mean, and, but he designed what his
company designed websites essentially.

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And then, you know, where it was sort
of the marketing and design side of

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that, that first wave of internet.

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But it, the company, um.

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Was successful and was exists to this day.

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And he was running that and then, you
know, made a lot of money, um, and did

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very well and then lived in Santa Cruz
on, on the, on the, on Monterey Bay.

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It was a big surfer.

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And then like, like many others was
drawn though when cannabis, uh, when.

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Finally recreational legalized
in California in 2016.

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He had met along with many others,
decided to saw a huge opportunity.

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I, is there a, a moral
quality to this story?

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I mean, so far he sounds just
another tech bro comes out, starts

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a web design company, successful
lives in Santa Cruz, where many

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right

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of the tech community live and then sees
a, a legal opportunity with cannabis,

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which, uh, as you know, was legalized.

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So.

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W Where's the moral story here, Scott?

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Well, I mean he, in many ways, Tushar Wa
was a kind of product of Silicon Valley.

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So the whole, he didn't have an MBA,
but certainly he came from that R um,

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r Ruth, ruthless, you know, capital,
you know, capitalistic, you know, we

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must disrupt, we want, we're always
seeking the next giant opportunity.

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Um, and they saw that people like Tushar
and guys like him saw that in cannabis.

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Cannabis legalization in California
was, in many ways, you know, a kind of,

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it's, it's really the, the connections
to the tech industry are deep.

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I mean, Sean Parker, you know, the,
um, the Facebook early investor,

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the Napster guy, he was, he
essentially bankrolled Proposition 64.

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Prop 64.

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The, the ballot initiative.

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Yeah.

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I think, uh, Parker is also
notorious for having his wedding

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in the, in the Redwoods and, um.

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Trashing the place up a little bit.

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Oh, I didn't know about that.

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Probably.

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Uh, there was some, some
drugs involved there too.

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Um, so I, I'm guessing that the main
character at the heart of your story,

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uh, Tushar used words like scale a lot.

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Did he wanna become the

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Yes.

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The

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Mark Zuckerberg or the Jeff Bezos of the,
of the, of this new cannabis business?

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I mean, I, he certainly
had ambitions to create.

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A sophisticated, um, cannabis company he
chose, you know, there's these different

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sectors of the weed business you can grow.

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Obviously it's just
agriculture, um, retail.

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But he chose to get into manufacturing,
which is essentially, you know,

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the creation of hash oil, where
you're extracting the essential oil

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essential oils of the THC in, its
in its purest form from the plant.

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It's sort of the, um, the air to the
tradition of hashish making, which was

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taking the res, the high THC resins on the
plant and creating a, a, a consumable s

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smokeable product from that, it's ancient,
but this was, this is done in like a

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chemical, in a, in a lab, in a laboratory.

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And it takes, it's, if not
done properly, it's dangerous.

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Um, so Tushar decided to get into
that area and, you know, they, he had

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ambitions of, you know, create, you know.

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Holding out until, you know,
there's FDA approval for, for,

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for cannabis based, um, medicines.

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And so he was sort of angling to become,
you know, and you know, the, the idea

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of isolating various cannabinoids, which
is, you know, cannabis is a very complex

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substance filled with many different
kinds of molecules that not, that are

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not well understood in addition to THC.

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And so he was really sort of
going off into this, these,

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these, this kind of scientific.

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Angle,

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and this wasn't of course, new.

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I mean, I know in the book you talk
about the intellectual genealogy,

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not just of Silicon Valley,
but of this entire subculture.

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Ken Kei, of course.

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Yes.

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Who wrote One Flew Over as a Cuckoo's
nurse, very much involved with Stanford

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in the area, very influential of his time.

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Stewart Brand.

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I mean, this was in the water, in the
air in Northern California, wasn't it?

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Big time.

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I mean, in many ways the cannabis industry
we know today was given, you know, it

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was, was birthed by the counterculture
of Calif in California in the sixties.

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And one of the, one of the epicenters
of Count the counterculture was the

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Bay Area or the, you know, maybe.

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Certainly not just San Francisco,
but um, Santa Cruz as well and yeah,

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and Ken and Casey, who was one of
the founding fathers of the, of the

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and brand.

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They seem to be high most of the time.

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Kei.

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That's what,

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yeah.

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I mean they were

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iconic figure

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using everything and, you know, the,
his writing cabin Ken Casey's was,

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uh, in, uh, LA Honda, which is in the.

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Not in Santa Cruz County.

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It's in San Mateo, but still
it's in the Santa Cruz mountains.

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In the nestled, in the Redwoods.

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It's in the sa, same region.

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And um, you know, that was the
home base for the Mary Pranksters.

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The house band was the,
became the grateful dead of

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Right.

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And, but Casey wasn't murdered
Stuart brand still around

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living on his houseboat in the

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Yes.

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San Francisco Bay.

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Um, they were not in one of the Grateful
Dead, were executed or murdered.

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Yeah.

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What happened to this, this, this,
your, the, the, the hero or the

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anti-hero in your book, tohar.

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Why, why did he devolve or slide into
one kind of criminality or another?

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Well, I mean, the cannabis business,
you know, it's, it's, it was just

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then emerging from prohibition, just
when Tohar was, was getting into it.

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Or there's a slow evolution
from total prohibition through

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the medical marijuana regime.

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To recreational
legalization in California.

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But if you think about it as a
national movement, you know, the

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state by state, you know, prohibitions
are, are being eliminated and it's

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becoming legal sort of here and there,
but it's still federally illegal.

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So I would still consider even now,
and especially when Tushar was getting

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into the business, it was this chaotic
time, like this prohibition that

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had been around for since the 1930s.

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Only partially ending.

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Right?

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So you had, yes, you had people from
outside of cannabis wanting to get

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into the, into the industry like Tohar.

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But then you had also people who had
been involved in the black market for,

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for many years also trying to position
themselves to go legit to get licenses.

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And so there's all of these people were
scrambling to position themselves to

233
00:11:54,855 --> 00:11:57,825
take advantage of what they thought
was gonna be this giant opportunity.

234
00:11:58,785 --> 00:12:00,705
So at the beginning you
kind of had to deal with.

235
00:12:01,335 --> 00:12:05,175
Even if you wanted to do things totally
a license and above board, there was

236
00:12:05,175 --> 00:12:11,145
no way to avoid not dealing with people
who, who were in the black market, right?

