Catch a Fire

“Sharply observed, fiercely researched, starkly revealing, written with wit, verve, and insight, making room for the tragic ironies without ever taking its eyes off the comic ones, Catch a Fire left me shaking with laughter — when I wasn’t shaking my head in dismay.” — MICHAEL CHABON

The untold story of the $131-billion Canadian cannabis blow out.

Canopy Growth founder Bruce Linton didn’t invent marijuana, but he figured out how to turn a Canadian start-up selling the stuff into a $22 billion international buzz. Catch a Fire goes behind the scenes of Justin Trudeau’s legalization gambit and the stoned pioneering lawyers who helped make weed gummies more valuable than U.S. Steel. From the dope dealers of the 1960s to the never-before-told bribery accusations during Covid-19, cannabis historian Ben Kaplan speaks with the dealers, stealers, and renegade freaks who made and then lost money with the combined chutzpah of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Sam Bankman-Fried.

This is the definitive history of a massive societal change — and a great boom and bust.