Californian True Crime: A Killing in Cannabis

Feb 10, 2026

Scott Eden, investigative journalist and author of A Killing in Cannabis, explores the murder of Tushar Atre and California's chaotic cannabis gold rush. He traces tech money flowing into weed, the blurry line between legal businesses and the black market, and the violent, countercultural underworld that shaped a tragic, risk-soaked story.

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INSIGHT

Tech Bro Rush After Prop 64

California's recreational legalization in 2016 attracted Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to 'disrupt' cannabis like any tech market.
Scott Eden shows this injected venture ambition and scale-language into an industry born of counterculture.

INSIGHT

Half-Legal Market Breeds Chaos

Legalization in some states created a chaotic, half-legal market because cannabis remained federally illegal.
Scott Eden argues this 'half-pregnant' approach made the legal/illegal divide porous and dangerous.

ANECDOTE

Tushar Atre's Abduction And Murder

Tushar Atre was abducted from his oceanfront Santa Cruz home on October 1, 2019 and later found stabbed and shot on his undeveloped mountain land.
The murder scene also contained an unlicensed cannabis farm, linking his death to the gray economy.

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"The black market exists only because we decided that this form of trade should be illegal." — Scott Eden

In October 2019, tech executive Tushar Atre was abducted from his oceanfront home in Santa Cruz and found murdered on his own property in the redwoods — shot execution-style, hands bound. He had spent barely three years in the cannabis business. Scott Eden's new book traces how a charismatic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, seeking to "disrupt" the newly legal weed industry, found himself entangled with an array of colorful and dangerous characters — hippie do-gooders, black-market operators, and stone-cold killers. We discuss the permeable divide between legal and illegal cannabis, why the industry has been an economic disaster for most founders, and whether America's half-pregnant approach to legalization created the conditions for Tushar's death. A California story about ambition, love, and the darker edges of the American dream.

About the Guest

Scott Eden is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work has appeared in ESPN The Magazine, GQ, Wired, Inc., and The Atavist. His story "The Prosecution of Thabo Sefolosha" won a 2017 New York Press Club Award and a National Association of Black Journalists award for investigative reporting. He is the author of Touchdown Jesus (Simon & Schuster, 2005) and the new A Killing in Cannabis.

References:

People discussed:

Tushar Atre — tech executive and cannabis entrepreneur; murdered October 1, 2019
Rachael Lynch — cannabis grower from the Emerald Triangle; Atre's business partner and lover
Ken Kesey — author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Merry Pranksters; La Honda cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains
Sean Parker — Napster founder, early Facebook investor; bankrolled Proposition 64
Travis Kalanick — Uber founder; comparison to Atre's brash, edge-seeking style
Tony Hsieh — Zappos founder; tragic death; Silicon Valley hipster executive archetype

Places:

Pleasure Point, Santa Cruz — oceanfront neighborhood; famous surf break; Atre's home
Emerald Triangle — Humboldt, Mendocino, Trinity counties; America's cannabis heartland

Legal and historical:

Proposition 64 (2016) — California ballot initiative legalizing recreational cannabis
Proposition 215 (1996) — earlier medical marijuana law; the "215 era"

About Keen On America

Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.

Chapters:

(00:13) - America's war on drugs
(02:03) - The victim: Tushar Atre
(05:27) - Prop 64 and the gold rush
(08:15) - The counterculture connection
(11:13) - The permeable divide
(14:43) - Tech bros living on the edge
(17:10) - Steve Jobs, Burning Man, and weed money
(18:07) - The murder
(20:06) - Rachael Lynch
(22:39) - Economic collapse
(25:31) - Half-pregnant prohibition
(31:45) - The paranoia problem