Free Marc Emery

March 9-15: This past Wednesday was extremely odd because I didn’t get a single ordinary sized letter. Odder yet when I didn’t get any letters on Thursday. Or Friday. Normally I get 8 to 10 letters a day. So today, Monday, March 7, I discovered that SIS (Security), led by Mr. Lindsay, is taking my mail from the mailroom after it has all been inspected and cleared of contraband, and then taking my letters to their office and reading each one.

I wouldn’t mind that so much but they are holding letters up to 5 days so they can read them, then I finally get them. None of my incoming letters are a security risk, threat or concern, so it can only be for titillation purposes, although I have never, alas, received a single letter I would consider licentious.

So letters I would have received last Wednesday, I’m receiving 5 days later. My outgoing mail, which in a low security facility is sealed by the inmate and is generally not opened by the facility, is taking a longer time to reach their destinations, so I can only assume security is going the same with my outgoing mail and reading it also, and delaying its posting. I find it remarkable that GEO Group never has enough money to provide fresh vegetables or fruit in our diet, or extra soccer or volleyballs or guitars, but can pay the security men here to read hours of my mail, and to no particular end that I can determine other than to upset me.

I was put on the CIM list two weeks ago, Controlled Inmate Monitoring. I did not realize that meant all my mail was now going to be detained, delayed and read. Since I have posed no threat to this facility, and in all valid assessments am a model prisoner, I find this ‘special’ treatment aggravating. I was able to pose this situation to the Acting Warden Mr. Zenk today. While he casually acknowledged I’m on CIM and my mail is being monitored, he said he would talk to security and see if the turnaround time could be lessened. I will be asking Security what they expect to find in my incoming or outgoing mail that justifies their time, effort and blatant interference in my correspondence.

Newsletter #7 was discussed with me line by line by Security when I issued it 10 days ago, which I did not mind. I was happy to have their input. I gave #8 to Security as soon as the final version was off the photocopier. I have obviously nothing to hide and consider my newsletter a window on the world of DRJ from the perspective of an inmate. In many ways, I do this facility a favor, at no cost to them, of telegraphing the problems of inmates before the problems become critical mass/crises. Many of the staff, families of inmates, and certainly SIS read this newsletter. The B.O.P. liaisons here read it. They have used my comments in their interactions with the GEO Group/D. Ray James staff.

Reading my mail and holding it up several days I regard as a betrayal of trust. I’m living up to my obligations to report fairly, truthfully and behave in a polite manner. What happens to me, matters to hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people to in North America and the world. I don’t exploit that in any way. I don’t tell people to bombard DRJ or GEO Group in protest at the inadequacies here I have regarded of egregious. But there is a quid pro quo at work whether DRJ acknowledges it or not. If I am going to be targeted for harassment, which is what I consider this mail screening and delay to be, then I am being disrespected. Mail in the United States takes only 2 or 3 days at most to get here normally, so when I see letters today that are postmarked Feb. 28th and March 1st, I know my mail is being detained unreasonably for no purpose related to the security of this facility.

Along with DRJ’s perfidious blockade of my incoming mail and the snooping of my outbound mail for obscure purposes, I have discovered a systemic error in the Keefe Commissary computer that is ripping me off as well as every inmate here. As an inmate, I have a limit on spending on commissary of $320 a month. I buy a lot of my food I eat from commissary as the food served by DRJ is monotonous, lacking in Vitamin A, B, C, calcium, potassium, essential fatty acids, Omega 3 and 6, and is really just a regurgitation of carbs, fats, sugars and protein day after boring, tasteless day. I spend my limit usually the third week of the month, so for the last 7 to 10 days I have next to no food items to eat. I couldn’t figure out why this was so. Postage stamps and health items are supposed to be exempt from the $320 monthly limit. But I’ve checked my commissary records and that of numerous other inmates and found that I and all other inmates are having stamps deducted from our $320 monthly limit!

For me this has been devastating, as I buy $21 to $26 in stamps each week (the weekly limit is $26.20). The net result of this admitted error is that I am cheated out of being able to buy $100 worth of food a month, because my postage stamps are being subtracted from the $320 spending limit. This is cruel punishment that is inexcusable. In the DRJ Inmate Handbook it clearly states that the $100+ limit on postage stamps is above the $320 monthly limit. So over 4 months I’ve been cheated of $400 on my spending limits. This has affected hundreds and hundreds of inmates as running shoes were also erroneously debited from the $320 spending limit, messing with inmate spending budgets, along with postage stamps. This is unforgivable but I have the statements from Keefe to show they are deducting expenditures on postage stamps from the $320 monthly limit, so we shall see how long it takes this crooked outfit to rectify their previous errors (if they ever will) and stop ripping us off week after week.

