German movie poster

What if natural fibers like hemp had won supremacy over petroleum in the 1930′s?  What if the marijuana tax stamp act of 1937 had never been passed?  What if cannabis had never been dubbed marijuana, as a racial slur against Mexicans?  Our fuel would be ethanol. Our textiles would be blends of hemp and cotton rather than cotton and polyester.  Our paints, plastics, cosmetics, food and countless other consumables would be petroleum free.  What about our path out of the great depression?  What about our entrance into WWII?  Would the war have even happened?

Welcome to the world of reefer punk, a series of alternative history novels revealing not only a fictional past, but a still possible future.

In Fist Full of Reefer (the first in the series), Manuel, a poor dirt farmer on the Texas side of the border, struggles during the late 1920′s to eek a living from the dirt while impressing the busty, young daughter of the nearest town’s sheriff.

But Manuel has been dubbed a dreamer, a Mexican, dead weight.  Manuel does not see it that way.  With a vision ineffable and unquenchable Manuel and his offbeat neighbor, a Basque goat herder, endeavor to become the largest cannabis farmers on either side of the boarder.

But when the most infamous Texas Ranger in the territory catches wind of this new threat to the solidarity of his borderlands he vows not to lay a razor to his always clean-shaven face until he can make that razor from the sharpened femur bone of the dead outlaw farmer.

A blend of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, Outlaw Josey Wales and Cheech and Chong, Fist Full of Reefer is a nonstop romp full of zombie goats, saloon shoot-outs, the legend of El Chupacabra and the camaraderie of outcasts.  Woven throughout the action the complex issues of race and emigration begin to reveal the landscape surrounding the decisions soon to be made regarding the industrial use of hemp.