How Boone's Vast Pot Network Became The Cornbread Mafia
Maybe your like
- Sign Out
- News
- Christmas Fund
- Sports
- Montreal Canadiens
- Opinion
- Business
- Entertainment And Life
- Travel
- Shopping
- Puzzles
- Comics
- Advice
- Healthing
- Contests
- Driving
- ePaper
- Remembering
John Robert Boone’s steadfast insistence on remaining silent while in custody in Montreal should come as little surprise to anyone who read a book published five years ago that explains how the group he belonged to came to be known as the Cornbread Mafia.
Sign In or Create an Account
Email Addressor View more offersArticle contentThe book — A Homegrown Syndicate’s Code of Silence and the Biggest Marijuana Bust in American History — details how the American fugitive and other like-minded large-scale marijuana growers in Kentucky emerged from a tightly-knit community that had been shaped from U.S. Prohibition laws, which banned the sale of alcohol from 1920 to 1933 and led many whisky producers to become moonshiners.
Article contentArticle contentAdvertisement 1Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Article contentAccording to the book’s preface, author James Higdon, a former New York Times web producer, was “the first journalist subpoenaed under the Obama administration because (the book’s) main subject, Johnny Boone,” became a federal fugitive. Boone was arrested in Montreal in December.
Article contentHigdon details how Boone went from being a moonshiner during the 1960s and switched to large-scale marijuana production in the early 1970s, when the drug’s popularity soared. Boone had become so adept at growing high quality marijuana that was so popular it was referred to as Kentucky Bluegrass in High Times, an American magazine that served as a price guide for pot.
Article content“To me, calling it Kentucky Bluegrass sounded a little too much hillbilly,” Boone told Higdon when interviewed for the book. But he decided to keep it because his brand was already widely known. “This was in the old days.”
Article contentBy the mid-1980s Boone had developed a network of growers who were willing to follow him to other states after he had become too notorious in Kentucky.
Article contentAdvertisement 2Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Article contentIn 1987, the group headed to Minnesota, where they grew massive amounts of marijuana on fields previously farmed for corn. The pot growers proceeded to lay down seed with plans to grow up to 100,000 pounds of sinsemilla, a type of marijuana popular in North American cities.
Article contentArticle content“You think cold weather, short summer, you wouldn’t think that’s a good place to plant tropical pot. There would be a few plants that won’t mature by October or November up there (in Minnesota), but the majority of them would make kick-ass pot. Good pot,” Boone would later tell Higdon.
Article contentThe group was discovered and, in October 1987, while the growers were harvesting, Drug Enforcement Administration agents descended on one of Boone’s farms and arrested him and several of his partners. They seized 47 tons of marijuana in Minnesota that were linked to Kentuckians. But as the investigation progressed the DEA learned the network extended to several other states. According to Higdon’s book, the bust in 1987 changed the perspective of the DEA. It previously assumed “that the vast majority of the marijuana sold in America was being smuggled from south of the (U.S.) border, but Johnny Boone’s farm opened the drug agency’s eyes to a threat it never foresaw: a vast homegrown marijuana growing empire.”
Advertisement 1This advertisement has not loaded yet.Trending-
Goodfood, Canada’s once-soaring meal-kit company, hit with a federal licence suspension
News -
Todd: At home on the road, young Canadiens revise holiday narrative
Hockey Inside Out -
Canadiens' Cole Caufield, Lane Hutson left off U.S. Olympic team
Hockey Inside Out -
Customers reminisce about Pointe-Claire's Swiss Vienna bakery after it closes
News
Seventeen people were arrested in Minnesota and 53 were arrested in other states. They came to be referred as the Cornbread Mafia by federal authorities because none of them agreed to become witnesses for the prosecution. Prosecutors were surprised at how the entire group refused to co-operate with authorities in exchange for a lighter sentence. After he was sentenced in 1988 he met prisoners of Sicilian descent. They informed him that the same code of silence had a name back in Italy: Omertà. In the preface of the book Higdon revealed that Boone was so impressed he had the word “Omertà tattooed across his back in red and blue ink” while behind bars.
Article content“For Johnny Boone, the same concept arose in his community for a different conquering force: Prohibition,” Higdon wrote.
Article contentBoone was sentenced to a 20-year prison term following his arrest in 1987. He was released in December 2000.
Article contentArticle contentShare this article in your social network-
-
-
-
Share this Story : How Boone's vast pot network became the Cornbread Mafia- Copy Link
Tag » What Is The Cornbread Mafia
-
Cornbread Mafia - Wikipedia
-
Summer Wells Update – Inside The Drug-fueled 'Cornbread Mafia ...
-
What Is The Cornbread Mafia? A Law Enforcement Expert's Perspective
-
Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate's Code Of Silence And ...
-
The Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate's Code Of Silence ...
-
Cornbread Mafia - America's Best Cannabis
-
The Cornbread Mafia - Tennessee READS - OverDrive
-
Summer Wells Case: What Is Tennessee's Cornbread Mafia? - HITC
-
What Is The Cornbread Mafia? A Law Enforcement Expert's ... - YouTube
-
Former Cornbread Mafia Member Offers 'a Remarkable Story' | News
-
The Cornbread Mafia By James Higdon - Audiobook
-
Cornbread Mafia Leader Johnny Boone Pleads Guilty In Federal Court
-
Summer Wells Case: Candus “Made Some Wrong Friends ... - YouTube