Richard Stratton (writer)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born in Wellesley, Massachusetts, Richard Stratton is a writer and former THC transporter. He spent eight years in federal prison for the smuggling of marijuana and hashish. Richard Stratton is the founder of Prison Life magazine, and former Editor of High Times magazine.

Stratton left Arizona State University, where he was studying English, to pursue a more "Hemingway" lifestyle. He has always believed that real experience, true emotions, and questioning government are the basis to his writing. Drug smuggling soon became a thrill ride. He has gone from running a few kilos of Mexican weed to a friend's cousin for some extra cash, to smuggling millions of dollars' worth of Lebanese hash and some of the country's most potent marijuana. Throughout all of it, he continued to write about what he had seen, and also created some fictional characters of his own.

As a smuggler, Stratton would wake up in a hotel room somewhere, make twenty to thirty phone calls from phone booths all across town, and would never know where he would end up that night. He figured, "it would be that much harder and more expensive for the DEA, the FBI, the IRS, and whoever else might be investigating me, to keep tabs on what I was up to and where. How could they know if I didn't?"

During his days as a drug runner, Stratton continued to write and contribute his literary thoughts to magazines, as well as a few goodies. He used to supply High Times with samples of marijuana and hashish for photo shoots and articles.

On his last run as a drug smuggler in 1982, he was arrested in the Sheraton Senator Hotel in the Los Angeles airport by police dressed as clerks and bellmen. Stratton was set up by someone close to him, but he has never been able to specify who.

He stood trial in the District of Maine and was given 15 years in prison. He was then transported to Indiana to meet with representatives from the DEA and the U.S. Attorney's office. He was told that unless he was ready to start cooperating, or "ratting" on his associates, they were prepared to bring new a new indictment. The authorities demanded information implicating writer and good friend, Norman Mailer, and also statements about Hunter S. Thompson, whom Stratton had met numerous times. Stratton refused. He represented himself at the trial.

[edit] Life after prison

Richard Stratton got his first taste of the small screen as a technical consultant for the television prison series, Oz. Since then, he has produced a handful of films such as Slam, which is a story of Ray Joshua, a young black man who is sent to prison for marijuana. While inside, he retains knowledge and advice from people who recognize his writing abilities. Upon his release, he must figure out how to fall back into society.

He also wrote and produced the film Whiteboyz, about a group of misfit youths in midwest suburbia that idolize the gangsta lifestyle, and must deal with growing up, coming-of-age, and finding themselves.

Stratton also wrote and produced the television series Street Time, a show about parole officers and all of the different people they cover.

Richard Stratton has shared his life through literary works such as Altered States of America: Icons and Outlaws, Hitmakers and Hitmen and Smack Goddess. He also analyzes political and social drug movements involving people such as Ken Kesey, Oliver Stone, Edward Bunker, Hunter S. Thompson, and Norman Mailer.

Stratton also appears on the IFC documentary series, The Drug Years.

[edit] Quotes

"I used to tell friends I smuggled marijuana and hashish to support my writing habit. There was a kernel of truth to this; I was a writer before I became a full-time smuggler. In the heat of the outlaw life, faced with the possibility of prison or death at any given moment, I'd console myself with the thought, 'This will make a great story if I live through it.'"

"It's impossible for me to believe anything the U.S. government tells us. They lied about the war in Vietnam. They lied about the Weapons of Mass Destruction. I believe they lied and covered-up the truth about the Kennedy assassinations, both Jack and Bobby, and that there is ample evidence to prove they lied about who killed Dr. Martin Luther King. I would even go so far as to say I don't believe we know the whole truth about the murder of John Lennon or the mysterious death of Bob Marley."

"I never was able to convince them that there is a difference in trafficking in a substance that inspires creativity - makes you mellow, horny, hungry, content to eat good food and listen to music, laugh, maybe even go off on the odd paranoid flight - and a highly refined chemical that makes you crave more and more of it until you want nothing else. Karma was not a concept they were ever able to get their heads around."

"My outlaw life in the marijuana underground was always about the experience first, how living on the edge would shape my character and inform my work and my worldview. To invest in my own experience would make me a better writer, or at least give me something exciting to write about. When I was finally captured, in the lobby of the Sheraton Senator Hotel at the Los Angeles airport, my first thought was, Okay, it's over. Now I can stop running and start writing."