Editing The Lovin' Spoonful (section)

==== Marijuana bust ====
{{Main|The Lovin' Spoonful's drug bust}}
On May{{nbsp}}20, 1966, Boone and Yanovsky were arrested in San Francisco for possessing marijuana, then an illegal drug. Police discovered the marijuana after pulling the pair over and searching their vehicle.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=121–126}} Boone and Yanovsky spent the night in jail before being bailed out the following morning by the Spoonful's road manager, Rich Chiaro.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=127–128}} Cavallo and Charley Koppelman flew out to meet the band to begin managing the situation, and they hired [[Melvin Belli]] to be their attorney. Sebastian and Butler were not immediately informed of the nature of the bust, and the band's May 21 performance at the [[University of California, Berkeley]]'s [[Hearst Greek Theatre|Greek Theatre]] went forward as normal.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=129–131}}

{{quote box|quote= We were the first big rock band to get busted for weed. There was no playbook in effect. The record company, the management company – they didn't have an operating procedure for what you do, especially if one of your members has an immigration issue.<ref name="Unterberger interview" /> |source=– [[Steve Boone]], 2018 |width=25%|align=right|salign=right|style=padding:8px;}}

At a meeting with San Francisco police and the [[San Francisco District Attorney's Office|District Attorney]], Yanovsky was threatened with deportation back to his native Canada.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=130–131}} Belli expressed that Yanovsky and Boone were unlikely to win on the merits of their case and that their only way to avoid charges was to cooperate with authorities.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=131–132}} The two initially balked at the idea, but they relented to avoid Yanovsky being deported, something they expected would lead to a breakup of the band.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|p=132}} Yanovsky and Boone cooperated with authorities to name their drug source,{{sfn|Unterberger|2003|p=61}} directing an undercover operative to their source at local party.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=135–137}} In exchange, all charges were dropped, their arrest records were expunged, the two did not need to appear in court and there was no publicity related to their arrest.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|p=134}} Their drug source was in turn arrested and served a brief jail sentence.{{sfn|Unterberger|2003|p=61}}

After the drug case went to court in December{{nbsp}}1966, knowledge of Yanovsky and Boone's bust became more widespread.{{sfn|Savage|2015|p=518}} The [[Underground press#North America|underground press]] was especially critical of the band.{{sfn|Unterberger|2003|p=61}} By early{{nbsp}}1967, the Spoonful's shows on the West Coast were sometimes picketed by members of the [[Counterculture of the 1960s|'60s counterculture]]. Protesters carried signs which accused the band of being "[[Informant|finks]]" and traitors to the movement, and they encouraged fans to boycott the band and burn their records.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=178–180}} The public revelations of the drug bust added to tensions between Sebastian and Butler on the one hand, and Yanovsky and Boone on the other.{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|p=173}} Boone later suggested that the boycott hurt the band's commercial performance,{{sfn|Boone|Moss|2014|pp=178–180, 187–189}} but the author Richie Unterberger suggests that the effects have likely been overestimated by other authors, since "most of the people who bought Spoonful records were average teenage Americans, not hippies".<ref name="AllMusic bio">{{cite web |last1=Unterberger |first1=Richie |author1-link=Richie Unterberger |title=The Lovin' Spoonful biography |url=https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-lovin-spoonful-mn0000052900/biography |publisher=[[AllMusic]] |access-date=August 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230514131315/https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-lovin-spoonful-mn0000052900/biography |archive-date=May 14, 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> In an article recounting the June{{nbsp}}1967 [[Monterey International Pop Festival]], the author Michael Lydon suggested that the Spoonful was unable to appear at the festival due to complications related to the drug bust.<ref>{{cite web |last=Lydon |first=Michael |title=''Monterey Pop'': The First Rock Festival |date=September 22, 2009 |website=[[The Criterion Collection]] |url=https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/231-monterey-pop-the-first-rock-festival}} Originally written in 1967 for ''Newsweek'' magazine, whose editors reduced it from 43 to 10 paragraphs. Printed in full in the 2003 book ''Flashbacks'' {{ISBN|978-0-415-96644-3}}.</ref>