So much mail sent to me here has never gotten to me, and numerous letters sent by me here are interfered with and do not arrive. Along with hijacking photographs and letters I send out, they cheat me of photographs that are taken that they don’t give me. My hand is on my wife’s buttock, so they say in denying me the last photo; before that it was a similar complaint. But they don’t show you the photo nor do they refund your $1, so you have to believe their warped interpretation of things, which, considering my experience here, they are completely unbelievable. Hopefully one day you will be able to see my photographs I’ve paid for and had taken of me at DRJ but I have my doubts. [Note from Jodie: The only photographs that had failed to arrive in the mail from Marc when he wrote this finally showed up in my mail on April 1. The photos were taken February 12 and 13.]

I’ve taken to listening in on Randy and Jon’s guitar sessions. Randy is from New Westminster, BC, vocalist of the Mojo Stars, and Jon is from South Africa. I sit in on their 90 minute sessions where they play about 20 songs, from Eagle’s Hotel California to Helplessly Hoping by Crosby, Stills & Nash, Helpless by Neil Young, Under the Boardwalk (Drifters), Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison), House of the Rising Sun, the parody of life here ‘Folkston Prison Blues’ (the Johnny Cash song Folson Prison Blues reworked) and a few beautifully done original tunes as well. I’ve taken to sitting in and throwing requests at them, and filling in a few blanks in their recollection of lyrics. I did a rock and roll trivia board game in 1987 with 6,000 questions and answers, and from 1989 to 1991 had a Billboard Top 40 retrospective show on radio playing songs from 1955 to 1973 with history of the artists and the song.

While there are now up to 6 guitars for inmates to play available there is no sheet music, songbook or access to lyrics. So I asked Jodie to send me some songbooks I could lend the musicians, and she obliged by sending me sheet music of The Eagles, Sting, Tom Petty, and Neil Young. I mailed her a letter asking her to look up the lyrics of about 30 songs, including American Pie and Vincent by Don MacLean, The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot – as ubiquitous a Canadian song as you’ll ever hear, though it is about an American freighter ship plying Lake Superior (“the big lake they call Gitchee Gumee”), numerous Dylan songs, Joni Mitchell, and Cat Stevens.

If any one of my readers has any extra guitar songbooks lying about their homes or studios that you could part with, it would be greatly appreciated here. [Note from Jodie: mail cannot be sent to D. Ray James from this point on, as Marc is being transferred.] There are some songbooks that have an assortment of classic songs in them, with titles like 200 Classic Songs of the 60’s and 70’s, and that sort of thing, that would be of tremendous use here. Beatles, Bob Dylan, Talking Heads, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Neil Young (Harvest, After the Gold Rush, etc.), Arlo Guthrie, Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Hank Williams, Sr., Merle Haggard, any blues, western, pop and rock classics in guitar playing notation and lyrics (songbooks) would be appreciated.

Adam at the BCMP Vapour Lounge will be recording ‘Folkston Prison Blues’ next week, live, before an audience, and then it will be put on YouTube shortly afterward and linked to these newsletters. [Note from Jodie: The video and lyrics can be seen in Marc’s blog #8, posted here.] Our next parody song, “It’s D. Ray James As We Know It (and we’re doing time)” – REM song ‘It’s the End of the World As We Know It’ being the source song, is being worked on now for Adam to record after we perform it here. I’ll be part of the vocal chorus in our performance of ‘It’s D. Ray James As We Know It.’

I was pleased to hear that Tommy Chong was in Vancouver at the Rio Theatre doing a fundraiser for my best friend Dana Larsen who is seeking the leadership of the New Democratic Party of British Columbia, the party currently the opposition to the governing Liberal Party. The fundraiser was Monday, March 7, and the next night Tommy jammed with the house band at the BC Marijuana Party Vapour Lounge, helping raise another $1,500 toward Dana’s leadership race. The entry fee to run for the leadership was $15,000 into the party coffers, and Dana was accredited as a bona fide contender. The voting for NDP members to choose the leader of the BC provincial party is April 17. Follow Dana’s leadership campaign at www.VoteDana.ca. Naturally, repealing the prohibition of cannabis is central to Dana’s platform.

Thursday, March 10:

The D. Ray James business office spoke to me today to acknowledge that they have been improperly including postage stamps and health products in the $320 inmate monthly spending limit. The result of this for me is that I order $90-$100 in postage stamps monthly, these are supposed to be exempt from the $320 monthly spending limit; that has, in fact, been debited from my spending limit each month so far. So I’ve only been able to order $220 worth of food, which only lasts me 20 days of each month. I should be able to order $320 worth of food AND $100 in health care (ibuprofen, antibiotic ointment, etc.) and postage stamps per month. So for four months I’ve been cheated out of my full spending limit.

