I was part of the last generation to take advantage of the illegal marijuana gold rush.

I knew dudes that were tortured during the drought.

They make us lift our shirts up, turn around, make sure we're not wearing any wires.

You could just get killed and they'll feed your body to the fucking mountain lions.

Staring death that close to the face, and that's how real it got.

I don't tell these stories to glorify it.

This is just the truth.

Hey, what's up you guys? My name is Johnny Mitchell. I am a stand-up comedian, podcaster, and former drug trafficker, and you're watching The Connect. I started off selling dime bags of pot and eventually worked my way up to start transporting weight for the Mexican cartels all over the country. I made millions

of dollars and ultimately wound up serving time in prison. I'm going to give you an insider's

perspective on what the world of drugs is actually like, from small time dealing to major

trafficking to prison and the global economy that thrives off of all of it.

In this episode, we're going to be talking about marijuana trafficking.

It's history, how I got my start, and where the business is today.

Now, in order to understand my story, you have to understand the history of marijuana prohibition and the birth of the black market.

So marijuana prohibition really goes back to the beginning of the 20th century.

In 1914, there was a tax placed on it by Congress under pressure from competing industries, right?

So you had the cotton industry, the nylon industry, the paper industry. They were all worried about

the rise of hemp use, which of course comes from the cannabis plant.

Hemp is a more durable product.

Some say you can make it cheaper and it lasts longer.

So these were all threats to these competing industries.

They put pressure on the politicians, 1914, that pass a big tax on cannabis cultivation.

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