Johnny Boone Death: Legendary “Godfather of Grass” Dies at 80

Johnny Boone, the notorious marijuana outlaw from central Kentucky who eluded a federal manhunt for eight years, passed away on Friday night at the age of 80. Boone, famously known as the “Godfather of Grass,” was the leader of the “Cornbread Mafia,” an organization federal prosecutors described in 1989 as the largest domestic marijuana-producing operation in U.S. history. Joe Keith Bickett, a fellow Cornbread Mafia leader, confirmed Boone’s passing on Facebook, stating, “He was a great friend to many of us. Always willing to help his friends and neighbors. Prayers and thoughts for all the Boone family. He will be greatly missed.”

During the 1970s and 1980s, Johnny Boone and his close associates cultivated vast amounts of marijuana in Marion, Nelson, and Washington counties. The organization expanded its illicit activities to ten states in the Midwest before federal agents apprehended and charged many of them in 1987. Boone was among those detained and later sentenced to 20 years on drug charges. However, prosecutors faced significant challenges as none of the more than 100 individuals caught cooperated with authorities for reduced terms.

After his parole, Boone’s legend grew when state police and the DEA found 2,400 marijuana plants on his Springfield property in 2008. Boone fled to avoid arrest and remained a fugitive for the next eight years, fearing a life sentence due to a “third strike” federal narcotics conviction. Boone was eventually captured in Montreal in late 2016. He pleaded guilty and received a 57-month sentence the following year. He was released early from prison in 2020 due to a COVID-19 outbreak at his federal penitentiary in Ohio.

Federal authorities had difficulty finding Boone during his years on the run, attributed to the same reasons they couldn’t get defendants to cooperate in the 1980s: the “code of silence” surrounding the Cornbread Mafia and the goodwill Boone had earned in his community. Former U.S. Marshal Rick McCubbin told The Courier-Journal in 2017 that they faced a wall of silence when trying to locate Boone in his old haunts, as he had always taken care of his community, and they repaid him with loyalty.

Boone was initially convicted of a federal marijuana charge in 1982. In October 1987, he was captured in Minnesota alongside colleagues producing marijuana. Boone managed operations at the Minnesota farm, where authorities recovered 47 tons of marijuana. According to Higdon’s book, Boone was chased from the farm by three police cars before being apprehended. Officers found a loaded rifle, handgun, and thousands of rounds of ammunition in Boone’s truck, but he did not fire at the officers.

By the end of 1987, the DEA had raided marijuana fields in nine additional states linked to the Cornbread Mafia, seizing 182 tons of marijuana worth $350 million at the time and detaining over 80 people, most from Marion County. The syndicate was heavily armed and had extensive fortifications to protect its crops, allegedly involving booby traps, bears, and lions, with federal prosecutors describing them as a “paramilitary force.”

Before being sentenced to 20 years in prison for his 1988 narcotics conviction, Boone told the court that he and his accomplices were not violent criminals but rather people trying to make a living. When Boone escaped to evade arrest in 2008, retired Deputy U.S. Marshal Rich Knighten described the law enforcement chase as “like trying to catch a ghost.”

Locals cheered Boone on as he eluded federal law enforcement and became an outlaw folk hero. He even appeared on an episode of America’s Most Wanted, with many people buying T-shirts that read “Run Johnny, Run.” An Associated Press article from 2010, when Boone was still on the run, showed Marion County residents praising his kindness and hoping he would avoid being apprehended and sentenced to life in prison.

Following his early release from prison in 2020, Boone joined Joe Keith Bickett and Jimmy Bickett, two Cornbread Mafia founders who were also imprisoned for 20 years each, in promoting Bickett & Boone, a hemp CBD enterprise. A member of the Bickett family runs the enterprise, which grows low-THC cannabis on their Raywick farm. Growing and using marijuana for recreational purposes remains illegal in Kentucky, but medical marijuana will be allowed starting in 2023. The regulated program will debut in January 2025, allowing patients to legally purchase medical cannabis, with licensed farmers expected to start planting later this year.

In April, President Joe Biden announced plans to reschedule marijuana as a Schedule III drug, which would reduce criminal penalties and increase opportunities for medical research. Marijuana has been a Schedule I substance since 1970, alongside heroin, ecstasy, and LSD. At a “Cornbread Mafia reunion” on April 20, 2023, in Lebanon, Kentucky, with Boone in attendance, Joe Keith Bickett told local media that the large turnout was “a tribute to the guys who spent a lot of time in prison for something legal today.” He added, “People make money doing the same things we did back then. It has come full circle.”