From the point of view of Keefe Commissary, they too have ripped themselves off of tens of thousands of dollars because inmates have been unable to spend their full limits. With 2,000 inmates, it could be hundreds of thousands of dollars of purchasing power negated all due to a computer inputting error! You’d think one of the Keefe or D. Ray James paid staff would have caught on before I had to alert them into making the correction. There will be no credit or compensation for our/my lost purchasing power, but at least I can take credit for correcting an egregious flaw here. The Business Office assures me that this has now been rectified for all future inmate purchases.

My spider bite on my left buttock is still getting a daily medical department look, and both I and they are pleased it is healing rapidly now, the draining having stopped three days ago after about ten days of blood and pus weeping out of the wound.

Monday, March 14 marks 365 days – one year – in prison so far on my sentence, including all of the time that I spent in North Fraser Pretrial Centre up in Canada before being extradited. My treaty transfer application has been in DC for two months, the decision is due to be made in the next 4 to 6 weeks.

Peter Maverick has appointed himself as a one-man books-for-prisoners resource. Peter has sent over 50 books in Spanish including a 25-volume history of each state in Mexico. I have discovered that my Mexican colleagues relate to the state they are from in a strong way, so these books about each state are read voraciously. The books are ordered through Amazon, and Peter has spent well over $750 on these books and postage to send them to me over the last 3 weeks, over 125 books. My personal collection of books, including my law & prison books, number less than 20; the vast bulk of books I have received are loaned to other inmates, and are read studiously and passed on when they are done reading it.

I just finished Michael Pollan’s beautifully written book ‘The Botany of Desire’ and I endorse this 250 page book to anyone who wants to be enthralled by every page while learning so many marvelous details and history about the apple, the tulip, the potato, and marijuana, and the co-evolution of these plants with humankind. Simply terrific book. I understand he has a contemporary bestseller on the NY Times Lists. I’d love that book.

In a triumph of anti-intellectualism here at D. Ray James Correctional Institution, I am on the bring-5-books, receive-5-books regime with the mail room here once again. Thus I must advise anyone sending me books to now only send books I have specifically requested. Recently, I have received perhaps 150 books in the last month which I have by and large lent out to other inmates, which they are devouring in a satisfying manner, satisfying to anyone interested in knowledge, literacy and disseminating knowledge. That, alas, excludes the decision makers here at D. Ray James. This decision would have come from Warden Zenk himself, with input from Security. I am reminded of that Who song ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”.

Books sent to me for the benefit of the Spanish-Language inmates have been extremely useful and well-received but will now have to stop. If I can’t store them and send them out once every two weeks, I’ll have to have the 5 I return destroyed each time because I can’t buy enough postage stamps to ship the 5-returnees to my friend Catharine Leach, or my supplier-in-chief Peter Maverick. But I’ll try to return to Peter the books I’m going to inevitably receive that I can no longer take possession of.

Sigh. Mail room nonsense has returned once more. Of course, in any sane place, I could donate them directly to the inmate library, where virtually no relevant books have been purchased and added to the reading library in 5 months since this concentration camp for foreigners opened – 5 months ago! That is why the books I’ve lent around are so welcome: the library is deliberately kept as useless as possible by management here.

I got my pay for February. I’m here every morning, afternoon, and evening shift, 7 hours a day. I missed a day and a half for lockdown, and a few hours in medical getting my infection dealt with, and I don’t get ‘paid’ for Presidents’ Day (February 21). Total pay for the month: $5.10. Yes, you read correctly, five dollars and ten cents. That was 12 cents an hour, and my official reinstatement wasn’t until February 10, but I’ve been here three shifts a day, every day, since December. My pay grade has been raised to 29 cents an hour. Ah, there’s no labor like slave labor. The GEO Group Inc. motto is “GEO Group: World-class employee, performance, behavior.”

IMPORTANT NOTE: On Friday, April 1st, Marc was informed that he will be shipped out to a new prison on Monday, April 4th. Federal inmates can be shipped anywhere in the USA, and are never told where they are going.

Please stay tuned to his progress here and at www.Facebook.com/PrinceOfPot and www.Facebook.com/JodieEmery where updates are posted right away.

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Randy Clarke from New Westminster, BC performed Johnny Cash’s song “Folsom Prison Blues” for me in the prison music room, using one of the three guitars they have there. However, it’s been adapted for this prison, and is now called “Folkston Prison Blues” – you can listen to it online!

