To Live Outside the Law : Caught by Operation Julie, Britain's Biggest Drugs Bust

'Listen, Leaf,' Pritchard said, 'the hash is neither here nor there. You're in a lot more trouble than possession of a bit of dope. You've got big problems, man... big problems.' He looked at me with something akin to sympathy. 'How did you get into such a fix?' I'd been asking myself the same question. Operation Julie in 1977 remains Britain's biggest ever drugs bust. The work of eleven police forces, it resulted in the break-up of one of the largest LSD co-operatives in the world, the arrest of 120 people and, according to reports, the seizure of six million trips' worth of LSD crystal, valued at £100 million. Overnight, the price of a tab went from £1 to £5. This is the first insider account of how it felt to be caught up in - and by - Operation Julie.

'Listen, Leaf,' Pritchard said, 'the hash is neither here nor there. You're in a lot more trouble than possession of a bit of dope. You've got big problems, man... big problems.'

He looked at me with something akin to sympathy. 'How did you get into such a fix?'

I'd been asking myself the same question.

Operation Julie in 1977 remains Britain's biggest ever drugs bust. The work of eleven police forces, it resulted in the break-up of one of the largest LSD co-operatives in the world, the arrest of 120 people and, according to reports, the seizure of six million trips' worth of LSD crystal, valued at £100 million. Overnight, the price of a tab went from £1 to £5.

This is the first insider account of how it felt to be caught up in - and by - Operation Julie.

To Live Outside the Law is the first insider account of the LSD conspiracy ended by Operation Julie, Britain's biggest drug bust. The book opens with Leaf Fielding's arrest in a pre-dawn police raid and ends five years later with his release from jail. The narrative moves back and forth between the harsh world of prison and his previous life - from a childhood at a brutal boarding school onto undergraduate days and his LSD epiphany in the summer of love, 1967. Acid transformed him in an instant from nerdy scholar to footloose freak. His ten years of adventures in the hippie underground gave the