237
00:12:11,175 --> 00:12:12,165
Organized crime.

238
00:12:12,165 --> 00:12:17,145
There's that famous moment in
The Godfather when, um, there's

239
00:12:17,145 --> 00:12:22,365
a conversation about whether or
not to go into the drug business.

240
00:12:22,455 --> 00:12:25,425
Um, what was, uh.

241
00:12:26,835 --> 00:12:30,375
Was he associated, did he become
involved with organized crime?

242
00:12:31,785 --> 00:12:35,595
I mean, the cannabis world is sort
of just a little bit different

243
00:12:35,595 --> 00:12:36,975
than like the harder drugs.

244
00:12:37,035 --> 00:12:41,985
So organized crime is not
quite as involved in weed

245
00:12:41,985 --> 00:12:43,995
as, uh, as cocaine or heroin.

246
00:12:43,995 --> 00:12:44,625
But it is there.

247
00:12:44,805 --> 00:12:47,865
I mean certainly the Mexican
drug cartels got their start

248
00:12:48,105 --> 00:12:49,930
actually, um, selling cannabis.

249
00:12:50,640 --> 00:12:54,780
Selling weed brick, Mexican brick
weed into the United States during

250
00:12:54,780 --> 00:12:56,040
the sixties and even before.

251
00:12:56,400 --> 00:13:00,750
So the, the organized crime groups
that grew in Mexico out, uh, you

252
00:13:00,750 --> 00:13:04,680
know, to what we know today, kind of
had their start as weed traffickers.

253
00:13:05,625 --> 00:13:08,025
So yes, there is organized crime,
but you know, it's a, it's a,

254
00:13:08,025 --> 00:13:09,675
it's a, it's a diverse world.

255
00:13:09,675 --> 00:13:15,045
You had like these kind of, um, hippie
do-gooders who were creating patient

256
00:13:15,045 --> 00:13:19,485
collectives that, you know, uh, also
were profiting on the black market.

257
00:13:19,485 --> 00:13:21,195
So is that organized crime?

258
00:13:21,375 --> 00:13:25,035
Not in the, you know, sort of popular
sense, but I mean, they were, you

259
00:13:25,035 --> 00:13:29,115
know, many of these people became kind
of pot tycoons on a very large scale.

260
00:13:29,850 --> 00:13:31,260
And they came out of the counterculture.

261
00:13:31,260 --> 00:13:35,069
So they were kind of like this
almost hippie, gangster, um, type

262
00:13:35,400 --> 00:13:38,640
of, of, of operator in cannabis.

263
00:13:38,760 --> 00:13:45,030
Also, when, you know, recreational weed
was just coming into play in 20 16, 20 17.

264
00:13:45,030 --> 00:13:48,000
So it was like this kind of, that's
one of the reasons I was drawn

265
00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:49,110
to the book in the first place.

266
00:13:49,110 --> 00:13:53,610
It's like this sort of diverse
mixture of very colorful people.

267
00:13:54,150 --> 00:13:54,480
Yes.

268
00:13:54,630 --> 00:13:58,410
Put it, um, to put it
euphemistically, colorful people.

269
00:13:58,410 --> 00:13:58,890
Is there.

270
00:13:59,505 --> 00:14:01,485
Is this very much of an American story?

271
00:14:01,485 --> 00:14:06,075
Of course, when we talk about
prohibition, post-prohibition, we

272
00:14:06,075 --> 00:14:10,665
don't just think of the Godfather, we
think of, uh, Gatsby, who apparently

273
00:14:10,665 --> 00:14:17,205
made his money, at least his fictional
money in, uh, in alcohol, um, right.

274
00:14:17,355 --> 00:14:21,015
I mean, of course there are illegal
drugs around drugs around the world.

275
00:14:22,170 --> 00:14:27,420
Do you think that the story you tell in a
killing in cannabis, it's a, a true story?

276
00:14:27,420 --> 00:14:29,400
Is it very much of an American story?

277
00:14:30,180 --> 00:14:33,060
I mean, it's it's pretty, it's pretty,
it, it's, I consider it sort of,

278
00:14:33,060 --> 00:14:35,160
yeah, like an American kind of epic.

279
00:14:35,190 --> 00:14:40,170
I mean, uh, there are, you know, every
country that has weed prohibition

280
00:14:40,170 --> 00:14:42,390
though, would be in a similar position.

281
00:14:42,450 --> 00:14:45,330
You know, I mean, many other countries
that UK included, you know, it

282
00:14:45,330 --> 00:14:50,325
had a. Swinging seventies or the
swinging sixties there, over there.

283
00:14:50,325 --> 00:14:51,735
And, uh, had it had its own, you

284
00:14:51,735 --> 00:14:52,605
start from somewhere.

285
00:14:52,605 --> 00:14:58,005
I mean, there were rumors that Joe Kennedy
made his money originally in illegal Yes.

286
00:14:58,725 --> 00:15:00,765
Alcohol of one kind or another.

287
00:15:00,855 --> 00:15:01,545
Um, never proven.

288
00:15:01,545 --> 00:15:06,105
So for many of the great fortunes
in America were founded, uh,

289
00:15:06,495 --> 00:15:11,775
around this gray area, shall we
say, to speak euphemistically.

290
00:15:12,435 --> 00:15:12,735
Right.

291
00:15:12,735 --> 00:15:17,295
I mean, I, I. That's another reason
that, you know, the Silicon Valley and

292
00:15:17,295 --> 00:15:19,275
cannabis connections are intriguing.

293
00:15:20,355 --> 00:15:25,875
You know, guys like Tohar and some
of the, um, bigger entrepreneurs

294
00:15:25,875 --> 00:15:28,485
in the Silicon Valley, like, I
mean, they live on the edge, right?

295
00:15:28,815 --> 00:15:36,585
They're constantly seeking loopholes
or weak points to exploit right?

296
00:15:36,585 --> 00:15:38,800
In order to, in order to make money.

297
00:15:39,765 --> 00:15:46,755
Um, and I think that Drew Tohar to weed
to begin with in, in some way also is

298
00:15:46,755 --> 00:15:48,555
the, this idea of living on the edge.

299
00:15:49,125 --> 00:15:52,425
You know, he was a big surfer,
loved, you know, had the adrenaline

300
00:15:52,425 --> 00:15:57,885
rush of, of going out and catching
big waves, living dangerously.

