"Hippie Mafia" Hash Smuggler Arrested
Last remaining member of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love captured after 37 years, prepares to stand trial.
Thu, Nov 12, 2009 2:19 pm
By Nick Schou
Thirty-seven years ago, the biggest raid that had ever been staged in America's war on drugs took place when a task force of state, local and federal law enforcement agencies combined to take down a secretive group of hippie acid dealers and hashish smugglers known as the Brotherhood of Eternal Love. On August 5, 1972, cops in California, Oregon and Maui arrested dozens of people, sending an even larger group scattering around the world in pursuit of an underground life that in some cases lasted decades.
By then, the Brotherhood, better known among cops as the “Hippie Mafia,” had become America's biggest hash smuggling network, with a direct pipeline to Kandahar, Afghanistan. They were also the country's hardest-working distributors of LSD who even had their own trademark version of the mind-altering drug, Orange Sunshine. They operated their own storefront, Mystic Arts World, in Laguna Beach, where many members lived. After befriending ex-Harvard psychology professor Timothy Leary, they lured him to Laguna Canyon and later, to a mountain ranch in Idyllwild, California. Members, including the group's charismatic leader, John Griggs, slept in tipis and ate vegetables from their own garden – all with the aim of creating a self-sustaining utopia.
That dream ended in August 1969 – the same month that saw Woodstock, the Manson murders and the first moon landing – when Griggs died of an overdose of synthetic psilocybin. By then, Leary had been busted for marijuana possession, and not long after Griggs died, he went to prison. That's when the BEL pulled off one of the most spectacular stunts in American counterculture. They raised some cash and paid off the notorious anti-war radicals, the Weather Underground, to bust Leary out of prison and help him escape to Afghanistan, where he was finally arrested in 1973.
On Sept. 26, the last remaining member of the Brotherhood was captured after four decades on the run, when he returned to the United States using his own passport which he obtained using his real name. Brenice Lee Smith, who grew up in Anaheim and was one of the Brotherhood's founding members, was arrested by U.S. Customs agents at San Francisco International Airport just minutes after arriving from Hong Kong on the second leg of a trip that started a day earlier in Kathmandu, Nepal, where he'd lived since the late 1970s. He was immediately jailed on two 40-year-old charges of smuggling hash.
Along with many other Brotherhood members, Smith, better known as “Brennie” among family and friends, allegedly traveled to Kandahar, Afghanistan, in the late 1960s and smuggled hashish back to California inside Volkswagen buses, mobile homes and other vehicles. Smith was indicted for his role in the group but was among about a dozen members who managed to evade arrest in August 1972.
Previously, the most recent fugitive to be captured was Orange Sunshine chemist Nicholas Sand, who was arrested in British Columbia in 1996, still making LSD out of his underground laboratory. Sand spent several years in prison for manufacturing acid. Two years earlier, police arrested a friend of Smith’s named Russell Harrigan near Lake Tahoe, California, after they learned his real identity. However, an Orange County judge dismissed the charges against Harrigan because he’d lived a crime-free life while quietly raising a family.
Given that none of the other members of the Brotherhood who were arrested served any more than a few months behind bars as a result of the 1972 indictment – although many later went on to become even bigger smugglers – Smith has a strong case for having his own charges dismissed. According to Eddie Padilla, a founding Brotherhood member, and his wife, Lorey James, who happens to be Smith's niece, Smith spent much of his time in Nepal at a Buddhist monastery, where he became a devotee of Kalu Rinpoche and took the name Dorje. After Maoist rebels attacked his monastery, Smith moved to Kathmandu, where he married a Nepalese woman and fathered a daughter who is now 21 years old.
Padilla and James say Smith returned to the US to give himself up in the hopes of eventually paving the way to bring his family here. Unfortunately for Smith, who awaits a December 7 trial date, the prosecutor handling his case is Jim Hicks, who happens to be the son of Cecil Hicks, Orange County’s DA at the time of the original Brotherhood case and therefore the top law-enforcement official involved in the group’s prosecution. Smith's lawyer, Gerardo Gutierrez has already filed a motion for the case to be dismissed in the interest of justice. He believes the DA’s office is simply trying to punish Smith before convicting him of any crime. “I think this case is being prosecuted backward,” he says. “They want him to spend as much time behind bars as possible because that may be the only punishment he gets.”
Nick Schou is a staff writer at OC Weekly and the author of the upcoming book, Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love and Its Quest to Spread Peace, Love, and Acid to the World, which will be published in March 2010 by St. Martin's Press. Read more of Schou's Brotherhood coverage in the OC Weekly.










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tinfoil hat moron
Nov 20 2009, 8:48 pm
Brandon Aguilera
Nov 19 2009, 6:20 pm
Brandon Aguilera
Nov 19 2009, 6:17 pm
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
"Sex, Drugs, Rap & Alcohol. Cops, snitches love to see me fall." Words spoken from the late great Mac Dre. R.I.P. Andre "Mac Dre" Hicks
One more SUPREME ARTIST that the FEDS Smoked. He was going to do it for us as well. That fool was like Jimi Hendrix, but presidential like JFK. Damn, they killed him on the first of this month were in, in 2004. We just got to represent the truth. Ban ANY & ALL FAKE and COPY CATTING ARTISTS! Mac Dre rapped "stupid" but there was a point. Every song was a story. Not like Lil' Wayne and those guys(Gucci Mane, T-pain, Snoop Doggy Dogg, my list could go on forever). My parents even like his music. People think he dressed like a square to be funny, but, I think he did it to throw the FEDS off. "Man with many faces. Beating cases" The truth.
