01x04 - Bong Voyage

[bunniefuu]

[♪ upbeat theme music playing]

-[rain falling]
-[thunder rumbling]

[lighter flicking]

[Jason Harris] Growing up,
I was really attracted to the arts,

because it allowed me to be myself.

I was definitely a hippie.

But I think cannabis changed
my whole perspective on life.

And I saw that it brought people together.

So, I figured, you know what?
I should start making bongs.

The use of drugs continues
to be a scourge of our society.

The gravest domestic threat
facing our nation today is drugs.

[speaker] This is your brain on drugs.

[Jason] Making bongs was the most
punk rock I could have been.

To tell the government,
"f*ck you, don't tell me

what object I can and can't make."

It's what we call the resistance.

But as we grew and waved our flag
more and more,

we became more of a target.

-[loud knocking]
-[officer] Police with a search warrant!

[Jason] They were storming in
with the g*ns drawn.

I was like, "This is f*cking huge."

Individuals have been
charged with trafficking

in ill*gal drug paraphernalia,
a nationwide investigation

code named Operation Pipe Dreams.

[Jason] They were threatening

I was like, "Man, this is artwork!"

But it's more than just art.

It makes people think.
It makes people change.

It inspires people.
It's a healing mechanism.

And for me, that was worth fighting for.

This path that I've accepted and taken

has been extremely difficult to navigate

because the bong itself
does represent rebellion,

and I was ready to fight.

[voice] Holy sh*t, that was intense.

But I think we can have a little fun
telling this story, too.

So, relax. I'll take it from here.

[♪ funky music playing]

Because that's me,

our hero's bong.

♪♪

I'll be your slightly biased,
often baked, guide on this voyage.

Believe it or not,
I was actually part

of changing the history
of cannabis forever.

And along with this man--

yes, this man--

we led a revolution.

♪ I'm alive ♪

♪♪

♪ I'm alive ♪

[bong] Jason and I
have been through it all together,

from smoke-filled living rooms
to federal courtrooms.

♪ I'm alive ♪

But let's back up.

Let me introduce you to my guy,
Jason Harris.

[Jason] When I was younger,
I definitely wanted to be an artist.

I did a lot of art, a lot of drawing,
a lot of painting,

and I grew up, you know,
knowing a lot of free-thinking people

that-- that kinda led me down that path.

I started smoking weed when I was,
you know, 14, 15 years old.

I was definitely in the hippie crowd
and-- and definitely more attracted

to the Grateful Dead kinda crew.

When I was in college,
I was able to get to a lot of shows.

Going into these parking lot scenes,

it was like a representation
of all of society.

It was a happening event.

[bong] And it's here,

a traveling village
of tie-dye, grilled cheese,

and extremely enthusiastic herbalists

where our story was first ignited.

Enter the legend of Bob Snodgrass.

[♪ psychedelic music playing]

[Jason] [chuckles]
What's going on, brother?

[Bob chuckles]

-Good to see you.
-Good to see you.

[Bob Snodgrass] Glad you're here.

[Bobby Black] Bob Snodgrass
famously started touring with the Dead

and blowing glass and sunglass there,

making his famous skull top hat pipes
for the Dead fans.

There's another top hat pipe
a little further down the bench.

And it smoked better
than any pipe you'd ever smoked.

[Jason] One of the shows,
I'd seen him out there

with his glass pieces.

[Bobby] A lot of the young people,

they would watch him work,
and they were just like,

"I wanna do that. How do I do that?"

[Jason] The majority of people
that made glass pipes

were in Eugene, Oregon.

And I decided I wanted to go meet Bob.

Meeting him back then,
you know, it was like...

a Jedi going to meet Yoda.

[bong]
Bob Snodgrass was a pioneer

in what's known
as the American glass scene,

the art of heating
and shaping borosilicate glass

into pipes, sculptures, and occasionally,

masterpieces like yours truly.

In 1991, Jason met Bob,

and began learning the craft
in Eugene, Oregon.

Before long, Jason was selling pipes
on tour with the Grateful Dead,

all while plotting how to take
this new art form to the next level.

Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead guitarist

who kept the counterculture of the 1960s
rocking and rolling

right into the '90s,
died today in California.

[Jason] After Jerry died, I thought,

"Hey, how can I still experience
time with my friends,

and how can we create artwork together?"