301
00:15:57,885 --> 00:15:58,185
And I, I, he

302
00:15:58,185 --> 00:16:00,855
reminds me a little bit, uh, I
used to know a few years ago,

303
00:16:00,855 --> 00:16:03,105
Travis Knick, the founder of Uber.

304
00:16:03,480 --> 00:16:06,120
He is now somewhat disgraced.

305
00:16:06,150 --> 00:16:09,420
Um, I'm not sure how familiar
you are with Kal Nick, but

306
00:16:09,660 --> 00:16:09,930
yeah,

307
00:16:09,960 --> 00:16:14,400
he was another arrogant, brash, but
also brilliantly innovative character.

308
00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:16,290
Was Tushar likable?

309
00:16:17,310 --> 00:16:18,090
I mean, yes.

310
00:16:18,120 --> 00:16:22,590
He has, uh, I mean he, story after
story of how charismatic he was and

311
00:16:22,590 --> 00:16:26,700
he has an extremely loyal friend group
in, in Santa Cruz who, I mean, they

312
00:16:26,700 --> 00:16:30,360
loved him and there was a reason he
was, to them, he was generous, kind.

313
00:16:31,380 --> 00:16:37,170
Sort of, um, dynamic,
creative, you know, innovative.

314
00:16:37,230 --> 00:16:37,829
Innovative.

315
00:16:37,829 --> 00:16:42,089
Also, I mean, here he was, you know,
um, innovating again with, uh, with,

316
00:16:42,150 --> 00:16:45,449
in the cannabis world, you know, so
they, they saw this, um, this, this

317
00:16:45,449 --> 00:16:51,180
brilliant kind of business and, you
know, uh, entrepreneur and founder, um.

318
00:16:52,425 --> 00:16:56,955
You know, he, he was artistic, you know,
soulful, you know, I mean, he was sort of

319
00:16:56,955 --> 00:17:03,195
like one of these kind of hipster, um, uh,
uh, executives that, uh, the Bay Area has,

320
00:17:03,285 --> 00:17:07,875
did, did he, he, he sounds to me as if
he had a kind of a Tony Sue quality.

321
00:17:07,875 --> 00:17:12,135
Tony Sue being the founder of Zappos,
he made hundreds of millions of dollars

322
00:17:12,135 --> 00:17:17,415
from selling, uh, his company to
Amazon, and he had a, a tragic death.

323
00:17:17,474 --> 00:17:19,575
Uh, he was very much involved.

324
00:17:20,444 --> 00:17:22,755
In the world of drugs as well.

325
00:17:22,755 --> 00:17:27,855
Did, uh, did uh, Tushar and Tony Sue,
were they in any way associated, or was

326
00:17:27,855 --> 00:17:30,015
it that, just that sort of subculture?

327
00:17:30,375 --> 00:17:31,725
Yeah, don't, don't think so.

328
00:17:31,785 --> 00:17:34,155
Um, there are many connections though.

329
00:17:34,155 --> 00:17:34,275
Yeah.

330
00:17:34,275 --> 00:17:37,755
Like I said, between Santa Cruz, weed,
e going, even going back into the

331
00:17:37,755 --> 00:17:43,695
medical and prior times and tech, I
mean, you had, uh, the, the a the, I

332
00:17:43,695 --> 00:17:47,295
talked to and, and, uh, one gentleman
in particular who had been growing.

333
00:17:48,405 --> 00:17:51,345
Unlicensed weed on property he
owns in the, in the mountains in

334
00:17:51,345 --> 00:17:53,475
Santa Cruz since the seventies.

335
00:17:54,045 --> 00:17:57,915
And his like chief clientele over the
years sort of evolved from musicians

336
00:17:57,945 --> 00:18:01,845
and in the seventies through, and
then in the eighties it became, uh,

337
00:18:02,355 --> 00:18:07,335
tech executives and founders who saw
in weed away just to kind of chill

338
00:18:07,335 --> 00:18:09,615
out or to inspire their their minds.

339
00:18:09,615 --> 00:18:14,805
There's the Steve Jobs famous origin
story where he came up with the

340
00:18:15,075 --> 00:18:17,535
idea for Apple with the age of.

341
00:18:18,495 --> 00:18:22,725
Pot Wozniak famously saying,
no, he didn't use any.

342
00:18:22,785 --> 00:18:28,845
Um, but there there's this Burning
Man, you know, which was, uh, so

343
00:18:28,995 --> 00:18:33,165
an amalgam of artists and tech
people out out of San Francisco.

344
00:18:33,375 --> 00:18:37,545
Many of the Burning Man installations
were financed by Santa Cruz.

345
00:18:38,534 --> 00:18:40,064
Uh, pot business people.

346
00:18:40,365 --> 00:18:42,975
But again, I mean, all
those things are true.

347
00:18:42,975 --> 00:18:47,745
Uh, jobs went to India and
experimented with psychedelics.

348
00:18:47,895 --> 00:18:48,135
Yeah.

349
00:18:48,405 --> 00:18:53,564
Uh, burning Man has a cult following,
although I'm think less so now, but

350
00:18:53,564 --> 00:18:56,655
none of that is necessarily illegal.

351
00:18:56,655 --> 00:18:58,935
I mean, Steve Jobs died a natural death.

352
00:18:58,935 --> 00:19:01,155
So how did this devolve?

353
00:19:01,155 --> 00:19:03,615
I mean, this sounds like a
standard story, ambitious.

354
00:19:04,020 --> 00:19:10,680
Yeah, entrepreneur, brash, confident,
likable, charismatic from a tech

355
00:19:10,680 --> 00:19:13,020
background, already had one success.

356
00:19:13,020 --> 00:19:17,340
Probably believe that everything
he did would inevitably successful.

357
00:19:17,790 --> 00:19:23,735
How did this turn into,
uh, a story of murder?

358
00:19:26,310 --> 00:19:28,710
I mean, there was a very
huge investigation, you

359
00:19:28,710 --> 00:19:30,149
know, so they find his body.

360
00:19:30,629 --> 00:19:30,870
So just

361
00:19:31,379 --> 00:19:36,360
briefly, uh, um, uh, Scott, what happened?

362
00:19:36,389 --> 00:19:37,350
Tell us the year.

