This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection.
Dope is falling from the sky
Marijuana monthly is a periodical unsurprisingly devoted to all things marijuana. Smuggling, growing, dealing, legal cases and aspects, and even some curious adventures that the staff experienced.
One of the included articles reveals a story of aerial marijuana smuggling between Mexico and the United States. Martin Houltin who the author says is the “grandaddy of marijuana aviation history” had a particularly interesting story. Houltin lived in Columbus, New Mexico in 1968 which is just north of the border and when he wasn’t smuggling grass seemed like most other citizens of the small town. Houltin reportedly didn’t deal or smoke the large quantities of marijuana but only transported them. By 1973 he was running one of the largest air smuggling rings and though most people in the town were aware of what he was doing no one seemed to care, however U.S. Customs was the exception. When the DEA was formed in late 1973 Houltin became a “special project” and they focused major resources to bust him. Operation “Skynight” cost about $2 million and resulted in the arrest of Houltin who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1974.
The people involved in the publication were extremely active in the marijuana movement as editor Rick Sanders outlines their daily lives in his monthly column “From the Head Head.” In issue no. 5 he reveals to readers that during the previous month they were busted at the border for a joint and he thanks US Customs and the DEA for not giving them 50 years in jail. Sanders also encourages everyone to join the movement and write to their elected leaders in order to change the drug laws.
Very interesting – especially with the backdrop of the current developments regarding regulation & legalization (CO, DC etc).
Robert,
I agree! Here in Massachusetts we are about to vote on regulation and legalization in a few weeks, it will be interesting to see how it turns out. There is an interesting documentary out there that examines the CO legalization situation from a journalistic standpoint along with Uruguay’s legalization. The film is called Rolling Papers.