Adam Bowen of the BCMP Lounge at the Marc Emery’s Cannabis Culture Headquarters in Vancouver performed at the Tuesday night “Jams in the Key of Green”. Randy is going to adapt other popular songs with lyrics that speak about our life here at D. Ray James, so look forward to more songs online performed by Adam with lyrics by Canadian inmate Randy Clarke of The Mojo Stars, his band when he was back in BC.

Folkston Prison Blues

Music by Johnny Cash, Lyrics by Randy Clarke

I see the Chow Hall comin’
It’s rice and beans again,
And I ain’t tasted real food
Since I don’t know when

If they let me run this prison
We’d make some changes fast,
Another microwave and TV
And volleyballs that last
We’d have chicken, pizza, burgers
No more rice and beans
It’d be the sweetest prison,
They have ever seen

VIDEO AT BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE – OR CLICK HERE

The song really doesn’t do justice to the geography where DRJ is situated. At a health and safety meeting in the library, we were warned of the dangers of the blazing sun and humidity from February to October. My left buttock spider bite is in its 12th day (as of Friday, March 4th) and still weeping pus and blood. This nasty wound will take another 15 to 25 days to fully heal, so the health and safety meeting warning about spider bites, especially from the local toxic Black Widow and Brown Recluse, was too late for me. Other insect dangers include mosquitoes that carry Dengue Fever, avian (bird) flu, and swine flu. Fire ants have huge ant colonies in the sand here. There are no-see-ums, little tiny bugs that swarm and bite, and sand fleas in the sand that covers most of the terrain here.

All of these proliferate because we are beside a massive swamp area called Okefenokee (O-Kuh-Fen-O-Kuh, from the Seminole Indian meaning ‘swampland of misery for white man’). Oh, and then there are venomous and dangerous rattlesnakes that are here too. They advised us that sand and brick reflect the sun (of course, it’s ALL sand and brick here, plus razor wire and fencing), increasing the risk of sunstroke, eye damage, heatstroke and sunburn – but they don’t sell or provide sunglasses or hats! DRJ’s advice is to drink lots of the very bad-tasting water that comes out of the taps here, or consume beverages with electrolytes (such as Gatorade).

Acting Warden Zenk, who is GEO Group’s Vice President of Regional Operations, is determined to make an impact here. Today he made a commitment to have an additional microwave and television in every pod by April 10 – that’s 5 weeks away. That has somewhat mollified the dissatisfaction among inmates, so they are optimistic but skeptical that this will come to pass as promised.

As of today, visitation is now allowed on Thursday and Friday in addition to Saturday, Sunday and Federal holidays, which will ease over-crowding. At some point they will institute limits on the number of days you can have a visit in a month (possibly no more than 8 days of 16 – 20 visitation days a month). Jodie can choose to come see me on less-crowded Thursday and Fridays, or, if she is feeling indulgent, Thursday, Friday, and part of Saturday. Still no movement on the hand-holding ban in visitation, so that remains to be rectified. [Note from Jodie Emery: As of March 26th, visitors are allowed to hold hands with inmates again thanks to new policies. This is HUGELY important and sincerely welcomed!]

Six beverage vending machines will be going outside in the yard and recreation areas. They will dispense soda and power drinks (like Gatorade) for $1.50, and bottled water for $1.00. Once a week, an inmate can buy a $15 chit that the vending machine recognizes. So for me that’s 15 bottles of cold water a week, which I will appreciate. My only concern will be adequate stocking of the machines. With 2,000+ inmates and unrelenting heat, the machines will run out daily, I suspect. These machines will be operational in the next week with cards for sale in the commissary.

I put my order in for the 4 GB MP3 player, which can hold up to 700 songs out of a catalog of five million songs. At $1.60 a song, I’m going to be limited to 5 songs added each week, or 20 a month ($32.00 monthly), that counts against our $320 monthly spending limit. I already reach $320 by the third week of every month because I buy a lot of food like spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, salmon flakes, tuna, mayonnaise, etc. and that adds up. The $106 for the MP3 player however does not count against the $320 monthly limit. I believe the beverage card is also debited from the $320 monthly limit, so it will be a lean final week at the end of every month for me. Good thing photo copy cards and postage stamps are not deducted from the $320 monthly limit or I’d be screwed. [Note from Catharine Leach, who transcribes Marc’s newsletters for sharing online: In a letter to me dated March 8, Marc writes: “I just discovered that we inmates are being ripped off by having postage stamps applied to our $320 monthly spending limits. In my case, this is devastating as I spend $100 a month on postage stamps, which so far had not been deducted from my $320 spending, but while I suspected they were incorrectly deducting it from my totals, now I have receipts that prove they are screwing me and every inmate on our spending limits.” The prison has acknowledged this error but cannot refund the money taken so far from inmates.]

