Ben Kaplan
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.
“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, New York Times bestselling author of Moonglow
“You can't come to Canada and not smoke a joint with Ben Kaplan.” —Matt Barnes, 2017 NBA Champion and host of All the Smoke
"Catch A Fire is a rollicking tale about the strange menagerie of people — compassionate stoners, pothead PhDs, risk-taking weed ruffians, pain-wracked patients, principled politicians, corporate suits, tech bros, and boastful billionaires — who transformed cannabis from a recreational drug to a pharmaceutical product to the world’s hottest stock market commodity and back again. At the same time, Ben Kaplan delivers a serious examination of how a multi-billion-dollar business was often little more than smoke and mirrors, a green rush driven by greed, sleazy salesmen and corporate malfeasance, and went up in a puff of smoke by over-promising and under-delivering.” —André Picard, health reporter for the Globe & Mail
“Catch a Fire captures the highs and hangovers and historic moments of the legalization of cannabis and its sweeping effect on North American culture and the lives of a handful of daring and opportunistic adventurers who seized the day. It's a raucous and riveting narrative worthy of a Hollywood movie, with swashbuckling corporate dealmakers, big dreamers, inflated egos and company valuations, soaring heights and nosediving crashes. It's an entrepreneurial adventure like no other, with many powerful business lessons. But above all, it's just a fantastic story with characters so compelling you won't believe they are real.” —Mark Sutcliffe, Mayor of Ottawa