I decided, you know,
"Hey, I should make a studio in Eugene."

And, you know, I always really loved
the uniting factor of bongs.

So, I figured, you know what,
I should start making them.

♪ I've been looking for you
all my life ♪

[bong]
Ah, finally. My closeup.

Just look at me!

Lean and sleek but with a voluptuous base,

smooth curves and an elegant silhouette,

built to be noticed,
designed to be manhandled.

I am one fine piece of glass.

♪ Dreams of you still haunt me ♪

Jason named his company
Jerome Baker Designs--

Jerome, after Grateful Dead
frontman Jerry Garcia.

Baker, for the act of getting high,

or as the professionals call it,
getting baked.

And Designs, because frankly,
it made the whole operation

sound a little more respectable.

But me, I was Jason's more artistic answer

to the cold, scientific-looking bongs
that came before.

[Bobby] They were just different.

He had a unique shape
that nobody else was making.

Different colors
and different little bells and whistles.

It's about the design of the bong
that makes this thing special.

It's gonna get you screamin' high.

At that time,
the advice that I would always get

was, "Get out of the business."

It was ill*gal to manufacture
drug paraphernalia

no matter which way you looked at it.

But I didn't really care.
I was gonna do it anyways.

[bong] Okay, folks.
So there's this giant, obvious problem

we've been dancing around,
the elephant in the room.

Turns out, I was ill*gal.

No venom could be more deadly
than drug addiction.

Drugs have strained our faith
in our system of justice.

[bong] Back in the 1980s and early '90s,
the Reagan and first Bush years,

the w*r on drugs hardened
into a full-blown moral crusade.

I mean, you had "Just Say No,"

and the now-famous
"This is your brain on drugs" TV spot...

[speaker] This is your brain on drugs.

[bong] ...reinforcing that Puritan stance.

In 1993, things started
loosening up a bit under Bill Clinton,

who famously admitted to smoking pot.

And he also delivered what might be

the most unexpected
saxophone solo in history

on the Arsenio Hall Show.

But here's the important part.

Even then, there were still federal laws
on the books about me.

Good ol' U.S. Code 863 made it ill*gal

to sell, transport, import, or export
drug paraphernalia under federal law.

So, a reasonable viewer might ask,

if we knew it was ill*gal, why'd we do it?

It's something that I like to call
the outlaw spirit.

Criminals hurt people,
outlaws break the laws that are wrong.

Outlaws say, "This law is unjust.
I'm not gonna follow it.

And if they wanna come after me,
then come after me."

We fell into that rebel culture.

And it was. It was rebellious,

and we knew there was a risky part of it.

[Jason]
It's part of what we call the resistance.

We thought, maybe we can
actually change laws.

And I was ready to fight.

[bong] Despite the law
and the ever-present threat

of somebody kicking in our door,
our rebellion kept rolling.

And by the late '90s and early 2000s,

Jason and Jerome Baker
weren't exactly keeping things subtle.

We were waving the flag.

[Bobby] That was the vision
of Jason and Jerome Baker,

was to mass produce
and mass market these things,

and it just became a household name.

[♪ rock music playing]

They were the biggest
bong company in the world.

[Jason] We had major rock stars
stopping by the studio.

Everybody wanted that Jerome Baker bong.

Snoop was definitely a big supporter.

We got him a bong.

Drew Barrymore got the butterfly bong.

It was almost like
the Willy Wonka Bong Factory.

At our highest point,
we were at about 90, 95 employees.

We went from one million, to two million,

to three million in sales.

And we were gonna hit
five million that year.

We're about to go party.

I owned the house on top of the hill.

I had the Cadillac Escalade
with the 22s on it.

I had the brand-new BMW,

huge house with all the fish tanks

and all the, you know,
sound system and party zone.

There was no end in sight at all.

It was only up from there.

[♪ bright music playing]

-[cork popping]
-[bong] Whoa.

Look at the view from way, way up here.

Hey, cheers, J!

Even for just a moment, it felt
pretty good to be on top of the game.

Jason had built a company that had
become synonymous with consumption,

and somewhere along the way,
we became unlikely icons

of the normalization movement.

But for years now,
we'd been on a collision course

with a powerful hibernating force,

and it was only a matter of time.

[♪ brooding music playing]

[Jason] The morning
of February 23rd, 2003,

I hear this crazy knock
on the door upstairs.