I should get the MP3 player around March 25. Choosing my first 5 songs to load will be a fun challenge, when it happens. They’ll have to be songs I can play dozens of times, over and over and over! [Note from Jodie: The money for MP3 players has been debited from accounts, but no players provided yet; also, the satellite is broken because they placed it where baseballs and other sport balls hit it, so for now, downloads aren't possible even if inmates had MP3 players.]

The property department said my property from Sea-Tac FDC that went to Taft CI, my original destination, was shipped here on February 18, twelve days ago. R&D (receiving and dispatch) said they are tracking it and hope to have/find it soon. Property is due to arrive within ten days after an inmates’ arrival. As of today, it’s been over three months for me without my personal belongings.

Evening of Wednesday, March 2, in the Law Library

Dr. Davis just confiscated Z Magazine and The Economist, my magazines being read by two inmates in the evening law library session. She also confiscated tattoo magazines that an inmate was photocopying designs from. I was able to get my magazines back from the Captain on duty and the other inmate recovered the Tattoo magazine, but was told can’t photocopy it because of copyright reasons.

When a number of inmates complained that not a single English Language magazine has been ordered for the law library in 5 months, and they said they wanted National Geographic, Dr. Davis reiterated her assertion, in front of 20+ inmates, “We’re never going to subscribe to National Geographic, it’s way too sexually explicit!” That nearly set off a riot, as inmates were all thunderstruck by that classic Dr. Davis remark! They got all rowdy and irate, and followed her out into the hallway to voice their outrage at being treated like children. I’m interested to see how Acting Warden Zenk deals with the anti-intellectual Dr. Davis, because she suffocates the law library and the reading library. Not one new book or magazine in English has been put in the law or reading library. She has forbidden me from donating “unauthorized” magazines like National Geographic and The Economist to the reading library. There wouldn’t be a single law book or legal periodical in the law library if it weren’t for me. There wouldn’t even be a Spanish-English dictionary in the law library if it weren’t for me. I broached this to Dr. Davis in front of the other inmates “because you won’t order any magazines for the inmates in the 5 months DRJ has been operating.”

What complicates matters is that Dr. Davis actually owns the land the prison is built on. Why Dr. Davis has this pull is inexplicable to an outsider, but according to locals who work here, her family is the political power in the community going way back. Yet the Folkston community is largely in economic ruin, so they haven’t been particularly good stewards of the community for all the “influence” the Davis clan must have. Everyone wonders what the deal is in regards to Dr. Davis working here on land she leases, presumably for 50 or 99 years, to the state, the Federal Government, or GEO Group.

Thursday afternoon, March 3, Law Library

In the library today I found myself in the unusual position of explaining to a particularly despondent cynical inmate, who is very upset about being designated here, the few advantages of being sent to D. Ray James. He is still in the “I can’t believe they sent me to this awful place” phase. I like this fellow, he’s clever and wryly funny in his assessments of this forlorn gulag, but he doesn’t have intellectual activities to keep himself busy and contented. He is bitter and brooding. I summarized 3 distinctly good things about this place:

1) We’re safe here. All inmates here are ‘deportable aliens’, so very few have ever been in a US jail before; if they have, they are certainly here for illegal re-entry, which can net 4-5 year sentences for a third or fourth illegal entry. Most have jobs and family in the USA and are highly motivated to return to the US despite the extraordinary potential prison penalties. These inmates have neither a criminal mind, nor an institutionalized mindset (a “convict mentality”, as it were). There are no prison politics here in any way like there is in a US Federal prison for Americans. In a BOP (Bureau of Prisons – i.e., not private prisons) facility for Americans, you have white supremacists, chicano gangs, black gangs, all the various urban gangs, Hell’s Angels, crackheads, tweakers, and lots of yard politics. You are far more likely to be knifed, raped, or sexually assaulted in a BOP Federal prison than in these Immigration designated federal prisons. A US state or federal prison has numerous race, ethnic, and other cliques and castes. It’s very much a segregated and tenser scene. Here there is no tension between inmates, no gang issues, no race problems; in fact, there is a great deal of unity in our non-Americanism. We are all grateful to not be among American inmates even as we complain about receiving inferior amenities than American inmates. Inmates here cooperate seamlessly regardless of language, race or social status. There is no violence or sexual intimidation of any kind in the 4 months I’ve been here. Compare that with ANY state prison or most US Federal prisons that house Americans.

2) The second distinct positive is that NONE of the Correction Officers (C.O.’s) are jaded or hostile to the inmates, as is the case in the BOP facilities for Americans or in state prisons. The C.O.’s at D. Ray James are just mostly local people trying to do a job under virtually identical conditions as inmates for 8-hour day four or five days a week. I have not seen any examples of abuse of inmates with prejudice, meaning any injustice or unfairness has been a result of institutional incompetence or dysfunctional procedures and policy, not a vindictiveness or mean-spiritedness by a C.O.

