In real life, there is a person like “Anonymous”, who, for the sake of this story, I’ll call Huey Carmichael. I was friends with this person for a while before I learned about his other life. The real Huey knows more than a thing or two about the weed business. He keeps rules. The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing  tells the story of a hyper-observant, politically-minded, but humorously pragmatic weed dealer who has spent a working life compiling rules for how to a) make money and b) avoid prison. Each rule shapes a chapter of this fast-paced outlaw tale, all delivered in Huey’s deliciously trenchant argot. Here are a few of them: • No guns but keep shooters. • Stay behind the white guy. • Don’t snitch. • Always have a job. • Be multi-sourced. • Get your money and get out. Part edge-of-the-seat suspense story, part how-to manual in the tradition of  The Anarchist Cookbook ,  The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing  is as scintillating as it is subversive. Just reading it feels illegal. “Taibbi, a writer of striking intelligence and bold ideas, is as hilarious as he is scathing.” — Publishers Weekly  “A welcome, lyrical defense of ‘coaxing a beautiful thing out of the ground and bringing it to your door.'” — The Bohemian “Lays bare the link between organised crime, the state and policing” — Morning Star  “An entertaining fictional pusher reveals sobering real-life truths” — Washington Independent Review of Books “[An] honest and humane approach to the nasty business of business under contemporary capitalism” —People’s World Matt Taibbi is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and winner of the 2008 National Magazine Award for columns and commentary. His most recent book is I Can’t Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street, about the infamous killing of Eric Garner by the New York City police. He’s also the author of the New York Times bestsellers Insane Clown President, The Divide, Griftopia, and The Great Derangement. Chapter Seven: Embrace Racial Stereotypes Here’s how you rig a cross-country load. It’s four cars: You want two cars in front, one car in the back, with a load in between. Same principle as in the wild. Buffalo and zebras travel in packs, too. There’s strength in numbers. And here’s the other advantage we have: we know police profile. We use it against them. That’s an important rule: Embrace racial stereotypes . In business, racism is your friend. If you master the nuances of it, you will prevail. Race is everything in America, especially in law enforcement. If you’re one Black guy driving from California to anywhere east, you’re going to be stopped. A Black man behind the wheel looks out of place anywhere west of Chicago, really. So use that to your advantage. The guy driving that first car in the parade, the dummy car, we want him to be a caricature. We want him wilding out. We want a fucking criminal. We want in baggy pants with a hat turned sideways and tats and a record as long as his arm. We want him to be filthy . The idea is for the cops to pull him over and say, “Son, what are you doing out here?” The second car is the buffer. He’s watching to make sure that the cops don’t profile someone else, keeping an eye out, making sure that the guy behind him is safe. You don’t really need that second car. It costs more and doesn’t do anything specific other than add a set of eyes. But it’s an extra buffer, one more layer of confusion for authorities. Three cars is too few, five cars is too expensive. But four is perfect. The third car is the load. He’s carrying the shit in the trunk. That’s a rule: No drugs inside the passenger area of a car . A corollary to that is, Always drive a car with a trunk . No SUVs. No Muranos. None of that. An ordinary boring sedan with a trunk. The search and seizure rules dictate these rules. Cops can’t say they saw a suitcase full of weed in plain view. They need a reason to open that trunk, and if you play it right, you never give that to them. One of the reasons for that is the fourth car. He stays tight behind the load car, so police can’t get directly behind him. He’s getting in the way, so they can’t run plates easily. He’s running interference. Rule: every time you enter a state, change out your cars. Rule: drive rentals but make sure you’ve got in-state plates as often as possible. Iowa cars in Iowa, Colorado cars in Colorado. And so on. And you don’t stop except to sleep and go to the bathroom. But the key is that first car. Your dummy car needs to be a real fuckup. He’s gotta be conspicuous. It’s the others who need to keep their heads. Late December, 2015, Oakland, California. I’ve been sending loads out of state fifty pounds at a time from the different farms. Two suitcases of 25 pounds apiece in the trunk of every third car is standard. Caravans to different states: some to the Pacific Northwest, some to the Midwest, and some all the way east. The first few loads were all right. Then on the third load I broke one my rules. Hell, even Biggie