Stoned Again

ÒIn Stoned Again, Mike Sager refers to himself as a Ôdrugs correspondent,Õ but thatÕs legitimately humble smoke that belies whatÕs really going on here. While thereÕs plenty of weed, heroin, shrooms, and crack (not to mention plenty of Ricky James, bitch) in these pages, what is most evident on every page is the remarkable reporting, empathy, craftsmanship, and storytelling that have rightly placed Mike Sager among the journalistic legends of our time.Ó ÑMaximillian Potter, author of Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of the Plot to Poison the WorldÕs Greatest Wine From the brutal days and nights of life inside a crack gang in Los Angeles, to the artistic miseries of young heroin addicts on the ultra-hip lower east side of New York; from the Sonoran desert where Carlos Castaneda made his earliest shamanic discoveries, to the cell at Folsom Prison where the author first encountered the King of Funk, Rick James, to the modest headquarters of the Church of Realized Fantasies, where the Pope of Pot presided over the first highly organized marijuana delivery service, Stoned Again: The High Times and Strange Life of a Drugs Correspondent takes you to places you didnÕt necessarily want to go on your own. But with Sager as your guide, you canÕt wait to head to the next destination. Sager has been called Òthe Beat poet of American journalism, that rare reporter who can make literature out of shabby reality.Ó Nowhere is that skill more in evidence than when he writes about the seamier sides of life. Kirkus Reviews called him ÒVirgil in the modern American inferno.Ó ÒMike Sager is a journalistic icon and a literary force. A whole generation of writers has been shaped and guided by his work. This is a seminal collection by a master of the form.Ó ÑWil S. Hylton, New York Times Magazine contributor, author of Vanished: The Sixty-Year Search for the Missing Men of World War II ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mike Sager is a best-selling author and award-winning reporter. A former Washington Post staff writer under Watergate investigator Bob Woodward, he worked closely, during his years as a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Sager is the author of six collections of non-fiction, two novels, and one biography. He has served for more than seventeen years as a writer at large for Esquire. In 2010 he won the American Society of Magazine EditorsÕ National Magazine Award for profile writing.