3) The third plus is that inmates here get far fewer ‘shots’ or disciplinary write-ups than are given out in BOP or state prisons housing Americans. American prisoners are far more into the prison drug scene, the moonshine scene, the prison politics of race and dominance. Those vices or attitudes are virtually non-existent here. Considering there are 2,000+ inmates, many housed 64 to 80 in a dorm, that is truly remarkable. I have never seen or even heard of any illegal drug here, not one cell phone, not one act of assault. Those vices and acts are rampant in prisons housing Americans.

At Sea-Tac FDC, eight inmates in one day were found in possession of and high on marijuana AND methamphetamines. All were sent to solitary. I knew of several inmates that failed u/a’s (urine analysis for illegal drugs), and all were American. One group of inmates produced a fruit based batch of cider each week. When it was discovered we were locked down for two days. Three inmates in my unit were extorting one for thousands of dollars in commissary or else this victim of extortion would get beat up. The victim’s PSR (Pre-Sentence Report) had indicated he was a ‘confidential informant’ for police after his arrest in order to get a lower sentence. Inmates who are found to ‘cooperate’ are usually beat-up or extorted, but this was a uniquely American thing.

The repellent white supremacist I wrote about briefly in my SeaTac FDC blogs would punch, assault and intimidate this slender, small 20 year old boy from Alaska in what I thought was a kind of sexual intimidation, but it was ostensibly because the delicate young man was playing dominoes with my black friend Robert. The 20 year old was told to fraternize less with blacks and more around whites like the white supremacist, who terrorized him unrelentingly. I witnessed first hand the young man get sucker punched in the side of the head by this thug, knocking the young man right out. On another occasion the 20-year-old walked by the white supremacist and just got punched in the thigh viciously spontaneously as part of daily intimidation and terror. These events I couldn’t write about while I was at Sea-Tac FDC, because those inmates could receive my blog comments in their Corrlinks email and, without question, would have punished me with violence if I reported (“ratted”) them out.

When I was at Oklahoma City FDC for one week prior to coming here, the most frightening week of my prison sentence was listening to these skinhead, heavily tattooed 10+ years-in convicts explain all the violence, politics, fear, suspicion, and cliques I would have to familiarize myself with, even at a ‘low’ security federal prison. Because they were all American, they had no experience in an all-foreigner prison like D Ray James, and described no doubt a fairly accurate portrait of the tension that exists in a US federal prison for Americans. They thought that they were doing me a favor, but they just succeeded in scaring me more than I have been, before or since.

While most, if not all, of us are grateful not to be among that kind of American prisoners, most of the inmates here have lived in America for 5, 10, 20 years or even all their lives since age 3 or 4 when their parents brought them to America. Many have ‘green cards’ or ‘permanent resident’ status and some have never been to the country of their birth since they were a child, and have no ties at all there, but will be deported to their birth country anyway.

I told my disillusioned fellow-inmate that while I, especially, understood his frustration, there are indeed circumstances to be grateful for, even if it is only in the absence of violence, intimidation, and mean guards. For me, however, I have to say I am grateful for my American friends, virtually all strangers to me – many of them mothers, in fact – who send me books, put money in my commissary, and write me genuinely caring and uplifting letters. My great wife Jodie has received enormous help from Americans in coping with our forced separation.

So I am blessed to have two paradoxical spheres of security and safety while incarcerated; I am in prison with non-Americans, and I am indebted and grateful to my loving American supporters. I especially salute my great helper Catharine Leach of Rhode Island. She has done incredible work on my behalf, including rallies in Washington, D.C. and Providence, Rhode Island. She sends me research, each Canuck hockey game summary, even gets me in her local newspaper. She writes me incredible letters every two or three days, all the while looking after two children and her husband, and a demanding full-time job. Many other mothers, not all but mostly American, have made it one of their duties to help Jodie return to me to Canada and be of whatever help they can to me. I will never forget the nation that incarcerated me is still the greatest source of inspiration for me. So it goes, the paradox of my relationship with the United States is one of my lifelong themes.

On March 14, I will have served one year – 365 days – on this 1,825-day (5 year) sentence. With a good time credit of 235 days, that is 600 days of 1,825. So I have 1,225 days in my sentence to go if I get marooned in the US gulags; July 7, 2014 is my release date if my transfer application to Canada is refused. As of March 16, my application for transfer will have been at the US Department of Justice for two months. Between April 16 and May 20, I expect to receive my response. If approved, the process moves to the Canadian government, where the norm to decide applications is 4-6 months.