363
00:19:37,350 --> 00:19:38,790
I mean, we don't want
to give everything away.

364
00:19:38,790 --> 00:19:41,100
We want people to read the book,
and it's a wonderful book, right?

365
00:19:41,100 --> 00:19:41,490
I don't wanna, I

366
00:19:41,490 --> 00:19:44,610
wanna great reviews, but
when was he murdered?

367
00:19:44,610 --> 00:19:45,270
What happened

368
00:19:46,050 --> 00:19:48,270
October 1st, 2019?

369
00:19:48,975 --> 00:19:51,825
And so he had been in the Candace
business barely three years by the

370
00:19:51,825 --> 00:19:56,235
time when he was, when he was found,
and he was abducted from his house

371
00:19:56,805 --> 00:20:04,125
by three assailants and then his body
was found, um, on raw land that he

372
00:20:04,125 --> 00:20:05,745
owned in the can Santa Cruz Mountains.

373
00:20:06,104 --> 00:20:07,274
Not on the beach,

374
00:20:07,725 --> 00:20:08,235
no house

375
00:20:08,655 --> 00:20:09,254
on the surfer beach.

376
00:20:09,495 --> 00:20:14,264
His house was on the beach or on the,
on the surf breaks in pleasure Point in

377
00:20:14,264 --> 00:20:15,975
Santa Cruz, which is a famous surf break.

378
00:20:16,245 --> 00:20:18,885
But yeah, his, he owned this
property where there wasn't

379
00:20:18,885 --> 00:20:19,695
no, there were no buildings.

380
00:20:19,784 --> 00:20:23,774
Like I said, it was raw, undeveloped
land and his body was found there.

381
00:20:24,104 --> 00:20:27,195
And, but in sight, uh, you know,
also on the land was a, was an

382
00:20:27,195 --> 00:20:29,625
unlicensed, uh, cannabis farm.

383
00:20:31,094 --> 00:20:33,014
So, I mean, that's an
indication right there.

384
00:20:33,375 --> 00:20:34,155
And how was he shot?

385
00:20:34,155 --> 00:20:35,084
Was he strangled?

386
00:20:35,460 --> 00:20:36,900
He was stabbed and shot.

387
00:20:37,560 --> 00:20:38,880
So it was an unpleasant death.

388
00:20:38,880 --> 00:20:41,400
And, and what did the courts found?

389
00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:45,510
I know that one 18-year-old
driver was convicted.

390
00:20:45,900 --> 00:20:48,390
Uh, have they found
the people responsible?

391
00:20:49,080 --> 00:20:49,620
Yes.

392
00:20:49,650 --> 00:20:52,740
Uh, so I mean, there was a,
a many month investigation.

393
00:20:52,800 --> 00:20:54,210
They eventually made arrests.

394
00:20:54,270 --> 00:20:57,390
I don't wanna give it, give away too
much because there were many persons of

395
00:20:57,390 --> 00:21:01,320
interest and suspects, um, before they.

396
00:21:02,550 --> 00:21:04,320
Zoomed zoned in on the guys.

397
00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:05,340
They eventually arrested.

398
00:21:06,060 --> 00:21:09,870
Um, but they were former
employees of Thar's.

399
00:21:10,020 --> 00:21:11,130
I mean, I may have given that away.

400
00:21:11,250 --> 00:21:11,610
Oops.

401
00:21:11,970 --> 00:21:16,410
Um, but there were, there were, you
know, dozens of people that, you

402
00:21:16,410 --> 00:21:20,460
know at first that investigators
thought may have had a motive.

403
00:21:20,520 --> 00:21:23,490
So it was an inside job, or it
might have been an inside job.

404
00:21:23,820 --> 00:21:23,970
I dunno.

405
00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:27,960
Um, somebody suggested that.

406
00:21:29,910 --> 00:21:32,940
Uh, he knew or somebody
knew that he was gonna die.

407
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:36,390
Did he, did he, towards
the end of his life, did he

408
00:21:36,390 --> 00:21:38,040
recognize that he was in danger?

409
00:21:38,550 --> 00:21:40,170
I believe he did, yes.

410
00:21:40,290 --> 00:21:43,410
And, um, there's a whole, there's also
a love story at the center of this.

411
00:21:43,410 --> 00:21:43,500
He

412
00:21:43,500 --> 00:21:45,210
decided, yeah, I wanna
get to the love story.

413
00:21:45,210 --> 00:21:49,740
Uh, and, and it wouldn't be a good
story without, uh, uh, a woman,

414
00:21:49,740 --> 00:21:51,360
a beautiful woman, Rachel Lynch.

415
00:21:51,360 --> 00:21:52,260
Tell us about her.

416
00:21:53,490 --> 00:21:53,670
Yeah.

417
00:21:53,730 --> 00:21:55,830
Tushar met her right as he was sort of.

418
00:21:56,580 --> 00:21:59,460
I, you know, coming up with the
idea to get into the weed business.

419
00:21:59,520 --> 00:22:01,350
Um, and he met her.

420
00:22:01,350 --> 00:22:05,940
She was, by chance she rented an
Airbnb that he was, that he, his family

421
00:22:05,940 --> 00:22:09,720
owned, uh, in, in pleasure point.

422
00:22:09,750 --> 00:22:14,760
And, um, you know, he was smitten
with her for quite early and then

423
00:22:14,760 --> 00:22:19,320
found out that she herself was in the
cannabis or had been, she'd sort of

424
00:22:19,320 --> 00:22:23,370
semi-retired and can't come to Santa
Cruz with her mother, who is uh.

425
00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:26,460
In the final stages of
a battle with cancer.

426
00:22:26,490 --> 00:22:31,830
So they kind of went there just to relax
and be calm and in a pleasant climate.

427
00:22:32,850 --> 00:22:36,600
But Tushar met her and, and finally
dragged out of her that she, um,

428
00:22:36,750 --> 00:22:42,300
had just finished, you know, being a
three years or four years of cannabis

429
00:22:42,300 --> 00:22:46,890
cultivation in the Emerald Triangle up
in Trinity County, which is very rural.

430
00:22:47,595 --> 00:22:52,215
Uh, but a, but a, you know, famous
cannabis production area of California.

431
00:22:52,215 --> 00:22:55,845
Also mountainous in rep filled
with redwoods, but she was, she had

432
00:22:55,845 --> 00:22:58,875
been growing black market cannabis
there for a number of years.

