A MAN OF SUBSTANCES: Misdeeds and Growing Pains of a Pot Pioneer, a cautionary memoir co-authored by Gerald J. McCarthy and David Partridge, is now available from barnesandnoble.com, amazon.com, amazon.ca and chapter.indigo.ca. Here’s the scoop:

When Gerry McCarthy hit the headlines in 1996, he was the man at the centre 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 green as grass. The story between is a unique and winding journey through the most vibrant, revolutionary years of the Twentieth Century.

Told in the first-person, the book looks unblinkingly at the protagonist’s invention, reaction and folly over a life on the less sober side of the law. A MAN OF SUBSTANCES explores Gerry’s journey from a guitar across the shoulders to handcuffs around the 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.

McCarthy’s story is honestly told because fact is so often more remarkable than fiction. It reflects the times and the culture of the world in which he grew and explores that world’s folly and its shadows with equal candor.