Richard Stratton has lived a life fuller than most could imagine, from drug smuggler to inmate to High Times editor to author and TV executive. At 58, Stratton has also seen more ups and downs than most.
In his new book, Smuggler’s Blues: A True Story of the Hippie Mafia, Stratton details his life as a marijuana smuggler, including a run-in with arguably the most famous mobster in American history.
He shared some of the details during a HuffPost Live interview on Wednesday, explaining that he had an under-the-table agreement with workers at Boston's Logan Airport to help smuggle the weed into the country, and the Italian mobsters in Boston wanted a cut:
The most dangerous situation that I was ever in was when the mafia in Boston put a contract out on me ... Fortunately for me, there was another guy working in the airport that was connected to probably the most famous gangster in Boston at that time, a guy named Whitey Bulger, with the Irish mob. ... I did ultimately go to Whitey, told him what was going on, he spoke to the Italians, and they killed the contract.
You might have heard Bulger's name in the news, as the outlaw managed to survive 16 years on the run before being captured in 2011.
Watch the rest of the clip above, and catch all of Stratton's wild adventures in the full HuffPost Live conversation here.
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