Allison Margolin - Just Dope: A Leading Attorneys Personal Journey Inside the War on Drugs

... Margolins best arguments draw on her courtroom experience to reveal how harsh and convoluted drug laws can be, even in states like California, where recreational cannabis sales are permitted.

Publishers Weekly

Allisons book could become a call to action for many.... As someone who has often been called the godfather of the Progressive Prosecutors Movement in this country, I am excited for [it] to be published. Just Dope has the potential to become one of those once-in-a-generation books, shaking up popular beliefs about the role of drugs in American culture and tipping the scales toward a more humane and thoughtful approach in the future.

George Gascn, district attorney of LA, former two-term district attorney of San Francisco, and former chief of police of San Francisco

Allison is a true marijuana lover from the heartits in her bloodline. She knows nothing else and is always trying to help. If you really wanna know about marijuana laws, you must read this book.

Freeway Rick Ross

With Just Dope, Allison Margolin uses a fluid writing style that seamlessly weaves together disparate threads of her own life and sense of justice with courtroom drama, history, science, and a blistering critique of the Drug War. She chronicles her very personal odyssey from hippie child to D.A.R.E. student to drug user to Dopest Defense Attorney and offers frank appraisals of political and prosecutorial policies along the way.... Masterful and well writtenI highly recommend this book.

Chris Conrad, cannabis author, activist, and court-qualified expert witness

Allison Margolin has addressed Americas drug abuse crisis in a uniquely honest and compelling autobiography.

Eugene Schoenfeld, MD, author of the 1960s70s newspaper column Dr. Hip and Dr. Hips Natural Food and Unnatural Acts

With Just Dope, Margolin uses a fluid writing style that seamlessly weaves together disparate threads of her own life and sense of justice with courtroom drama, history, science and a blistering critique of the Drug War.

The Leaf

Masterful, expansive, well-written and fun to read, we highly recommend this book.

L.A. Cannabis News

Copyright 2022 by Allison Margolin. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by
North Atlantic Books
Huichin, unceded Ohlone land
aka Berkeley, California

Cover design by Jasmine Hromjak
Book design by Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Just Dope: A Leading Attorneys Personal Journey Inside the War on Drugs is sponsored and published by North Atlantic Books, an educational nonprofit based in the unceded Ohlone land Huichin (aka Berkeley, CA) that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives, nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing, and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature.

North Atlantic Books publications are distributed to the US trade and internationally by Penguin Random House Publisher Services. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com.

MEDICAL DISCLAIMER: The following information is intended for general information purposes only. Individuals should always see their health care provider before administering any suggestions made in this book. Any application of the material set forth in the following pages is at the readers discretion and is their sole responsibility.

Strange Fruit. Words and Music by Lewis Allan. Copyright 1939 (Renewed) by Music Sales Corporation. Rights outside the United States Controlled by Edward B. Marks Music Company. International Copyright Secured All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Margolin, Allison, author.
Title: Just dope : a leading attorneys personal journey inside the war on drugs
/ Allison Margolin.
Description: Huichin, unceded Ohlone land aka Berkeley, California : North
Atlantic Books, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
| Summary: Leading attorney Allison Margolins insider account of the
War on Drugs and how to end it for good. Integrating pop culture and
personal stories into social analysis, she puts drug criminalization on
trial to advocate for an evidence-based, commonsense approach to drug
use and legalization Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021059010 (print) | LCCN 2021059011 (ebook) | ISBN
9781623176860 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781623176877 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Drug legalizationUnited States. | Drug controlUnited
States. | Drug abuseGovernment policyUnited States.
Classification: LCC HV5825 .M25358 2022 (print) | LCC HV5825 (ebook) |
DDC 364.1/770973dc23/eng/20220228
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059010
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059011

To my loving and supportive husband, Jon. Thank you for sharing your life and soul with me.

To Dr. Jeff Crausman, in loving memory. I would never have gotten through my dark days without you or be here to write this without you.

Ive wanted to write this book since I was eight years old, sitting at the warm, yellowing Formica of my grandmothers kitchen table. For those who know anything about my backgroundtwo lawyers for parents, a stoner dad, growing up in Beverly Hills in the 70s and 80smy writing this book will not come as a surprise. Somewhere in my brain, I kept the image of this book, even though I didnt know the shape it would take.

I grew up in the middle of the marijuana legalization movement. My dad, Bruce, counted people like Ram Dass and Timothy Leary as his friends. His career as a criminal attorney inspired me to follow the same path; at least, Im sure thats the most obvious story to people on the outside looking in. But my grandmother Guta Peck was my greatest champion. If anyone encouraged me to write, it was she. Similarly, my career in the law, my even applying to Harvard Law School and taking the California Bar Exam, is owed to my mother, Elyse. Oddly enough, these two straitlaced womenwho as far as I can tell rarely touched any drug stronger than aspirinhave been the biggest influence on my long-gestating book on drugs and the law. They showed me that drugs, the law, and society are connected.

Since becoming an attorney in December 2002, I have represented dealers and addicts, cartel bosses and alleged Russian crime lords. Ive faced down corrupt prosecutors, crooked cops, and prejudiced, power-mad judges. All the while I kept this book in mind and told myself I was collecting material. I jotted notes on the reverse sides of transcripts and case briefs. I went in and out of practice with my dad. I started my own firm. Over fifteen years later, I had the stories, but my practice was failing.

When California legalized recreational marijuana in 2016, I was thrilled. Then the criminal cases dwindled, and my firm suffered. I had a terrible revelation: I had made a name for myself as a pro-legalization figure, and I vocally opposed drug prohibition every chance I got; yet I was still profiting off the very system I hated. My clients were the ones who had been caught in this systemand they were the lucky ones! Anyone who could afford me was in a far preferable position to that of the vast majority of defendants.