433
00:22:58,935 --> 00:23:00,435
So Was she a plant do you think?

434
00:23:00,435 --> 00:23:02,925
To excuse the, the excuse the pun,

435
00:23:04,125 --> 00:23:04,845
A plant?

436
00:23:04,965 --> 00:23:06,405
No, I mean, she was,

437
00:23:06,675 --> 00:23:09,825
so this was just by chance.

438
00:23:09,825 --> 00:23:12,915
By chance, but I mean, they decided
to go into business together.

439
00:23:14,294 --> 00:23:17,564
And Tushar had his, you know,
chemical extraction lab, you know,

440
00:23:17,564 --> 00:23:20,925
side that he, that was the, he had,
was building this licensed lab.

441
00:23:20,925 --> 00:23:24,254
And then she, he just, they wanted to
create like a vertically integrated

442
00:23:24,254 --> 00:23:30,254
company, but they decided riskily
to, uh, to grow and they bought land

443
00:23:30,254 --> 00:23:33,975
specifically in the Santa Cruz mountains
so that she could create a pot farm.

444
00:23:34,155 --> 00:23:35,939
But it was un unlicensed pot farm.

445
00:23:38,355 --> 00:23:38,504
Yeah.

446
00:23:38,504 --> 00:23:41,685
This word vertically
integrated is, it's like scale.

447
00:23:41,685 --> 00:23:43,485
It's another of the Silicon Valley catch.

448
00:23:43,485 --> 00:23:46,814
It is, but actually in the cannabis
business, it's, it's meaningful because,

449
00:23:46,814 --> 00:23:51,165
uh, the, another theme of the story is
that the weed business turned out to be,

450
00:23:51,165 --> 00:23:54,735
not e not a humongous opportunity at all.

451
00:23:54,794 --> 00:23:57,675
It was so, it's been so hard
and there's been such, you know.

452
00:23:59,670 --> 00:24:03,030
My, most of the companies that were
founded in that in the time when Cher was

453
00:24:03,030 --> 00:24:04,530
founded, his have gone out of business.

454
00:24:04,710 --> 00:24:08,250
It's been an enormous struggle,
but the only companies that have,

455
00:24:08,610 --> 00:24:12,330
have found much success at all are
those that both grow and are retail.

456
00:24:12,360 --> 00:24:12,600
Right.

457
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:13,350
Or have

458
00:24:13,495 --> 00:24:13,575
Right.

459
00:24:13,620 --> 00:24:17,400
And I live in San Francisco and
it's, I go down to the mission a lot.

460
00:24:17,430 --> 00:24:20,580
Live just up the hill From there,
it's not possible to walk around the

461
00:24:20,580 --> 00:24:23,250
mission, which is one of the more
fashionable parts of town without.

462
00:24:23,300 --> 00:24:23,389
Hmm.

463
00:24:23,899 --> 00:24:26,629
Walking past a, a legal weed shop.

464
00:24:26,629 --> 00:24:28,700
So someone's making money somehow.

465
00:24:28,700 --> 00:24:29,090
Scott,

466
00:24:29,270 --> 00:24:33,680
somehow, uh, the retail's probably
doing a little bit better than

467
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:36,139
cultivators or extractors.

468
00:24:36,230 --> 00:24:40,820
The, the, the price collapsed, you
know, not long after Thar's death.

469
00:24:41,930 --> 00:24:46,820
Um, which was kind of predicted
because, you know, you have this end and

470
00:24:46,820 --> 00:24:49,580
essentially the end of a prohibition,
the beginning of this new industry,

471
00:24:49,639 --> 00:24:50,930
there's gonna be overproduction.

472
00:24:50,930 --> 00:24:51,320
There was.

473
00:24:52,110 --> 00:24:54,510
But it colla, you know, there's so
much weed that's grown in California

474
00:24:54,510 --> 00:25:00,419
that it, it collapsed the price sort
of globally for, for cannabis, both

475
00:25:00,419 --> 00:25:02,459
extracts as well as the plant itself.

476
00:25:02,550 --> 00:25:03,629
Um, uh.

477
00:25:04,410 --> 00:25:06,870
But yeah, it turned out to not
not be an easy business at all.

478
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:07,380
And

479
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:11,370
yeah, I know anyone who's been an
entrepreneur in any sense knows that no

480
00:25:11,370 --> 00:25:16,770
business is ever easy, is there, if there
is a parable in this story, we don't

481
00:25:16,770 --> 00:25:20,640
want you giving away all the secrets
'cause we want people to read the book.

482
00:25:21,120 --> 00:25:24,330
Um, which actually looks, it's
been marketed to look like.

483
00:25:25,350 --> 00:25:26,790
A packet of cannabis.

484
00:25:26,790 --> 00:25:26,880
That

485
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:27,390
is the cover.

486
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:27,720
That

487
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:28,275
is the cover, yeah.

488
00:25:28,280 --> 00:25:28,380
Yeah.

489
00:25:28,380 --> 00:25:28,680
Brilliant.

490
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:29,190
Cover.

491
00:25:29,550 --> 00:25:31,860
Uh, you might get some people
who think they're buying weed

492
00:25:31,860 --> 00:25:33,330
and end up reading your book.

493
00:25:33,540 --> 00:25:38,850
Um, is the parable economic
or moral, I mean, what, what

494
00:25:38,850 --> 00:25:39,840
are we talking about here?

495
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:44,010
What can, apart from a good story
or remarkable story, what are people

496
00:25:44,010 --> 00:25:50,490
gonna learn from, from, from this,
this tale of, of love and murder and

497
00:25:50,490 --> 00:25:53,070
California and weed, uh, focused on, um.

498
00:25:54,300 --> 00:25:56,460
Uh, on Tohar atra.

499
00:25:57,210 --> 00:26:03,750
Well, hopefully they'll learn, you know,
um, whatever great stories teach, uh,

500
00:26:04,170 --> 00:26:10,740
in this case, you know, it's about how
Americans live now in, in, in business.

501
00:26:10,740 --> 00:26:12,540
You know, it's about American ambition.

502
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:16,020
You know, what, what lengths are
people, uh, willing to go to,

503
00:26:16,020 --> 00:26:19,320
to, to seize an opportunity that
they feel could be life changing?

504
00:26:20,490 --> 00:26:20,940
Um.

