The author has certainly led an interesting life and has some stories to tell about his smuggling life. Each chapter begins with a blurb about all the benefits of marijuana and then he discusses how much trouble he gets into but he is an honorable smuggler, but he still talks about how much money he makes. In the end he tries to justify his smuggling but for me it fell flat. For him smuggling was fun and exciting but he dismisses the violence. He indicates that he has spent his life advocating for marijuana legalization but offered no evidence. The book could benefit from a editor. There is a lot of repetition and he often goes off on tangents. It is a quick read.

I have read a number of books of this genre, and this was one of the better ones. Terry Canipe talks you through life as a smuggler, staying one step ahead of the law (mostly) while trying to make a living.

=== The Good Stuff ===

* Unlike some of the other books I have read, I actually developed some empathy for this author. Even though I have no sympathy, in general, for drug smugglers, I found myself rooting for this guy to stay out of trouble.

* Canipe does his best not to sugar-coat the lifestyle he led. First and foremost, smuggling is hard work both physically and mentally, and the penalties for poor performance can go well beyond financial hardship. As shown by the author’s own experiences, the downside of a poorly planned smuggling expedition can be quite harsh.

* The author is a reasonably honest chronicler of his own life. He admits his choices of friends may not have been the best, and while he keeps some of the details to himself, you can get a feel for how close to the edge his lifestyle was.


=== The Not-So-Good Stuff ===

* Canipe tells us numerous times how careful and skillful he is as a smuggler, and how much time he spends planning out the details and contingencies of his operations. And yet he seems to always be in some sort of trouble…making you wonder just how honest Canipe is with himself.

* As with all of the books of this genre, they tend to get repetitive. This book was better than most, and held my attention throughout, but the problem is always there.


=== Summary ===

I enjoyed the book, and would recommend it to any fans of this sort of “true-crime”. There might be more introspective books out there, and there are certainly more detailed accounts of the nuts and bolts of smuggling, but this wasn’t bad at all.

This book is highly addictive to read and is written simply.
I read it within 24 hours after getting my hands on the book.
It is a first person recount on his experiences as a Marijuana Smuggler and can be compared to the book 'American Kingpin".
This book will keep you hook to understand the life of a drug smuggler like no other.
Highly recommended! Good read!

[Note:  This book was provided free of charge by Books Go Social/Net Gallery.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.]

I liked this book a lot more than I thought I would, and that is without agreeing with the author's worldview concerning weed [1].  This book is a true crime book, the sort of book written by people who have compelling and dark life stories, and in this case the author's adventures are largely due to his desire to sabotage the United States through importing massive amounts of drugs.  Mission accomplished, you jerk.  This setup, which the author repeats in both the introduction and conclusion to the book, undercuts at least some of the partially valid points he makes about the legitimate uses of hemp and marijuana when it is not smoked, and which it gives me at least some annoyance in considering legitimate in the face of the massive abuse of weed in contemporary culture.  At any rate, if you're fond of true crime narratives about unsympathetic but particularly lucky criminals, this book is certainly one that has some compelling stories and the author does not sugarcoat the sort of business he is involved in or its risks and dangers, and there is certainly some value in that.

The book as a whole is a fairly short one at less than 100 pages in the version I read, and the author claims throughout that he will be writing a sequel that is just about his escape from prison, which sounds like it would be a dramatic story to read as well, and likely one that explores the corruption of the justice system in Mexico.  The author is wise to present himself as an antihero in these pages, a dissatisfied Vietnam veteran whose disillusionment and drug issues lead him to risk his life flying planes between the United States and Mexico as well as other marijuana growing regimes.  The author deals with unreliable partners whose idiocy threatens his own life and has a respect for the ordinary people of the countries he visits as a drug smuggler.  He takes advantage of corruption on both sides of the border and attempts some creative marketing of drugs in order to maximize his own sales.  Meanwhile, he finds himself caught up in political business that he appears not to have any interest in and has a sense of intuition throughout these stories.  One would scarcely think that someone could be lucky enough to survive what the author has experienced, but so far he has.  

This book certainly has the ring of truth about it.  The author doesn't brag about his prowess and openly admits his own mistakes and misjudgments, including being involved in the drug trafficking business at all.  Yet much of this book does feel like humblebragging, the sort of narrative that would be turned into a movie by the likes of the makers of Pineapple Express or Tropic Thunder or Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle.  Given the popularity of stoner culture, it is probably only a matter of time before someone options this into a film about a lucky drug smuggler and his idiotic business associates.  I can't really say that I like this book, or the way that the author tries to sell the benefits of marijuana at the beginning of every chapter, but this is a book that accomplishes the author's task of telling his own life story from his own perspective.  If it's not a perspective I share, at least I think it is worthwhile that the author is not a total waste of space and has some compelling stories to tell from a thoroughly disreputable profession.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017/10/11/book-review-bongo-fury/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017/10/21/book-review-bongo-fury-2-holiday-for-skins/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014/07/03/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-victimless-crime/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014/05/16/a-form-of-self-medication/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014/01/29/mysteries-of-the-bible-a-plant-of-renown/