Prison

I'm pleased to report that my previous blog, on the origins of 4/20 celebrations, appeared on the Huffington Post under my name. My 4/20 blog was online at CannabisCulture.com for three weeks in the run-up to the worldwide celebration on Saturday, April 20, which attracted a larger attendance and more media throughout North America than ever before.

Today is Sunday, March 10. I've 486 days to go, 1,104 days done, now over 3 years done on this sentence. My Canadian transfer paperwork has arrived in Ottawa and my US transfer paperwork goes to Washington, Dc on April 8, the required two years after I was rejected for transfer to Canada by the US Department of Justice on April 6, 2011.

I'm hoping that if my transfer application is accepted (say, by June 10 in Washington, July 20 in Ottawa), I'll be back in the Canadian prison system in September and free at home by next January. Otherwise I'm in the US prison system until July of next year.

Upon learning that the Washington State Liquor Control Board is seeking consultant applications for a legal marijuana production and distribution system, Marc wrote this tongue-in-cheek submission. Marc was extradited to and sentenced in Seattle, Washington despite operating his seed business in Vancouver, BC, Canada at all times. 

Dear Sirs and Madams of the Washington State Liquor Control Board,

Please consider my bid, or rather, application for consideration, to be a consultant in one of the four fields of marijuana expertise required by the WSLCB:

Last week I filled out my paperwork for the Canadian government regarding my desire to be transferred to the Canadian prison system. In March I will fill in the US paperwork to have it in Washington, DC by approximately April 6th, two years to the day after the US Department of Justice rejected my first application.

It’s December 6 today, I've got 4 months until I get my transfer-back-to-Canada application to the Department of Justice in Washington D.C. It’s 580 days to go if I serve my entire sentence here in the US federal prison system (up to July 9, 2014) with 1,010 days now served – that’s 33 months done, 19 to go (on a 60-month sentence, I'll serve 52 months with my good time credit).

Today is Wednesday, October 3rd. In less than five weeks Americans will be voting candidates for President, Senate, the House of Representatives, their local statehouse representatives and senators, state attorney-generals, and their Mayor, City Council, sheriff, county commissioners, and possibly dozens of other elected offices at the state, county and local level. And then there are ballot initiatives that seek majority support for state laws legalizing possession of marijuana (Washington, Oregon, Colorado), medical marijuana (Arkansas, Massachusetts), and other proposed legislation.

On Tuesday, September 4th, I had an OP-ED published on the Huffington Post about the two Presidential candidates and the drug war. Although I like the message that’s there, it was sanitized by the Huffington Post (ultimately with my approval) so that another related theme, the lack of activism from the African-American community in opposing the drug war and prohibition, was removed entirely. I'll discuss that more in my next blog.