A Man of Substances: The Misdeeds and Growing Pains of a Pot Pioneer

by Gerald J. McCarthy, David Partridge

When Gerry McCarthy hit the headlines in 1996, he was the man at the center of a five million dollar dope bust, the largest grow-op takedown in Canadian history. But when he hit the big city as a small-town teenager many years before, he was as green as grass. The story in between is a unique and winding journey through the vibrant, revolutionary years of the twentieth century.

A Man of Substances looks unblinkingly at McCarthy's invention, reaction, and folly over a life on the less sober side of the law. This memoir explores McCarthy's journey, from a guitar slung across his shoulders to handcuffs around his wrists. In between are the exploits of one of Canada's marijuana cultivation pioneers, at turns resourceful and rash, sincere and sardonic, hardworking and hammered. He is paperboy and pot dealer, secret keeper and raconteur. He's a devoted suburban family man with a pound of weed in the second car.

Both entertaining and educational, A Man of Substances reflects the times and the culture of the world in which he grew up and explores that world's folly and its shadows with equal candor.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Marcus Rummery]

This is the book to read if you love cannabis and the counterculture that served as the garden for Ms. Jane's growth into mainstream society. This guy is wild and funny! A gripping tale of excess, capitalism and criminal intrigue that builds momentum to a crescendo of lawyers, drugs and cash - Dr. Thompson would have read and endorsed this tome if he had stayed alive long enough to read it.

I read it over the course of one day, it had me dead to rites in its sticky grip!

[Mark Kirtwich]

This book has all the makings of a Canadian cult-classic. The fact that this is a true story makes it infinately more compelling. When I started reading it, I simply couldn't put it down. The style of writing is entertaining and Hunter S. Thompson-esque. McCarthy provides a Greater Toronto context to the sub-, counter-, and pop-cultures that were pervasive throughout the 60s to 80s, and tells his story through the eyes of a philosopher of the times...he just...wasn't a mathematician...

This is a first hand account of one of - if not the - largest pot bust in Canadian History, and the story leading up to the bust is just as exciting!