505
00:26:21,900 --> 00:26:22,350
I mean,

506
00:26:22,975 --> 00:26:25,495
did he break the law a lot, Ry

507
00:26:26,580 --> 00:26:27,840
and any number of times?

508
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:28,350
That's right.

509
00:26:28,350 --> 00:26:32,790
I mean, he had to, he felt he had to do
so in order to create the legal company.

510
00:26:33,210 --> 00:26:38,400
I mean, that's another theme is
the symbiotic relationship between

511
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:42,510
the black market in weed and the
legal market as it's structured now.

512
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:44,370
So it's a very gray divide.

513
00:26:44,460 --> 00:26:46,020
Well, they can't exist without each other.

514
00:26:46,020 --> 00:26:47,460
There's a divide, but it's permeable.

515
00:26:48,705 --> 00:26:51,495
You go back and forth, like most
of the companies in California

516
00:26:51,495 --> 00:26:54,375
that are legal today wouldn't exist
without the black, black market.

517
00:26:54,525 --> 00:26:58,665
They can only keep the lights on by
selling into the national black market.

518
00:26:58,845 --> 00:27:00,285
We still federally illegal.

519
00:27:00,345 --> 00:27:03,495
There's no interstate commerce
that is, by definition illicit.

520
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:04,830
To trade between states,

521
00:27:04,830 --> 00:27:05,700
isn, that good or bad?

522
00:27:05,700 --> 00:27:09,690
Are you suggesting in the book that maybe
there needs to be either you go, I mean,

523
00:27:09,690 --> 00:27:12,930
I, I used to work with a guy who always
used to have this phrase, I love it.

524
00:27:12,930 --> 00:27:14,490
He said, you can't be half pregnant.

525
00:27:14,490 --> 00:27:17,700
Is America trying to be half pregnant
when it comes to the weed business?

526
00:27:17,970 --> 00:27:18,540
Oh, for sure.

527
00:27:18,629 --> 00:27:18,780
Yeah.

528
00:27:18,780 --> 00:27:19,980
That's, they're trying
to have it both ways.

529
00:27:19,980 --> 00:27:20,760
It's just doesn't work.

530
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:21,450
It's incoherent.

531
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:23,700
I mean, I don't make any pronouncements.

532
00:27:23,705 --> 00:27:24,034
I don't, I don't

533
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:25,170
like, yeah.

534
00:27:25,170 --> 00:27:27,270
What do I, I, I take your point in
the book, but what do you think?

535
00:27:27,270 --> 00:27:27,990
Should it be fully.

536
00:27:29,085 --> 00:27:30,885
Fully federalized so that it's just,

537
00:27:31,095 --> 00:27:31,275
yeah,

538
00:27:31,335 --> 00:27:32,355
like anything else?

539
00:27:32,355 --> 00:27:33,825
Or should it be more illegal?

540
00:27:34,215 --> 00:27:35,535
No, it should be federally legal.

541
00:27:35,745 --> 00:27:36,795
Federally legal.

542
00:27:37,275 --> 00:27:39,165
I think there should, or there
should be some sort of carve

543
00:27:39,165 --> 00:27:40,665
out for interstate commerce.

544
00:27:41,415 --> 00:27:42,555
But it's hard.

545
00:27:42,555 --> 00:27:48,975
I mean, even alcohol that you can't still
send bottles of wine between, uh, states.

546
00:27:49,035 --> 00:27:49,275
It's

547
00:27:49,545 --> 00:27:49,665
no.

548
00:27:49,665 --> 00:27:52,275
But I can buy a bottle of
California wine in New Jersey.

549
00:27:53,505 --> 00:27:56,145
And you can't buy California
weed in New Jersey?

550
00:27:56,145 --> 00:27:56,625
Not legally.

551
00:27:56,895 --> 00:27:57,855
Not legally, no.

552
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:03,480
I can, it would be as if you
could only buy Kentucky Bourbon,

553
00:28:03,570 --> 00:28:04,830
for example, in Kentucky.

554
00:28:05,340 --> 00:28:11,970
I mean, of course you could make a,
uh, a bourbon like bo uh, uh, whiskey

555
00:28:11,970 --> 00:28:15,125
in New York state, but I mean, people
would still want the Kentucky thing.

556
00:28:16,305 --> 00:28:16,890
And they would, isn't

557
00:28:16,890 --> 00:28:16,970
that

558
00:28:16,970 --> 00:28:18,165
in a way they would be a black market,

559
00:28:18,165 --> 00:28:21,855
they're gonna get a, a Google
or a Facebook or winner take all

560
00:28:21,855 --> 00:28:25,215
weed company that you're always
gonna have local companies?

561
00:28:25,485 --> 00:28:26,025
I think so.

562
00:28:26,055 --> 00:28:31,035
Maybe on the retail side there would be
a way to build like a giant, you know,

563
00:28:31,035 --> 00:28:32,745
operator if it, once it does become.

564
00:28:33,554 --> 00:28:36,735
Or you know, if interstate
commerce becomes legal, I mean

565
00:28:36,735 --> 00:28:38,385
big Ag will take over too.

566
00:28:38,385 --> 00:28:42,375
I mean like the concepts of
agriculture, big Ag will take over

567
00:28:42,375 --> 00:28:45,554
and it'll be much more efficient
and the price will go even farther.

568
00:28:45,705 --> 00:28:51,645
Will will fall even farther than it has,
you know, since California legalized

569
00:28:52,665 --> 00:28:55,935
as more and more calls
to legalize psychedelics.

570
00:28:55,935 --> 00:28:57,855
We talked about Ken Casey, who.

571
00:28:58,365 --> 00:29:00,705
Was one of the pioneers of psychedelics.

572
00:29:00,705 --> 00:29:02,895
What does your book tell us about that?

573
00:29:02,895 --> 00:29:04,215
To be aware of?

574
00:29:05,145 --> 00:29:09,225
Too much per permissive legalization
or perhaps No, perhaps to

575
00:29:09,225 --> 00:29:11,415
push for more legalization.

576
00:29:11,415 --> 00:29:14,385
I mean, if anything,
that to push for more.

577
00:29:14,385 --> 00:29:18,165
I mean, the black market exists only
because we've decided that it, this,

578
00:29:18,165 --> 00:29:20,295
this form of trade should be illegal.

579
00:29:20,325 --> 00:29:20,595
Right.

