Burning Rainbow Farm: How a Stoner Utopia Went Up in Smoke | 
| Author: Dean Kuipers
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy Used: $2.94
You Save: $22.01 (88%)
New (30) Used (33) Collectible (1) from $2.94
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 609687
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.4
ISBN: 1596911425
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.177
EAN: 9781596911420
ASIN: 1596911425
Publication Date: June 13, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The gripping story of two marijuana advocates gunned down by the FBI after a five-day standoff.
On a mission to build a peaceful, pot-friendly Shangri-La, Tom Crosslin and his lover Rollie Rohm founded Rainbow Farm, a well-appointed campground and concert venue tucked away in rural Southwest Michigan. The farm quickly became the center of marijuana and environmental activism in Michigan, drawing thousands of blue-collar libertarians and hippie liberals, evangelicals and militiamen to its annual hemp festivals. People came from all over the country to support Tom and Rollie’s libertarian brand of patriotism: They loved America but didn’t like the War on Drugs.
As Rainbow Farm launched a popular statewide ballot initiative to change marijuana laws, local authorities, who had scarcely tolerated Rainbow Farm in the past, began an all-out campaign to shut the place down. Finally, in May 2001, Tom and Rollie were arrested for growing marijuana. Rollie’s 11-year-old son, who grew up on Rainbow Farm, was placed in foster care – Tom would never see him again. Faced with mandatory jail terms and the loss of the farm, Tom and Rollie never showed up for their August court date. Instead, the state’s two best-known pot advocates burned Rainbow Farm to the ground in protest. County officials called the FBI, and within five days Tom and Rollie were dead. Obscured by the attacks of September 11, their stories will be told here for the first time.
(20060515)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 inspirational and touching October 9, 2008
This book makes me want to be a medipot advocate and take a stand against the US government for not letting Americans exercise their rights. its a deep story that really touches me. I love the way it was written and how so many people had a part in writing it.
 Pro-Pot Message August 6, 2008
It was pretty good and fairly interesting. There is a good bit of pro-pot diatribe, where the author tells stories of pot-smokers being screwed by the government. Probably a little long because of this. Overall the story is pretty shocking though. The book is honest too and I thought both sides were depicted well.
One of the saddest stories I have ever read. January 26, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
Lesser-Known Abuses of Power January 3, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Most Americans know about the abuses of government power that resulted in Waco and Ruby Ridge. Most people do not get quite as excited about less drastic and dramatic abuses of power, including violations of our Bill of Rights that have become so frequent that we no longer notice them. Most Americans should know about the deaths of Rollie Rohm and Tom Crosslin at Rainbow Farm but do not because of an accident of timing; the events at Rainbow Farm unfolded just days before 9/11. Journalist Dean Kuipers examines with an insightful and critical eye the lives and motivations of hemp activist and unapologetic capitalist Tom Crosslin, his gentle lover Rollie Rohm, and their associates from many different walks of libertarian life, ranging from Tommy Chong to Merle Haggard to the Michigan Militia. Kuipers brings to life the stories of these drug reform and property rights activists who were most definitely breaking the law, but who by no stretch of the imagination were the perils to society that the law enforcement bureaucracy believed them to be.
Kuipers also applies his analytical and descriptive abilities to the Michiana Rust Belt towns and cities that Crosslin and Rohm called home, including Elkhart, Indiana, the RV Capitol of the World--the hometown of this reviewer. Kuipers' perceptions of this depressogenic area ring true in more ways than I want to count.
--Christine A. Whittington
 Buy it for the story, keep it for the writing. October 24, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The chaos and seemingly unneccessary killing of these two pot activists would've been enshrined in the pantheon of strange, over-government reactions -- think Wacco, Ruby Ridge, etc. -- had 9-11 not upturned the political landscape. Thankfully, Dean Kuipers didn't forget, and returned to his childhood area to pen a masterful, well-paced story that is not sentimental or overly judgmental but instead keenly observed with smart reportage and an almost noirish writing style.
You may not respect or even like the protagonists, and Kuipers does not
give them the kit-glove treatment as he shows they defied an insecure prosector in oh so many ways and fired shells at the SWAT folks. You do
come away scratching your head -- and this is where the book transcends its liberatarian, quasi-militia ganja promotion -- about how marijuana,
as with so numerous issues, came to be viewed so differently by the feds than from the constituency they serve.
While I wish the book would've been shorter and that the scene/fact-setting info. was better integrated into the more brisk, novelistic portrayal, overall Kuipers does what so many other non fiction writers can't: he keeps you interested, has a knack for using the right phrase to fit the genre, and leads you expertly down the farm road to an horrifically inevitable bloodbath.
Make no mistake: this is a book to curl up with, whether you believe weed is God's medication and a relaxant for overwrought world or a gateway to crack-ho death. How the gov't can make itself king and over-step the people's authority -- confiscating property, independence, your livelihood, even your soul -- is disturbingly and fascinatingly retold by a writer who has his chops down.
Highly recommend, and this isn't my normal fare.
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