Jerry Garcia’s marijuana pipe takes a long, strange trip and ends up in a Marin County antique shop
The marijuana pipe that the Grateful Dead rocker brought out for his onstage concerts is sitting in a Marin County antique shop, the owner said — just outside California’s borders, where it may be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
In the days after Garcia, who died in 1995, took his guitar onstage at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco in 1969, an ornate pipe was stolen from his hotel suite on that April evening, the owner said.
“We found him in a closet, hanging by a necktie — I thought he was dead,” said Jim McQuiston, the owner of McQuiston’s Pipe Shop in Novato with his wife, Mary, a certified marijuana caregiver.
He said he was shocked when Garcia told him he had lost his pipe.
“It’s a beautiful pipe. It’s his prized possession,” McQuiston said. “But you know, there’s a lot of things in this world that don’t deserve to be valued. We have an antique shop in Novato open now. Maybe he’ll go out and come back in with us — he’s a member, anyway.”
California is home to about 90 percent of the world’s marijuana supply, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The state is the only jurisdiction that issues permits for the cultivation, distribution and possession of the drug.
To be allowed to grow the plant legally, growers must obtain a license and show they’ve complied with federal rules.
Even with the law, the state has taken a hands-off approach to how marijuana should be regulated by local governments. Most communities have not set limits on where pot can be grown, and many don’t even permit the use of indoor grows.
But the state has been aggressive in protecting marijuana businesses and consumers.
The state has issued more than 1,000 temporary restraining orders against businesses selling pot in the state.
It has been known to use some form of physical force against growers — including making arrests after pot-related raids — and to close down dispensaries, for a variety of reasons.
Still,