That means by September through November 2011, the Canadian government could approve my application, and within 3 months after that, I would be back in a Canadian Federal prison. Under current law I qualify for full parole after November 16, 2011. I have included ‘Attachment A’ to show the criteria involved in treaty transfers. I qualify in the affirmative on all 26 criteria, so under the rules as outlined, there is no grounds to deny my transfer at the American end, nor under the criteria set out by the Canadian government.

My property arrived! Most prized are my wonderful photos of Jodie! Oh it was sweet to see them again. How gorgeous and lovely my incredible wife is! – sigh – Other items use are my Sony radio and my Koss headphones. The radio is powerful and can pull in more stations more clearly than the one that was issued here, so that is an improvement. I have my book light and even a replacement bulb. My autobiographical book chapters, notes, and political writings arrived also. Next week I’ll finish an editorial about Stephen Harper and his war against “change”, “the 60’s culture” and the contemporary representatives of this “culture” – the cannabis culture.

Help get Marc home with an easy phone call or message:
www.freemarc.ca

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February 19 to 28 – In this issue: Warden Booker leaves the prison; GEO Group Vice President of Regional, Mr. Zenk, takes over as Acting Warden (he spoke with Jodie Emery by phone on February 10); a disruption in Q Building on February 22 (9 inmates go to SHU, solitary confinement); and a confrontational visitation on the long weekend of February 19-21.

On Tuesday this week Hispanic inmates initiated a boycott of the larger Chow Hall at lunch while GEO Group Vice-President of Regional Management, Mr. Zenk, was here. The timing was deliberate. Inmates are frustrated and increasingly intolerant of the seemingly willful management indifference to regular and routine “low” security protocols that occur at B.O.P. and even other GEO Group and CCA facilities. Rules here are invented daily that follow little rational thought or Bureau of Prisons procedure/policy.

Later that day, it was announced Warden Booker was moving on, leaving DRJCF in any case, and V.P. Zenk would be Acting Warden for a period of weeks. I have already had a conversation with him and he’s a good listener when I recited a brief catalog of grievances. But action is what the inmates are measuring, and there is little to point to here in the way of actual results. DRJCF has been open 5 months now and very little progress is evident; indeed, in many areas (visitation, food, quality of the yard), it has gone backward.

Some critical areas of inmate dissatisfaction:

– Food is nutritionally inadequate and monotonous. Surveys will circulate by the staff next week to sound out inmates’ desires on the food in Chow Hall. But action is what is in short supply.

– Numerous essential and other items so far have been denied to us at the commissary, including hats, sunglasses, calculators, fresh vegetables, alarm clocks, bathrobes, sleeveless undershirts, digital language translators, thermos, sweatbands, sewing kits, tennis balls, knee wraps, and other items we are allowed to posses, but cannot get (unless they arrive from our previous prison property).

– Two televisions are inadequate for 60 – 80 inmates and there are numerous altercations over them already. An additional TV is promised for each Pod in April. The wait is so additional electrical outlets can be installed.

– The tap water here tastes very bad, yet no bottled water, juice or soda is made available to buy. Vending machines have been promised but have yet to arrive. [Note from Jodie Emery: Since this was written, vending machines have been installed.] Inmates cannot posses or use cash so the purchase procedure will invariably take weeks or months for DRJ to put into play, which brings us to…

– MP3 players have been promised for over 3 months but have yet to be put on sale in the commissary. The better MP2 player, a prison issue one called “Secure Media Systems”, will cost $100.00. Downloading songs will cost $1.60 per song.

– Remarkably, over 500 handballs have been rendered unusable by the looping razor wire that is on every fence throughout the compound in the five months DRJ has been in “business”. The volleyballs being used are lopsided because of lacerations from hitting the razor wire. Basketballs and soccer balls are very worn, yet DRJ doesn’t spend money to replace them. This razor wire was recently reinstalled at this facility even though “low” security federal prisons are only supposed to have razor wire atop of a perimeter fence. The previous state prison that originally had this excessive razor wire installed was a medium-security prison housing some generally bad dudes.

– The visitation room seats only 26 inmates and their guests out of a prison population of nearly 2,000 now, causing visits to be terminated early to make room for arriving visitors, and hand-holding between inmates and their spouses/mothers/family has been inexplicably banned.

Later on that Tuesday the Associate Wardens were dispatched to all the pods to make promises on these and other areas, but inmates simply put no credibility on the word of management. The so-called ‘town hall’ that afternoon reeked of desperation and disingenuousness.

