O'Dea, Brian 1948-

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O'Dea, Brian 1948-

PERSONAL:

Born September 1, 1948, in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada; son of John (in business) and Madeline Connolly (a nurse) O'Dea; married Susannah Lewis (a designer), October 9, 1993; children: Cheyenne, Cherokee, Rayna, and Rufus. Education: Attended St. Bonaventure College and St. Mary's University. Politics: "Socialist/Capitalist/Libertarian." Religion: "Live and Let Live and Share Religion Free Zone."

ADDRESSES:

Home—Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Office—Flamingo Neck Pictures, 1400 Kingston Rd., Toronto, Ontario M1N 1R3, Canada. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Television producer. Executive producer for Creepy Canada television series with Canadian Television, 2006.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Arthur Ellis Award, Crime Writers of Canada for best nonfiction, 2007, for High: Confessions of a Pot Smuggler.

WRITINGS:

High: Confessions of a Pot Smuggler, Random House Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Brian O'Dea is a Canadian television producer and former drug smuggler. In 2006 O'Dea published his first book, the memoir High: Confessions of a Pot Smuggler. The personal account retells how O'Dea got started selling drugs locally in the lightly populated Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador in his late teenage years. He had a comfortable upbringing, but sexual molestation by a priest sent him looking for comfort in drugs. In it he found excitement, solace, and the possibility to earn an easy income while supporting his habit. O'Dea began importing hashish from the United Kingdom into Canada but was arrested and imprisoned briefly on a minor charge. After his release, he relocated to Jamaica, where he was poised to make an even stronger position for himself in the American drug trade. From his Caribbean base he assisted in smuggling marijuana from Colombia into the United States and set up numerous contacts. He then relocated to California and realigned himself with the drug trade from Southeast Asia into the United States following the Vietnam War. At his peak, O'Dea was easily able to smuggle the drugs into the country, supervising a group of 120 smugglers, owning a trucking company, and using fishing boats he owned to transport the drugs. He was successful in earning hundreds of millions of dollars, shipping the drugs into ports in Washington State, and was suspected to be, at that time, the richest man from Newfoundland and Labrador. In 1986 he quit the trade as he came under heavy scrutiny from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The following year, he suffered a heart attack from a cocaine overdose and used the opportunity to clean up his life. After completing rehabilitation, he started volunteering at a number of substance abuse programs around the United States and Canada. By 1990, however, the DEA put him on trial and sent him to jail for ten years for the smuggling. It was here that he wrote his memoir. Upon his release, O'Dea became a television producer. High won the Arthur Ellis Award from Crime Writers of Canada for best nonfiction of 2007.

In a Biography review, William Deverell considered the events of O'Dea's memoir. Deverell reported that he found "a few scattered gems" throughout the text. He finished the book, however, with the belief that it lacked much "riveting insight." Stephen Knight, writing in Quill & Quire, found that O'Dea is "remorseful and comes to understand that his drug life was killing him—inside and out. High is a redeeming story of salvation for a boy whose life went off the rails before it really started."

Brian O'Dea told CA: "For most of my adult life, I was a pot smuggler. In 1988 I waved goodbye to that business after a heart attack from a cocaine overdose. After my release from the hospital, I became thoroughly involved in the Recovery Community in Santa Barbara, California, and went on to become head of volunteers at Cottage Hospital's drug and alcohol and eating disorders unit. For the next three years, that was my life. Then the DEA showed up and the wreckage of my past was there to be dealt with. Subsequently, I received ten years. When I arrived in prison, I was filled with fear, but writing down what was happening all around me took the fear out of my mind as it showed up on the paper. That's where this first book came from. My second is harder now that I am on this side of the bars, but it's coming."