Q.  So why did you write BUSTED!?
A.  When you do criminal defense work you get a lot of frantic calls from a lot of random people - the most obscure relations, actors from my wife's acting studio, friends of friends - it's amazing the different types of people I've heard from, but it's always because they got busted on a drug possession charge or for a DUI.  We know people are going to do drugs, and more get busted then you'd believe, and most have no idea what the criminal justice system is really like until it's way too late.  I thought it was time for some preventative drug bust education. 

Q.  Is that why you compare your book to sex ed?
A.  They are similar in a lot ways.  Abstinence is the only sure way to avoid all of the bad things than can flow from unprotected casual sex, but most sex ed classes acknowledge that the people are going to have sex no matter what, and the focus of responsible sexual education is on condoms.  I say on the first page of Busted! that the only sure way to avoid getting busted is not to do drugs, the other 350 pages are like condoms.

Q.  But you also cover broken condoms. 
A.  That's true.  It's like a Law & Order episode; it takes a typical drug case from committing the crime, to getting busted - breaking a condom, I guess - to spending a night in jail, pleading guilty, trails, appeals and punishment.  But the stories are all true, the criminal justice system is accurately depicted, if in it's most extreme form - and there are a lot more laughs, I hope.

Q.  It is very funny, and seems like excellent advice on not getting busted - is it safe to assume that you are opposed to the Drug War?
A.  Broadly speaking, there are three types of drug users:  the "experimenters," basically anyone who went to college, or has smoked pot at least few times, and might dabble in other drugs when presented with the opportunity; the "casual users," who are generally pot smokers, some of whom might also do coke or E on occasion and probably did some psychedelics when they were in, but draw the line at heroin and crack; and then there are the addicts, uptown and downtown types.  Anyone included in these three groups could get busted at any time.  In my view, none are deserving of being put in jail for these crimes, and it's pointless to do so.

Q.  So do you think drugs should be legalized? 
A.  Of course marijuana should be legalized.  Anyone who has researched the Drug War without an agenda realizes what a colossal waste of money and time attempting to prevent people from using marijuana is.  Which is not say that I think pot is harmless.  We all know that guy lying on the couch in his parents' basement getting high and watching TV day after day.  That guy is the best anti-dope message I can think of.

Q.  They did a commercial about that guy.
A.  That's right, and it was the only effective anti-drug commercial I have seen because it had some basis in reality.  Most of the propaganda you hear from both sides of the debate is highly spun or outright bullshit.  It's why anti-drug campaigns don't work.  Word-of-mouth is essentially the only reliably information people have about drugs.  Ecstasy exploded despite all the misinformation put out by the federal government because it got rave reviews from the people who were trying it and they lived to tell the tale.

Q.  Speaking of raves.  In the "Evil Beats" section of Busted! you compare today's war against the dance/rave scene to the war against hippie culture of the sixties.  What parallels do you see?
A.  My parents were hippies so I tend to think in those terms, but the parallels between the Woodstock era and today are everywhere.  Kids were doing acid in the sixties and the government was putting out studies on the brain rot it caused.  Kids are doing E now and the government is putting out the same studies, with the same results.  Drug-fueled scenes like Woodstock prompted Nixon to crack down on drugs, and drug-fueled raves have prompted the same types of crackdowns from the Bush administration.  We're in another unpopular war with a murky agenda, and the federal government is swinging to the far right again.

Q.  Does that include the criminal justice system?
A.  It's funny, after Hunter S. Thompson killed himself, I reread Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, and right at the beginning of the book Thompson asks a Ted Kennedy staffer if Congress is really going to put a swine like Rehnquist on the Supreme Court.  The staffer says that they have the votes, and Thompson comments about the potentially disastrous consequences to personal freedom that would follow.  And he specifically predicts that taking an "illegal search and seizure" case to the Supreme Court would be pointless for the poor bastard who gave it a try.  That's exactly what has happened.  So, I guess to answer your question, the criminal justice system has simply gotten worse and worse.  That's why I call the search and seizure chapter the "Incredible Shrinking Fourth Amendment."  Your right to be free of illegal searches and seizure isn't what it used to be.  The hippies had it much better.

Q.  You're pretty cynical about the criminal justice system. 
A.  It's hard to maintain piping hot outrage for too long. 

Q.  But isn't ours the best system in the world? 
A.  On paper it's not bad.  There's some good stuff in there.  In practice, the criminal justice system bears little resemblance to the Constitution as it's taught in law school or discussed in the media, and the Drug War really brings out the worst in it because it breeds police misconduct and feeds on the poor.

Q.  Not only the poor, though, you use a lot of celebrity busts in your book.
A.  Well, a lot of those celebs were poor when they got busted.  50 cent, Bill Murray, Tim Allen, they were all poor at the time.  Part of the reason I used celebrity busts are because they're some of the few low-level drug busts and DUIs that are reported from beginning to end - all the gory little details that I thought would be useful to readers to understand why they got busted, and how to avoid falling into the same traps.

Q.  And Rush Limbaugh above all others?
A.  Like a lot of people, I took some pleasure in his pain.  I had just starting writing the book when he got busted and my friends were asking me if I was going to use him in the book, and everyone was predicting that he would never go to jail.  Of course I knew I was going to use his bust and, like everyone else, I didn't think he would go to jail.  It occurred to me to use his case to show readers why Rush will probably not go to jail, and what we can all learn from him. 

Q.  Like having your maid score for you?
A.  Limbaugh Lesson #3: Distance yourself from your dope supply.  Always better to have someone else do the wet work.

Q.  How did you get R. Crumb for the book's illustrations?
A.  My editor, Josh Behar, knows him from doing the Comic Book Encyclopedia; we're both big fans.  So is my father, who was just as psyched as I was to have such a legend associated with the book. 

Q.  I read that your father and mother met when your mother got busted for possession.  Is that true?
A.  Ah...yes, that's true.  Mom got nabbed picking up a little package at the post office.  Dad was with Legal Aid at the time and he was assigned as her defense attorney. 

Q.  No shit?
A.  No shit.  Dad got mom a deal, married her, burned his suits and ran away to Woodstock with mom.  It was kind of romantic in a True Romance kind of way.  It lasted about 30 minutes.  I thought about dedicating the "Fed Ecstasy" chapter to mom, but I didn't think she'd think it was funny. 

Q.  So the Drug War not only keeps you in touch with a lot of people and employs you; you wouldn't exist without it.
A.  Amen.  God bless the Drug War. 

Read the Reuters interview.