Burning Rainbow Farm: How a Stoner Utopia Went Up in Smoke

Thank you, Dean Kuipers, for writing "Burning Rainbow Farm". It is one of the saddest books I have ever read. I live on a small farm in Maryland, and my closest friends and I can relate to the murders of these young free men, who only wanted to be left alone to burn one, and live in peace. Whatever happened to the American right, to left alone? I highly recommend this book to anyone that believes freedom, is free.

The story told within the pages of this book is one of the most compelling stories I have ever read. I could not put this book down! It reads like an episode of 48 Hours Mystery. Dean Kuipers starts off by telling you basically what happened on Labor Day weekend, 2001. Then goes back in time and not only fills you in on the history of the two main characters, Tom and Rollie, but also introduces you to a myriad of other very interesting people, all very real with their own stories to tell. Not only that, it also gives you an over view of just about every aspect of the movement to legalize cannabis, especially as it relates to the state of Michigan. His retelling of these events is exceptional, considering he culled all the information from interviews and documents collected over a 4-year period. It is, which is obvious to people who are familiar with this story, about the rise and fall of Rainbow Farm, and the death of the two main owners and operators of the farm. For those unfamiliar with the story, Rainbow farm was a site for cannabis activism and related festivals in the latter half of the 1990's. It is about that, but also about so much more. It is about property rights, the War on Drugs, intolerance, persecution, zealous prosecution, and the mistakes that some of us make in the face of those things. It is also a window into the culture of the last 30 to 35 years and how that has changed. Mr. Kuipers manages to convey all of this, without getting bogged down with too much info on the history of the Hemp movement and all that goes with that. His style is very easy to follow and kept my interest all the way through. This book would be a great companion to Smoke and Mirrors - The War on Drugs and The Politics of Failure by Dan Baum. That book sort of ends, where this one takes up, although I would say that this is more of a close up view whereas Baum's book is a wider angle. Both books reveal the ridiculousness of the laws in our country concerning Cannabis and how enforcement of those laws is out of control. I recommend this book to everyone, whether you are a Cannabis activist, a casual observer, or just a registered voter that would like to read a balanced view of how our tax dollars are wasted on mostly non-violent users and people who would probably like to grow a little, in the privacy of their own homes for medicinal and light recreational uses.

Surrounded by forces in blue, and most every other color of uniform, Rainbow Farm blazed in a fury of flames while guns were trained on the two owners as they emerged: first, Tom Crosslin, 46, then his much younger lover, Rolland "Rollie" Rohm, 28. Crosslin was shot through the forehead by a FBI sharpshooter. Rohm emerged into the open field 12 hours later and, after setting fire to the farmhouse where he had lived with Crosslin since the early 90s, was hit by the bullet of a Michigan State Police sharpshooter. The bullet first split the butt of Rohm's rifle before entering his chest, splattering him with blood but leaving him on the ground still alive. Or so some say. After that, questions arise, still unanswered. "The most intriguing stories take place under our very noses," says Dean Kuipers, author of "Burning Rainbow Farm: How a Stone Utopia Went Up in Smoke," when I spoke to him recently during his book tour, making a stop in Kalamazoo. Kuipers, deputy editor at LA City Beat in Los Angeles, California, but with deep roots in southwest Michigan, couldn't let go of the story since he first read about it in the Kalamazoo Gazette in September 2001. He is a well-trained journalist; good stories eat away at him until transformed into print. Kuipers started to piece together the story of "a hippie campground famous for peace, love and weed." As the story took shape, Kuipers wrote an article in 2003 that appeared in Playboy Magazine. He wrote: "On the day that he purchased Rainbow Farm, Tom Crosslin said destiny had led him to the place. By the late 1990s, the farm would become a well-known stop on the hippie trail, a scenic overlook for the migratory flocks of travelers and Phish fans who crisscrossed the country. For thousands of blue-collar pilgrims who stopped there looking for a few days of fun and freedom in Michigan's vacation lands, it was a benevolent little campground. And on any other Labor Day they would have been there: thousands of happy stoners setting up tents for Crosslin's annual marijuana-legalization fest, a party he'd named Roach Roast." Crosslin, Kuipers writes, "came from a world of muscle cars, factory work, girls and getting stoned." He'd quit school around 10th grade and had been working ever since -- at a little bit of everything. He was a factory worker and a truck driver, he managed a car wash, worked in construction, started his own string of businesses, and purchased property as investments. He married, then divorced, coming to the realization that he was gay. He loved a good, raucous party, and he was known for his cookouts, well lubricated with cases of beer, serving vegetables he grew in his garden. Fun-loving and easygoing, Crosslin was known to be rather promiscuous... until he met Rollie Rohm. The two fast became something of an odd couple. While Crosslin was then 34, Rollie was all of 16 years old, a school dropout too, sporting a first moustache to match his long blonde hair. In spite of his youth, he