[officer]
Police with a search warrant!

[Jason]
Boom, boom, boom!

They came storming in with the g*ns drawn.

[officers shouting]

[Jason]
This is all happening very quickly.

They put me on my stomach,

got me handcuffed.

And I laid there as they just
went trudging through everything.

I really didn't know it was about bongs.

I thought they were gonna come in
and find a couple pounds of weed,

and try to get me for selling weed.

But they were pointing to things
inside my house.

You know, "What's this?
This is paraphernalia!"

I was like,
"f*ck you. This is artwork!"

They had over, like, 90 officers
to do our three spots.

FBI, DEA, and then Secret Service.

I'm like, "What the f*ck?
We have the president here or something?"

[Bobby] They raid them with tanks, dogs,

full SWAT teams.

The ridiculousness of it is that,

these are like hippie glassblower people.

At our shop, we had a rolling gate.

They came with a ram truck
and rammed the gate.

They were making a movie.

[reporter] Federal agents raided
Jerome Baker Designs Incorporated

on Sunday and arrested
its founder and CEO.

I don't think it dawned on me
to how big it was

until I got into the jail cell.

And they had a TV in there,

and it's John Ashcroft
from the White House.

Today, we are announcing
that 27 individuals

have been charged
in 17 separate indictments

with trafficking
in ill*gal drug paraphernalia.

These charges are the culmination
of a nationwide investigation,

code named Operation Pipe Dreams.

Seeing that from the jail cell,

that was the moment of clarity
when I was like,

"Whoa, this is f*cking huge."

[reporter]
One of the locations raided Monday

was the Pacific Palisades home
of Tommy Chong,

who was half of the comedy team
Cheech & Chong.

[singing] ♪ Keep on knocking
but you can't come in ♪

Don't, man, it's the cops, man!

-What happened here? They came here--
-[Tommy Chong] Well, right here,

they're-- they're outside
banging on the door.

And they're dressed
in their SWAT outfits and that.

-Yeah.
-I thought they were trick-or-treaters.

[laughing]

[reporter 1] Feds busted
Chong's online head shop

and home on Monday.

[reporter 2] ChongGlass.com

features dozens of glass
and ceramic pipes,

as well as a warning that children
should not access the site.

Which showed you how stupid they are.

Yeah, they're demonizing a pipe?

And I knew what I was doing was right.

I was always an outlaw,
and this is part of it.

[reporter] Life is imitating art.

He's been sentenced to nine months
in prison in Pittsburgh

for selling bongs
and pipes on the internet.

He's selling bongs that have no drugs.

He gets nine months in federal prison!

[Jason] Now, you're getting
these big headlines

and you're generating
the kind of buzz you want.

And you're making an example.

Like, if they can throw
Tommy Chong in jail,

what chance do I have?

He's one of the most beloved figures
in the cannabis community.

And he's a really sweet man.

He's definitely not a threat
to anyone or anything, you know?

So, it's just the overkill,
the overkill of the federal government

and the disregard for common sense.

We have indicted and put out of business

the largest suppliers
of drug paraphernalia.

[bong] As I was being not-so-carefully
escorted out of Jason's house--

in a very uncomfortable box, may I add--

I couldn't help but wonder.

Exactly how much
had the United States government

invested to take me down?

Operation Pipe Dreams
involved three years of investigation,

2,000 federal and local officials,

over $10 million in taxpayer money,

and more than

searched in a single coordinated sweep.

All of that over me!

Over glass.

[Bobby] John Ashcroft
and the Bush administration

saw this market flourishing,

saw this culture flourishing,
and they didn't like it.

He didn't see any differentiation

between the people
selling the pipes and bongs

and the drug dealers themselves.

In their minds, it's like, "Look at them.

"They're just flagrantly
disregarding the law.

Drug paraphernalia is ill*gal contraband,

and, yes, it will be seized and destroyed,

and we will not, uh,
be offering to sell that material.

[laughter]

[bong]
Charged with five counts of conspiracy

and trafficking in drug paraphernalia,

Jason was suddenly staring down

And like the 55 other people
swept up in Operation Pipe Dreams,

he faced a choice.

Fight the Federal Government
or take the plea.

Jason took the plea deal.

The judge sentenced him
to three years of probation

and two years of house arrest.

[Jason] It was much better
than doing 15 years in the pen.

But losing everything I had
was the hard part.

