Burning Rainbow Farm: How a Stoner Utopia Went Up in Smoke

On a mission to build a peaceful, pot-friendly Shangri-La, Tom Crosslin and his lover Rollie Rohm founded Rainbow Farm, a well-appointed campground and concert venue tucked away in rural Southwest Michigan. The farm quickly became the center of marijuana and environmental activism in Michigan, drawing thousands of blue-collar libertarians and hippie liberals, evangelicals and militiamen to its annual hemp festivals. People came from all over the country to support Tom and Rollie’s libertarian brand of patriotism: They loved America but didn’t like the War on Drugs.

As Rainbow Farm launched a popular statewide ballot initiative to change marijuana laws, local authorities, who had scarcely tolerated Rainbow Farm in the past, began an all-out campaign to shut the place down. Finally, in May 2001, Tom and Rollie were arrested for growing marijuana. Rollie’s 11-year-old son, who grew up on Rainbow Farm, was placed in foster care — Tom would never see him again. Faced with mandatory jail terms and the loss of the farm, Tom and Rollie never showed up for their August court date. Instead, the state’s two best-known pot advocates burned Rainbow Farm to the ground in protest. County officials called the FBI, and within five days Tom and Rollie were dead. Obscured by the attacks of September 11, their stories will be told here for the first time.

"Burning Rainbow Farm is a well written account of the tragedy that occurred when Tom Crosslin and his partner Rollie Rohm were killed by law enforcement snipers during the standoff at their farm in 2001. It is a vivid reminder that maximum force is not always morally justified when dealing with a situation that might be resolved with more peaceful means; and it underscores the danger of mixing a legitimate political movement, in his case the drive to legalize marijuana in Michigan, with the violent, extra-legal militia movement. This was an avoidable tragedy, and no one stepped forward to avoid it."—Keith Stroup, NORML

"Read this book and weep. It reminds us that the War on Drugs created the template for America's brutal foreign policy of today and continues to tear at the very fabric of our national life."—John Sinclair, White Panther Party founder and former manager of MC5

"In an era when Americans’ civil liberties and personal freedoms are under ever more threat from an imperious and impenetrable federal government, Dean Kuipers has written a terrific, pertinent story about what happens when proponents of those freedoms, in the form of a few civil libertarians and pro-pot farmers, find themselves in the cross hairs of the FBI. But wait a second, Burning Rainbow Farm is much more than current events; it is fun, dramatic, violent, inventive yarn-spinning that entertains even while making its very important points." --Karl Taro Greenfeld, author of China Syndrome, Speed Tribes, and Standard Deviations

"Burning Rainbow Farm is a gripping cautionary tale of what happens when the War on Drugs turns into a shooting war. More than that, Dean Kuipers has given us a deftly reported glimpse into America's blue collar rural stoner subculture -- and he's worth reading for that alone. "-- Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch

Dean Kuipers is the deputy editor of Los Angeles City Beat and the author of I Am a Bullet and Ray Gun out of Control. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times, and Playboy. A native of Michigan (twenty miles from Rainbow Farm), he now lives in Los Angeles.