I always had white partners.

Over the years I learned that police rarely suspect a white guy. People give white men in particular opportunities that are unavailable to people like me through other means.

So my career just evolved that way. Whether it was a partner in Bern, Switzerland who grew mushrooms or a kid from the University of Maryland who became my connect in college, I always had a white guy involved in the operation. 

It wasn’t hard to notice that I had friends in the projects dealing in relatively small amounts, but ending up in jail the minute they started talking on cell phones.

But white kids I went to school with who dealt weed or worse could talk on the phone all day. It never even occurred to them to worry. Two different planets.

So I made a rule: Always stay behind the white guy.

December, 2015. I’m on a gorgeous farm surrounded by cool redwood trees up in Humboldt County, California. This is a legal pot operation, run by my latest partner, a young Stanford grad named Jo…