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Former drug kingpin Richard Stratton to write book trilogy

Richard Stratton — a former editor-in-chief of High Times, close friend of Norman Mailer and drug kingpin who served eight years in prison — is writing a trilogy of books about his wild life story.

Stratton will read from his first tome, “Smuggler’s Blues,” at the Leonora on Thursday, as hosted by Noel Ashman, Anthony Haden-Guest, Douglas Dechert and Liam McMullan.

Stratton, who famously refused to implicate Mailer in his pot business to reduce his sentence in 1982, told us the book will be serialized by Quiet Lunch magazine and published soon. Subsequent books are titled “Gulag America,” about Stratton’s time behind bars, and “In the World,” about returning to life on the outside as a writer.