[♪ classical music playing]

When I was arrested, they told me
I'm never allowed to make a bong again.

I had to sell whatever inventory
and whatever equipment I had left

to other people
that were still making bongs.

And I felt a lot of resentment.

As a career glassblower,

being told I can't do that anymore
was really heartbreaking.

It was my identity.

And so, I had to kinda rethink
who I am as a person.

It was kind of a rethinking
of my whole life.

[waves crashing]

[bong]
Ahh, now this is what I'm talking about.

Maui, Hawaii.

Oh! Mahalo, bro!

And listen, I'm just thankful Jason
didn't decide to rethink his whole life

in say, Cleveland.

[wind gusting]

For most of his adult life,
Jason's rebel spirit

and fighting for me
had driven everything he did.

But Jason had to rediscover
his love for the art.

Sure, making glass dolphins for tourists

doesn't exactly scream
counterculture outlaw.

But trust me,
we weren't finished yet.

[Jason] After life threw
all the worst sh*t at me,

being able to spend time
in the glass studio

was blessed, precious time.

That's what helped me get through

whatever resentment and anger I had.

[bong] For nearly a decade,
Jason and I laid low.

We were underground again,

waiting for any excuse
back into the fight.

But in 2012, it came.

Colorado legalized
recreational cannabis use,

and soon after, more states followed,
including Nevada.

And this, my friends,
is what you call a comeback.

Dig me up, baby! Jerome Baker was back!

[Jason] When I set up in Vegas,
I knew that I needed to make some noise

to let people know,
"Hey, Jerome Baker's back."

And so, I said, "Hey, I want to make
the world's largest bong."

[James Corden] A soon-to-open
marijuana museum in Las Vegas

has installed a 24-foot-tall,
fully functional bong.

[audience cheering]

And they're calling it Bongzilla.

[laughter]

[Jason] For me,
it was this perfect opportunity

to give the biggest "f*ck you"
in the world to the government.

When people were smoking out of it,
it made it feel like a full-closed loop


telling me, "Don't ever make
any bongs again."

[all cheering]

As an artist,
it's the ultimate piece for me.

Because it felt like
I found my voice again

and was rejoining the resistance.

And I'm using this art as a vessel

to continue to carry the torch
for the glass movement.

[♪ light, hopeful music playing]

And that feels like a very necessary
and worthy cause.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[Bobby] Operation Pipe Dreams
was a very short-term success.

It chilled the industry.

But the industry didn't die,
it just went dormant.

It took about a decade.

Now, it's bigger and better than ever.

[Jason] Jack, you can put your pieces

-back here by the snakes?
-Yeah, yeah, sure.

[Bobby] Weed is ubiquitous,
and there's dispensaries,

and MJBizCon.

Jason Harris sacrificed and bled
for the cannabis movement,

and should be honored
for the contributions

in getting us to where we are.

And I want to make sure
that those outlaws like Jason,

don't get forgotten.

[bong]
I don't usually get sentimental,

but, look, the path
Jason and I have traveled

has been quite a voyage.

Jason saw something in me.
Many things.

He saw artistic expression,

he saw a vessel for shared experience,

and he saw the opportunity
to spearhead a movement

he believed to be right and just.

We were punished
for our pioneering spirit.

But because of that,
we stand as an enduring artifact

of the path towards change.

[host 1] Alright, so EarthSmokesALot

-is gonna light this m*therf*cker up.
-[person] EarthSmokesALot!

-[host 1] Again, don't try this at home.
-[host 2] Don't try it at home.

-[person cheering]
-[host 1] Yeah!

[all cheering]

A bong is-- is the stoner version
of conspicuous consumption.

Weed is not just something I do,
it's-- it's a centerpiece.

[Jason] It's been empowering as a human

to know that I've affected
all these people's lives

in a positive way.

Somebody will come up to me and say,
"Dude, you changed my life!"

"Your bong was the first bong
I ever smoked out of."

Or, "I blow glass now 'cause
I saw you blowing glass years ago."

In the end of this thing,
I went from a kid on Dead Tour

all the way up to the biggest
bong company in the world.

And I'm still ready to fight.

[Bobby]
They tried to k*ll the culture.

They didn't succeed.

And they never will.

It may have to go underground,

it may disappear for a little while,
but it always comes back,

and it always comes back better
and stronger than it was before.

♪♪