Smuggling hashish out of Afghanistan in the 1970s presented the Brotherhood of Eternal Love with a unique supply side problem, which they solved in a way that forever changed the game for cannabis concentrates and culture.

Best known today for their international LSD operation, this legendary group of surfers, smugglers, and psychedelic evangelists also worked together with the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground to break their spiritual leader Timothy Leary out of prison.

In this episode, Abdullah and Bean focus in on the Brotherhood's incredible marijuana smuggling ring, which got them dubbed "the hippie mafia" and involved some of the most fascinating characters in the long and fascinating history of cannabis true crime. Including the largely unknown story of Ronald Hadley Stark, who has been pegged by various people at various times as an undercover CIA asset sent to subvert the counterculture, a rogue KGB operative sent to foment a new American revolution, a ruthless career criminal disguised as a peace-and-love flower child, and a cunning snitch who transformed the Brotherhood of Eternal Love from idealistic hippies into international drug smugglers.

For more on the BOEL, check out these books (The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, 1984 and Orange Sunshine, 2010) and documentaries (Orange Sunshine, 2016 and The Sunshine Makers, 2017).

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