To honor the high hashish holiday, we're celebrating the surfing, smuggling, LSD evangelists known as the Brotherhood of Eternal Love.

That commune's international cannabis concentrate smuggling ring got them dubbed "the hippie mafia" and involved some of the most fascinating characters in the history of cannabis true crime.

Including the largely unknown story of Ronald Hadley Stark, who has been pegged by various people at various times as an undercover CIA asset sent to subvert the counterculture, a rogue KGB operative sent to foment a new American revolution, a ruthless career criminal disguised as a peace-and-love flower child, and a cunning snitch who transformed the Brotherhood of Eternal Love from idealistic hippies into big-time drug smugglers.

For more on the BOEL, check out these books (The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, and Orange Sunshine) and documentaries (Orange Sunshine and The Sunshine Makers).

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