SARATOGA SPRINGS — Eric Canori was one of the largest high-end marijuana dealers on the East Coast of the United States — before it became legal in any state — smuggling weed out of Canada via 18-wheelers, helicopters, and boats, operating like a ghost and doing over $300,000,000 of business by age 29.
In his newly published memoir, “Pressure,” Canori details a bottom-to-top joyride of a penthouse lifestyle, evading the DEA (for nearly 15 years), and reveals his own deeply buried pain in the story laced with local flair.
In the 268 pages that follow, a lifetime is revealed. “I pulled into my driveway on a secluded parcel of land in Saratoga,” Canori writes. “I immediately noticed the lock to my cargo trailer had been cut off, and my jaw dropped. I threw my truck in park, ran toward the trailer, and looked inside. It was empty. Someone had stolen $600,000 worth of weed from me while I was in L.A.”
“Saratoga Springs Man Sentenced To 30 Months In Prison For Involvement In A Marijuana Distribution Conspiracy” headlines the Nov. 28, 2012 press release from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, announcing Canori’s sentence for his role in a marijuana distribution conspiracy.
A decade later, Canori says: “In this memoir, I have recreated events and experiences from my memories of them.”
The story begins in Canori’s childhood, locked in his bedroom looking at posters of athletes and rock stars, dreaming of all the things he wants to do and become in life.
“It was 1993. I was fourteen, grounded as usual, and I found myself sitting on my bedroom floor with the bass line from the Rolling Stones’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ thumping behind me,” he writes. The story ends with Canori in a prison cell, staring at barren walls, with nothing to see except a reflection of himself in a tiny, scratched-up mirror.
“Pressure: A Memoir,” by Eric Canori, $18.95 paperback, is available at Northshire Bookstore Saratoga, and via Amazon.
