High Times

High Times is the true story of Michael Medjuck, whose taste for weed, women and the good life led him from late-1960s Johannesburg to notoriety as one of the biggest hash and weed smugglers in North America. From his base in Vancouver, Michael built up a smuggling network that supplied dealers in scores of cities across Canada and the United States. The proceeds from smuggling afforded this former King David High School pupil a lifestyle of hedonistic excess - the finest wines, the most glamorous hookers, the best weed in the world. In 1991, Michael was nabbed by US federal agents while smuggling an enormous shipload of Afghani hash into the West Coast of Canada. Put on trial as the scheme's mastermind, Michael was convicted and sentenced to 24 years behind bars. His prison experiences, from dingy county lock-ups to brutal federal penitentiaries, are the stuff of legend. Eventually, a chance remark to his lawyer led to his early release and return to Canada. After barely a year of freedom, Michael was again arrested - this time in Spain for an ill-judged cocaine smuggling venture - and sentenced to an additional prison term of nine years. This is Michael's extraordinary story, as told to fellow South Africans Roy Isacowitz, author and journalist, and the late Jeremy Gordin, award-winning journalist, editor and author.

ROY ISACOWITZ is an author and journalist, now retired in Tel Aviv.