Tommy Chong Gets the Last Laugh
The sun hadn’t risen the morning of February 24, 2003, when the banging came at the door.
The scene: The front porch of a large white house looming above a curvy wooded street in the bosky canyons of L.A.’s Pacific Palisades, where as a rule comfortably wealthy people live pretty calm lives.
The commotion continued. A sleeping couple was jolted out of bed. A man answered the door — and a dozen DEA agents, heavily armed, streamed into the house.
The leader of the agents looked at the homeowner. “Sir, do you have any marijuana here?” he asked.
The man laughed. “I’m Tommy Chong,” he said.
PRISON AND REDEMPTION
Some months later, Chong was convicted and sent to prison. Not for marijuana — though there was plenty of it in the house that day — but for selling drug paraphernalia across state lines, a federal charge. Chong’s company, which did indeed purvey artisan glass-blown pipes, was called Chong’s Glass. Chong says he pled guilty to the charges to protect his son, who was running the business. (Chong ultimately served nine months.)
Flash forward 13 years. Chong and his wife of more than 40 years, Shelby, laugh as they recount the arrest story for the umpteenth time. The evil weed that put Tommy Chong in prison is on the cusp of being fully legalized in California, the world’s sixth-largest economy. After all the controversy, after his bust, the irony that pot is now legal is