580
00:29:21,075 --> 00:29:21,645
Um.

581
00:29:22,845 --> 00:29:25,365
But it does, I don't get into psychedelics
too much into the book, you know?

582
00:29:25,500 --> 00:29:25,875
No, no.

583
00:29:25,875 --> 00:29:28,935
I take your point, but I'm talking
in terms of broader lessons of

584
00:29:28,935 --> 00:29:30,435
the book, of your true story.

585
00:29:30,435 --> 00:29:30,495
Yeah.

586
00:29:30,585 --> 00:29:31,425
I mean, for sure.

587
00:29:31,425 --> 00:29:32,415
That would be one of them.

588
00:29:32,445 --> 00:29:32,745
Yeah.

589
00:29:32,804 --> 00:29:39,044
Like this sort of, um, how, why
do black markets exist at all, and

590
00:29:39,044 --> 00:29:40,605
sort of figuring that out, like.

591
00:29:42,420 --> 00:29:45,300
You know, I mean, obviously I know that
these things need to be regulated though.

592
00:29:45,300 --> 00:29:48,210
Once they are legalized, people
are taking them into their bodies.

593
00:29:48,330 --> 00:29:53,070
That's a whole other subject that is,
that needs to be debated and clarified.

594
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:58,770
You know, um, they were supposed, it was
supposed legalization is supposed to have,

595
00:29:58,860 --> 00:30:04,200
um, increased the transparency of how.

596
00:30:05,535 --> 00:30:08,925
Weed is grown and, and there was
supposed to be this whole, there is a,

597
00:30:08,925 --> 00:30:13,815
you know, testing regimes where they,
we, we had, we know the potency, we

598
00:30:13,815 --> 00:30:18,315
know what's being used to create to in
the, in the cultivation, but there's

599
00:30:18,315 --> 00:30:22,155
some evidence that suggests that, you
know, pesticide use is even worse now

600
00:30:22,395 --> 00:30:27,435
that it may have been, you know, in the
medical two 15 medical marijuana era.

601
00:30:28,785 --> 00:30:30,555
So, I mean, it's really not succeeded.

602
00:30:30,855 --> 00:30:33,630
The whole thing probably needs to
be rethought from the ground up.

603
00:30:34,814 --> 00:30:40,754
You describe in a, in a Rolling
Stone piece that he was executed.

604
00:30:40,784 --> 00:30:42,855
Um, how have the police performed?

605
00:30:42,855 --> 00:30:46,274
Sometimes the police don't
come out of these books looking

606
00:30:46,304 --> 00:30:48,465
very smart or very decent.

607
00:30:49,125 --> 00:30:50,745
Did the police come through?

608
00:30:50,804 --> 00:30:52,635
How did they respond to this murder?

609
00:30:53,145 --> 00:30:56,145
They, I mean, they did an
exhaustive investigation.

610
00:30:56,145 --> 00:30:59,264
They came out pretty looking, pretty
well, I mean, it was done by Santa Cruz

611
00:30:59,264 --> 00:31:01,080
County Sheriff's Department, which, um.

612
00:31:02,190 --> 00:31:06,120
There's, it was the, you know,
homicide detectives, their own sort

613
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:10,560
of small homicide detective unit
that, uh, conducted the, the probe.

614
00:31:11,130 --> 00:31:14,790
Um, and they, you know, it took, uh,
eight months before an arrest arrests

615
00:31:14,790 --> 00:31:17,220
were made, but they, you know, they
had a lot of suspects to get through.

616
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:23,520
Um, and they found their guys, four of
whom there were four eventually arrested.

617
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:25,560
Three, have been on trial already.

618
00:31:27,030 --> 00:31:30,300
This fourth is, is like the trial
I think is ongoing right now.

619
00:31:30,810 --> 00:31:35,310
So I wasn't able to finish the book
before it was fully adjudicated the case.

620
00:31:36,810 --> 00:31:42,150
Scott, there was a killing, uh,
another sort of assassination in San

621
00:31:42,150 --> 00:31:46,080
Francisco a couple of years ago of
another prominent tech executive and

622
00:31:46,590 --> 00:31:48,540
all the, a lot of the tech people.

623
00:31:49,754 --> 00:31:54,554
Jumped to conclusions assuming that this
guy had been murdered on the street by a

624
00:31:54,645 --> 00:31:57,284
drug dealer or some other crazy person.

625
00:31:57,284 --> 00:31:59,834
As it turns out, it was an inside job.

626
00:32:00,435 --> 00:32:07,995
Was there a lot of par a after the death,
what you call the, uh, the execution of

627
00:32:08,300 --> 00:32:08,720
mm-hmm.

628
00:32:08,804 --> 00:32:11,199
Uh, of, uh, Isha.

629
00:32:12,060 --> 00:32:14,639
Was there a lot of paranoia
within the tech community

630
00:32:14,639 --> 00:32:16,110
about what actually happened

631
00:32:16,830 --> 00:32:18,659
in the tech community
and the weed community?

632
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:19,350
For sure.

633
00:32:19,530 --> 00:32:24,030
Um, I mean, there's just a lot of
paranoia that saturates that world.

634
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:27,149
Just, just organically.

635
00:32:27,210 --> 00:32:29,790
I mean, there's just paranoia all
over because it's coming out of

636
00:32:29,790 --> 00:32:33,270
this, uh, uh, illegal, you know, uh.

637
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:36,930
People had to be a fear legally from
the police and, and they had to fear

638
00:32:36,930 --> 00:32:40,260
each other, uh, in the tech world too,
like, you know, there were so many

639
00:32:40,260 --> 00:32:44,610
tech people getting into the cannabis
business that they were encountering

640
00:32:45,030 --> 00:32:47,160
interesting people all along the way.

641
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:52,440
I mean, that's one of the reasons the
murder, thar's murder interested me.

642
00:32:52,470 --> 00:32:56,550
The story of it was that it sort of opened
a window into this secret world, you

643
00:32:56,550 --> 00:33:00,210
know, this kind of portrait of a community
in this unprecedented transition.

644
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:01,980
Out of the prohibition.

645
00:33:01,980 --> 00:33:06,600
So you got to meet, as you followed
Thar's career in cannabis, he sort of had

646
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:12,750
interaction after interaction with, uh,
different levels of the cannabis industry.

