Prologue: On the Barge When I was nine, my public elementary school participated in a program best known by the slogan, "D.A.R.E. to keep kids off drugs!" It was one of Nancy Reagan's pet projects, a prong of her Just Say No campaign. One afternoon per week, the entire fourth grade crowded into the cafeteria, where a uniformed policeman lectured us about the perils of narcotics like marijuana. We learned techniques for deflecting peer pressure and identifying and avoiding dealers. And we broke into groups to playact situations. I was careful to follow the program's script. I knew how to keep a secret. At home, there were giant black garbage bags of Mendocino shake crammed into the closet of our spare bedroom, along with pounds of fragrant, manicured buds sealed in gallon Ziplocs. My mom had operated Sticky Fingers Brownies--a massive, profoundly illegal marijuana-edibles business--since before I was born. Throughout my infancy, she and her partners distributed upward of ten thousand brownies per month; it was the first known business of its kind to operate at that scale in California. By the age of nine, I was helping my mom bake and individually wrap brownies on weekends. Sometimes I tagged along on deliveries after school. We were the people the cop warned my class about. By 1987, the year of my first D.A.R.E. lessons, AIDS was ravaging my hometown. People I loved as surrogate aunties and uncles were suffering gruesome, agonizing illnesses. Cannabis eased their Equal parts therapist's couch, executive boardroom, and ladies' lounge, the barge was a place for sharing and intimacy. It was also where my mom counted stacks of hundreds and fifties. I can still see her enveloped in a miasma of pot smoke, blue-green-amber eyes gleaming with her latest anecdote or an old favorite. And then flopped over on her back, wheezing with laughter and slapping the covers. I remember how the barge trembled with a good punch line, and how steady it felt when you were down and needed reassurance. There have been countless barges over the years--from mattresses so well-worn they were permanently imprinted with my mom's shape to hotel beds that carried us for a night or two. Wherever my mom "gets horizontal" for a heart-to-heart talk with someone she loves, that's the barge. It's a state of mind as much as a place. That's where this book began. Sometime around 2007, I started taping my mom's best stories on a handheld cassette recorder. At first, I was just archiving for myself. But as she unspooled the yarns of Sticky Fingers, I became curious about how her contribution to cannabis history fit into the broader legalization movement and the story of my hometown, even my country. I wanted to understand the historical moment and social pressures that created the secretive world I grew up in. And to know why she risked her freedom--and my safety--to blaze trails in this illegal industry during the drug war. To find out, I barged with my godmother and then my dad, both of whom helped build the business. The conversations began with people close to my heart, but the circle soon widened exponentially; it's the nature of drug dealing to radiate outward. The Sticky Fingers crew guided me to former customers, who brought their friends into the project. Some came to me, and others I had to hunt. Several people have passed away in the years since we talked, leaving me with staticky recordings of their memories. A hollow silence remains in place of the voices of our many friends lost long ago to AIDS. Since beginning my recordings, I've conducted hundreds of hours of interviews with cannabis farmers, dealers, customers, activists, artists, business owners, city officials, and law enforcement--all of whom were somehow touched by this family-run pot-brownie business. I've sought to corroborate their memories with historical records, archival research, and contemporary news sources. All scenes and conversations are re-created with guidance from the original participants. Throughout, I've hoped to retain the sweetness of our early conversations. My "interviewing," if I must call it that, is relaxed and informal, as close to barging as I can manage. Before I could spell my own name, I understood that I came from an outlaw family. If I ever revealed what my parents did for a living, I knew that they could go to prison and I could become a ward of the state. Whenever adults asked, I said my folks were professional artists--a true statement, though incomplete. As of this writing, California is among eleven states (plus D.C.) to authorize the recreational use of cannabis for adults. Thirty-five states permit varying degrees of medicinal use, and another two states allow controlled preparations of CBD. Only Idaho and Nebraska still practice total prohibition. Marijuana laws are shifting so quickly that the landscape will likely be different by the time this book is printed. This sea change began in my lifetime; it began in my hometown of San Francisco, among my mom's close friends and associates; it began with a plague and the bravery and determination of those who fought for what their bodies needed. The statute of limitations expired on my family's crimes years ago. The federal government still classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 narcotic--more tightly controlled than cocaine or pharmaceutical opioids--but no one is going to do time because of this story. I'm writing with the consent and collaboration of those involved. I vividly remember my mom dissuading me from taking a "cola" bud the length of my forearm to kindergarten show-and-tell. Now, as I enter my forties, I'm eager to break the silence I grew up with. I can finally bring Mom's home-baked brownies to share with the rest of class. Excerpted from Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco by Alia Volz All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.