Richard Stratton

Wellesley High School Author: Richard Stratton (1964)

            When Richard Stratton and his WHS 1964 classmates sat around talking about their futures, no-one could have guessed that instead of becoming a lawyer, he would end up as an international drug smuggler, a founder of the Hippie Mafia movement which reveled in transporting marijuana from hashish fields in risky countries (including one deal for $15 million — in 1970s dollars, the equivalent of over $80 million today). 

            Richard’s true story of his outlaw past, chronicled in his autobiography Smuggler’s Blues, echoes Leonardo Di Caprio’s movie Catch Me If You Can — a clever and fearless young man delighting in outwitting a persistent DEA agent who pursued him around the world.  It’s the story of a daredevil who sought wild thrills and became friends with (or associates of) Norman Mailer, Whitey Bulger, David Bowie, and Mick Jagger.  But eventually he was caught and sentenced to 25 years in federal prison — not just for smuggling, but also for refusing to give up his friend and the DEA’s real target, Mailer.

            While incarcerated, he became a jailhouse lawyer and managed to get himself released after eight years; he also discovered writing.  Memoirs, novels, they all poured out: the cult classic Smack Goddess; and non-fiction books Altered States of America: Outlaws and Icons; Hitmakers and Hitmen; Facing the Wind; Smuggler’s Blues; and Kingpin: Prisoner of The War on Drugs.

            The next step in his improbable career was being discovered by Hollywood.  He has become an award-winning, deal-making, power-wielding producer and screenwriter.  He wrote and produced Slam (which won Sundance’s Grand Jury prize, and the Camera d’Or at Cannes).  He produced and directed A&E’s documentary mini-series Gotti: Godfather and Son; the History Channel’s America’s War on Drugs; and the Emmy winning The Execution Machine: Texas Death Row, Thug Life in D.C. (HBO).  His film Crude won international awards, most notably the Peace Prize at the Berlin Film festival. 

            Richard’s most personal post-prison project was the Showtime tv drama Street Time, which he created, produced, and wrote.  Starring Rob Morrow (of Northern Exposure), it was the story of a parole officer and his client who tries to go straight despite pressure from the criminal associates of his past. 

            Richard’s most recent book (2020) is In the World: From the Big House to Hollywood (Cannabis Americana: Remembrance of the War on Plants, Book 3), the final volume of his autobiographical trilogy (after Smuggler’s Blues and Kingpin).