I got off subject. Isn't it amazing how the mind the works. Start talking about innocent people getting messed with, and your mind thinks of everyone like that. Hi Uncle Sam!
I think Hyphy, evolved from Hippie. Good music, "goods":), dancing. They both started in the SF Bay. Only problem is, there's still a couple of our people, brain washed by the GOV and MEDIA to kill each other. (Everybody goes through the gangster stage, and some don't leave the stage). There needs to be guidelines with gangsters. Murders should only happen IF that suspect has broken a law. Like if you go to another hood, and "step on toes" and try to get their clients. You deserve to be murdered. Simple as that. Mind you, instead of making your own "block" hot, it is OK to meet YOUR client in another hood. NOT there "block"(street). But don't try come into someone elses "store" and set up shop. About rape cases that occur(I wish they would stop). All town gangsters and men will "hunt" for the suspect. The victim says yes or no to the caught. If yes, every male stands in line and punches him one time(anywhere). After everyone has punched. The authorties will be called upon, so that both sides of justice will be done.
My name is Brandon Aguilera. I'm 23 years old. I'm from Dixon, CA. When I'm done with the rest of the "laws" I will present them, to everyone, everywhere.
We can't keep letting the GOV win people. Like Jim Morrison said. "Maybe you love getting your face STUCK IN THE SHIT! Come on. You love it don't you?"
P.S. ALL MURDERERS AND RAPIST(MOLSTERS 2) BELONG IN G.P. (GENERAL POPULATION). Well, there goes half the government.
Zion Hitter
Nov 19 2009, 5:37 pm
me
Nov 18 2009, 4:41 pm
to :also a mature
Nov 18 2009, 6:34 am
anonymous
Nov 18 2009, 12:30 am
IN CHARGE
Nov 17 2009, 11:25 pm
Also a mature adult
Nov 17 2009, 6:34 pm
The way is clear. Since letters and polls and petitions are ignored and big business has too much power in our legislature to ever expect change,we must use the only thing we can to speak for us. We must actively campaign against every legislator in office now and remove them. It is the only way we can protest and change our legislators
disregard for what the people want. All Must be changed,the good and the bad,to send a message to congress that it is not business as usual. The big business people might control our congress with their money,but we can keep changing out any representative and senators that accepts the election donations and supports their agenda.
And if a legislator gets replaced happens to have been a good one(rare)and he is truly a good American,he will understand that it is just time for America too once more be a government of the people,by the people and not by the government,for the government.
Fuck them,grow your own
Guids
Nov 17 2009, 8:03 am
Holocaust
Nov 16 2009, 1:28 pm
Gestapo
Nov 16 2009, 12:09 pm
funny
Nov 16 2009, 12:57 am
anonymous
Nov 15 2009, 4:33 pm
hahahahaha
just joking
Mature Adult
Nov 15 2009, 10:37 am
Why do you have so much trouble with my stance of DON"T GET CAUGHT ? You are against this ? I don't see why you'd be posting here with that attitude . Maybe that position is to hard for you to grasp ?
Poor thing , bless your heart . :o)
75 year old mature whore
Nov 15 2009, 10:22 am
Mature Adult to Child
Nov 15 2009, 10:01 am
mature child
Nov 15 2009, 8:39 am
Mature Adult
Nov 15 2009, 7:27 am
Any idea what you mean ? DD stand for Double Dumb ? Yes ?
Bless your heart ...... :o)
arturo
Nov 15 2009, 5:59 am
the US or the secreted goods were sold in Amsterdam or Brussels...wherever there was a connection..then another vehicle was bought, zed plated in West Germany and then off again to Kabul or Kandahar or Peshawar... depending where that connection was. This type of livelihood continued until
the Shah of Iran was kicked out and the overland route became impossible...especially after the second coup in Afghanistan brought the Russians in.
mark
Nov 14 2009, 8:21 pm
dd
Nov 14 2009, 3:34 pm
deddog
anonymous
Nov 14 2009, 12:15 pm
Stew
Nov 14 2009, 10:08 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard
Who was a member of BEL and was busted in the Kansas Silo bust of 2000, which allegedly put the world LSD supply back quite a bit. Did it ever recover?
mature child
Nov 14 2009, 9:34 am
Mature Adult
Nov 14 2009, 8:20 am
Vessemont
Nov 14 2009, 1:33 am
anonymous
Nov 14 2009, 1:14 am
spagettii
Nov 13 2009, 8:09 pm
yeah it did prove to be too much.
exp grower
Nov 13 2009, 7:48 pm
gstlab3
Nov 13 2009, 2:50 pm
THE SYNTHETICS ARE ALLWAYS CAUSE FOR CONCERN YOU YOUNG PEOPLE THEY CAN BE QUITE POISONOUS BECAUSE MAN MAKES MISTAKES.
THE HALLUCINGENS CAN MOST DEFINTELY BRING A PERSON PERCEPTIONS AND MENTAL ABILITIES THAT STILL SCARE THE ELITISTS.,THIS IS MORE THAN JUST POLITICS.
IT'S A WAR ON GODS CREATION AND HIS PLAN FOR US.
The Author
Nov 13 2009, 2:45 pm
dnugsmoker
Nov 13 2009, 2:03 pm
bubbleberry uk
Nov 13 2009, 4:52 am
Mycelia
Nov 13 2009, 2:55 am
budha
Nov 12 2009, 8:47 pm
freedom420FTG
Nov 12 2009, 7:34 pm
weapons of mass distruction
Nov 12 2009, 3:09 pm
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