MILLION-DOLLAR SLICE

CHRIS BARRETT HAS MADE BANK ON THE GRAY MARKET SELLING PIZZA LACED WITH 40 MG OF THC PER SLICE. CAN THE PIZZA PUSHA SURVIVE POT LEGALIZATION?

- Jay Bulger

Three hours before his most recent arrest, the Pizza Pusha, a.k.a. Chris Barrett, leans back in the executive seat of a private jet. He’s in a white Hugo Boss sweatshirt and black Air Force 1’s. Stacked high on the seat next to him are Stoned Gourmet Pizza boxes, the logo printed in kelly-green Batman letters with a marijuana leaf replacing the first O. The boxes are for piping-hot Sicilian slices drizzled with THC-infused olive oil.

Distributing recreational cannabis is still illegal in New York, where the pizza is coming from. It’s still illegal in Florida, where the pizza is headed. The co-pilot, after being asked if the delivery crew could pose up front with a pizza box for Instagram, scurries back to the cockpit to report this drug-smuggling operation to the Florida authorities. Barrett shrugs off the potential implications. “I’ve done a lot of risky things in my life. Selling pizza ain’t one of them,” he says matter-of-factly, with a fuhgeddaboudit salami-shop accent and the hand gestures to match. “Besides, it’s good content.”

In the soon-to-be 15 states (including, this year, New Jersey) with recreational marijuana already approved, it is sold in slick packaging through user-friendly websites and at catered dinner parties. But back in NYC, the state may have decriminalized possession of small amounts, and the NYPD may have cut down on marijuana-related arrests (especially if you’re white or live in an affluent neighborhood), but cannabis delivery services still operate underground. Sellers can’t officially advertise. Craigslist pages offering Astor Place Starbucks meetups at 4:20 are quickly taken down. To grow, pot businesses rely on word of mouth, one text and friend of a friend at a time; it can take years to build a client base.