In How I Got You Your Ounce, a memoir published in 2025 by BookBaby, a self-described “apartment dealer” known as Jimmy X recounts 53 years of selling marijuana in New York City. Written by Jimmy X” and Nan K. Chase with David Belmont, the book tracks cannabis from the mid-1960s through legalization, weaving social, legal and personal history.
Jimmy X says he sold roughly five tons of marijuana, generating about $30 million in total sales while living what he calls an unassuming middle-class life. He retired in 2020 without ever being arrested. The figures and claims are presented as his account, not audited records, but they convey scale and longevity rarely seen in first-person cannabis narratives.
This is not an outlaw confessional. It reads like a quiet chronicle of survival. Jimmy X explains how small, low-visibility operations lasted for decades in New York’s dense neighborhoods. Word of mouth. Discretion. Consistency. His approach was hiding in plain sight: modest apartments, regulars, deliveries, no flash. The portrait feels more bookkeeper than gangster, attentive to weights, customer lists and quality control.
Cultural history frames the arc. Early chapters recall the late-1960s counterculture and the shock of prohibition enforcement, when cannabis use was highly illegal and secretive. The story moves through the paraquat years of the 1970s, Reagan-era crackdowns, the post-9/11 tightening of New York policing, then the uneasy shift to legalization. Nostalgia shows up, but so does critique. Jimmy X argues that the informal, trust-based legacy market offered better feedback and accountability than today’s regulated system. He says modern dispensaries sell sealed bags with no returns and no tasting. In his view, that erodes quality and connection.
Readers may disagree, but the account captures a generational divide. The old dealer-customer relationship ran on familiarity. The new retail model runs on compliance and scale. Chase’s editing keeps the prose clean and brisk. The tone is conversational, sometimes sentimental, grounded by dates, places and prices that lend credibility. Belmont, credited alongside Chase, adds historical framing about changing laws and markets.
The strongest value here is the long view. Few firsthand sources carry the trade from the 1960s into legalization. Jimmy X links his experience to major policy shifts and cultural markers, from Nixon’s drug war to medical reforms and the spread of state programs. The closing note is quiet. No victory lap. Just retirement, and the sense that he outlasted the worst of it.
Limits are clear. This is a self-reported memoir. There are no documents or corroboration beyond the authors’ word. Readers looking for investigative validation will not find it. As cultural testimony, though, How I Got You Your Ounce works. It preserves the texture of an era and gives voice to operators often erased from mainstream legalization stories.
For High Times readers, it is a memory and mirror. Before brands and lab results, there were people who kept the plant moving. This is one of their ledgers.
Book information
How I Got You Your Ounce: A Pot Dealer’s Journey Through American History
By Nan K. Chase, David Belmont, and Jimmy X
BookBaby | 2025 | ISBN 979-8-31781-043-6