It isn't explicitly in the Bill of Rights, but it ought to be: The Right to Be Let Alone. The story of two martyrs who died pursuing this right is told in _Burning Rainbow Farm: How a Stoner Utopia Went Up in Smoke_ (Bloomsbury) by Dean Kuipers. The story of Tom Crosslin and his partner Rollie Rohm never got all the attention it deserved, since the dramatic climax happened on the Labor Day weekend just before 9/11. Kuipers brings it back, a detailed and intelligent look at the way the War on Drugs has been waged within our borders. You don't have to be in favor of legalization of drugs or even decriminalization of marijuana to realize that this sad battle which reflects badly on all participants never should have happened. Tom met Rollie, a handsome seventeen-year-old, in 1990. Rollie had been married and had a son whom he adored, but it was love at first sight when he and Tom met. With Rollie, Tom purchased 34 acres of farmland in rural southwest Michigan, and they named it Rainbow Farm. Tom's construction crew and odd-job men became a sort of commune for the farm, a place of remove, where Tom and Rollie and their work crews and friends could have cookouts and parties and not worry about bothering or being bothered by those around them. They were eager for a lot of different types of people to show up at Rainbow Farm, have fun, and be left alone. "This is a place about alternative lifestyles," Tom liked to say. "Being gay is just one of 'em. Smoking pot is just one of 'em. There's a bunch more, and this is a place where people can be free." They started having pot festivals, refusing to allow harder drugs, and refusing to let people sell pot, but encouraging sharing. The local prosecutor didn't like it, and fired with the possibility of claiming the valuable land as assets for the cops, he was eventually able to charge Tom and Rollie with manufacturing drugs. They Rollie knew that they would be losing the farm if they went to trial, and having said sad goodbyes to many who had come to hang out there over the years, they forced a last stand. Tom got assault rifles and let any potential invaders know that the farm was mined and booby trapped (but it was not). He set the buildings of the farm on fire, and fired at police. The FBI was called in, and no one found a way to break the siege, which inevitably led to Tom's and Rollie's deaths. Tom and Rollie do not turn out to be flawless heroes; Rollie may have just been going along with Tom's plans, but Tom's plans did include the weapons, and firing at police and a helicopter. Their persecutors, however, should not have been hounding him over the years for a relatively harmless weed which drug warriors can't differentiate from truly harmful substances. Rainbow Farm sounds as if it was a happy and useful place, and the world is worse off without it. Tom and Rollie were, before the persecution took hold, philanthropists, Republicans, and prosperous businessmen. This is a story vivi

Man, what a great story, and what evocative prose! It's like the Titanic (in a good way) - you know what's coming, you know it's bad, but you can't stop reading. Favorite sentence as of this moment (from Chapter 12): "He wasn't talking about God, but God was on their lips." Yes! Like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich! Multi-faceted, even-handed, vivid characters, well-researched: these are boring words, but when applied as Dean Kuipers has done here, magically altered to something that's as addictive as any substance described herein. Potent!