647
00:33:12,750 --> 00:33:16,590
It's almost like a esque novel
where he is moving through, you

648
00:33:16,590 --> 00:33:20,820
know, the levels of the society of
cannabis and tech at the same time.

649
00:33:22,350 --> 00:33:24,120
Were you ever nervous researching?

650
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:25,410
You did it extensively.

651
00:33:25,410 --> 00:33:28,920
I know you spent a lot of time in Santa
Cruz talking to a lot of different people.

652
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:29,520
Were you ever.

653
00:33:30,270 --> 00:33:33,659
Nervous about researching
and writing this book?

654
00:33:33,810 --> 00:33:35,129
At times, yes.

655
00:33:35,129 --> 00:33:37,800
Um, I mean, may, but on the
other hand, maybe the kind of

656
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:39,960
p the paranoia is contagious.

657
00:33:40,379 --> 00:33:43,980
You know, at times I felt like I
couldn't decide whether the paranoia

658
00:33:43,980 --> 00:33:46,470
of other, some of the people that
I was talking to was rubbing off on

659
00:33:46,470 --> 00:33:51,120
me, sort of irrationally, or whether
it was rational to, to be afraid.

660
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:53,939
I mean, I, at one point I did have
someone say, you know, don't, don't

661
00:33:53,939 --> 00:33:57,720
dig too deep in this specific,
um, this specific group of people.

662
00:33:58,304 --> 00:34:00,105
Don't, don't look too deeply.

663
00:34:00,105 --> 00:34:03,074
Don't try too hard to figure
out what's going on there.

664
00:34:03,074 --> 00:34:06,855
And then of course there was pretty
early on in the reporting of the

665
00:34:06,855 --> 00:34:14,355
book, I got a pretty explosive, um,
tip that, you know, caused some nerve

666
00:34:14,714 --> 00:34:19,995
nervousness for sure, as I was trying to
convince people to talk to me about it.

667
00:34:19,995 --> 00:34:24,915
But also, you know, where, do
you know how, I mean, who, do

668
00:34:24,915 --> 00:34:26,174
you know who you're talking to?

669
00:34:26,174 --> 00:34:26,839
Like there's this kind of.

670
00:34:28,005 --> 00:34:30,705
This kind of question always
and through my mind is, is this

671
00:34:30,705 --> 00:34:31,755
person telling me the truth?

672
00:34:31,755 --> 00:34:35,025
Are they connected to this dangerous
group in a way that I am not going to

673
00:34:35,025 --> 00:34:38,475
realize, you know, are, and they're not
gonna tell the truth about it, right?

674
00:34:38,475 --> 00:34:42,135
Like, if it's such a dangerous
connection that they could, didn't

675
00:34:42,135 --> 00:34:44,385
want, didn't want to divulge, right?

676
00:34:44,385 --> 00:34:48,345
And then, so I was constantly,
but again, is this the paranoia of

677
00:34:48,345 --> 00:34:50,235
the community rubbing off on me?

678
00:34:50,235 --> 00:34:52,695
Or is it, you know, are they
legitimate to these concerns?

679
00:34:52,695 --> 00:34:54,130
So I, I had to wrestle with that a lot.

680
00:34:55,049 --> 00:34:56,699
Did you ever turn to weed yourself?

681
00:34:58,589 --> 00:35:00,930
On occasion, there

682
00:35:00,930 --> 00:35:05,189
was a, well, finally, um, Scott,
the book is already, as I said,

683
00:35:05,189 --> 00:35:07,290
being described as a, as a classic.

684
00:35:07,290 --> 00:35:08,819
It's got some wonderful reviews.

685
00:35:08,819 --> 00:35:10,410
It's called a Killing in Cannabis.

686
00:35:11,940 --> 00:35:12,960
Is it a tragedy?

687
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:15,060
Should we miss Tushar?

688
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:17,610
Was he, uh, was he a good human being?

689
00:35:17,610 --> 00:35:18,240
Ultimately?

690
00:35:18,990 --> 00:35:21,990
I don't like to make moral, I
mean, we're all complex people.

691
00:35:22,290 --> 00:35:26,220
He had his, he had his dark side
and his, and his bright side.

692
00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:28,674
I mean, I think he was trying to
change at the end, according to.

693
00:35:29,775 --> 00:35:33,765
A number of people I spoke with,
he was aware of, you know, the

694
00:35:33,765 --> 00:35:37,785
ways in which he was behaving
badly and was striving to change.

695
00:35:37,785 --> 00:35:39,405
So, I mean, that's a tragedy, right?

696
00:35:39,405 --> 00:35:43,005
Someone who's trying to make good but
can't and then, and then it's over

697
00:35:43,905 --> 00:35:45,255
very American story then

698
00:35:46,095 --> 00:35:46,515
yeah.

699
00:35:47,580 --> 00:35:48,480
Well, there you have it.

700
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:51,390
Scott Eden, the author
of A Killing in Cannabis.

701
00:35:51,390 --> 00:35:53,850
As I said, it's already big hit.

702
00:35:53,850 --> 00:35:58,440
Got great review in the New York Times,
which described it as an exhilarating

703
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:00,750
drug fueled true crime thriller.

704
00:36:00,750 --> 00:36:05,070
Very much suited for our
age of true criminality.

705
00:36:05,220 --> 00:36:07,290
Uh, Scott, congratulations
on the new book.

706
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:08,280
Thank you,

707
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:10,410
Andrew, and uh, good luck.

708
00:36:10,410 --> 00:36:12,360
I hope, uh, you don't get tracked down.

709
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:14,550
I'm sure.

710
00:36:14,550 --> 00:36:16,200
I'm sure I'll be okay,
but I appreciate it.

711
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:20,220
Hi, this is Andrew again.

712
00:36:20,220 --> 00:36:22,950
Thank you so much for
listening or watching the show.

713
00:36:23,430 --> 00:36:25,890
Uh, if you enjoyed it, please subscribe.

714
00:36:26,010 --> 00:36:30,480
We're on Substack, YouTube,
apple, Spotify, all the platforms.

715
00:36:31,020 --> 00:36:35,850
Uh, and I'd be very curious as to your
comments as well on what you think of

716
00:36:35,850 --> 00:36:40,410
the show, how it can be improved, and
the kinds of guests that you would

717
00:36:40,410 --> 00:36:43,830
enjoy hearing or listening to in future.

718
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:44,465
Thank you again.