It has been hot here for weeks now, and it’s only February. When the wind blows, a sandstorm blows across the compound. All the grass that was here when we arrived is long ago dead and what little remains is rooted to sand. The entire place lacks topsoil for grass to root, so for 6-8 months there will be sand blowing about, getting in our eyes and mouths. Mosquitoes and sand fleas will be here soon. We are surrounded by the United States’ most famous swamp, Okefenokee (pronounced O-kuh-fen-O-kuh).

Last Sunday I was bitten on my left buttock by something that put two holes in my skin and I’ve had a painful swelling and infection since, making sitting and sleeping painful and difficult. I’ve been applying ice-packs to it at night and taking ibuprofen but it hasn’t subsided yet. The C.O. did give me an emergency permission to visit medical Wednesday night even during lockdown, and the nurse and doctor at medical moved quickly to examine it, gave me the ice-pack and antibiotics, which has had a very good effect of reducing the pain, swelling and infection by Friday afternoon, which is good because Jodie visited this Saturday and Sunday and I had to sit on it for 5-6 hours each day! Thanks to the nurses and doctor in medical! It started weeping Saturday, and now is drained (what a mess!) by Monday. I still continue to take the antibiotics and put fresh bandages on the area. After one week I can now sit comfortably. [Note from Jodie: Marc was bitten by a brown recluse spider, one of only two toxic spiders in North America. More details in Jodie’s videos at www.YouTube.com/PotTVNetwork and in Marc’s upcoming blogs.]

Across from the law library, the ceiling caved in, a huge mess, as water from broken pipes above the ceiling was leaking for weeks with no correction from maintenance until the light fixtures and ceiling came crashing down. Inevitably, the air conditioning in various units will break down. The inmates feel aggravated plenty now; 6 or 7 months of unrelenting hot and muggy weather will fray tempers further. It took DRJ 3 weeks to fix the heat for Pod 2 in Q building back in December. There was no heat but nothing was done until temperatures dropped below freezing and it became a liability issue for DRJ.

The inmates’ photographs ($1 each per print) started being done against a wall in the yard. After lining up for several hours on Sunday and finally having their pictures taken, Coach Williamson, in charge of the photo program, somehow deleted all 150 photographs taken that day, necessitating all the inmates to line up once again in the hot sun to have their photos redone. When they received them the following week, at least half of the prints had the inmate’s head cut off at the forehead. They had the option of lining up yet a third time in the hot sun for yet another photograph! At DRJ, even the simplest of things gets bollixed, and when these aggravations happen daily, it drives the inmates nuts, and they are always talking about the latest aggravating DRJ fuck-up.

Along with photographs I have taken every visit with Jodie, last weekend I had 5 photos taken of me in the yard. One of me and my friend Peter (Mennonite, with 9 children), one of me and another friend Bradley (a great fellow from my area at home), one of me in my khakis, one of me holding the clutch of envelopes I routinely carry to and from the library, and one of me wearing a khaki ball cap, sunglasses, and a pen clenched in my teeth, channeling the Hunter S. Thompson or General Douglas MacArthur, my alternate persona on the yard here.

I heard that visitation last weekend was tense. Eight women who came to visitation wore open-toed or open-backed shoes. They were ordered to buy closed-toed shoes at the only nearby store in tiny Folkston, a dollar store, before they could be admitted to visitation, as the visitation area was now considered a “construction” site due to painting – which, of course, makes no sense at all. Hand-holding is still forbidden, yet permitted at all other GEO Group and B.O.P. “low” security facilities. Guards have been standing right beside inmates and their guests instead of standing in the guard area at the front of the room. Several inmates and guests got into shouting matches with guards standing closely adjacent to visitation tables.

Vending machines, the source of lunch for visitors and inmates, are frequently empty or dysfunctional. The staff, apparently, purchase bottled water during the week from these vending machines so that by visitation days on Saturday and Sunday, there is no bottled water left in the vending machines for inmates and their guests! This has been true for numerous food items too. The following weekend, February 26 and 27, Jodie and I had a wonderful visit, but not being allowed to touch each other’s hands – or anything at all – for the 7-hour visit is very irritating and upsetting.

I did the paperwork this week (before I was locked down Wednesday and Thursday morning) for the inmate who has been trying to get GEO Group to replace his dentures that they lost last June, and have refused to replace with the excuse that since last June, the inmate has had less than a year remaining in his sentence (he is scheduled for release mid-June 2011), so they don’t want to spend the money. This despite that GEO Group or Federal Marshalls lost the dentures in transit and this fellow’s guns are swollen and bleed with most meals!

On Tuesday night, February 22, there was a noisy display of disruptive behavior in Q-2 Pod (my pod) when I was in the law library. At 7:00 pm I saw an inmate having some kind of seizure in Q-2. Two inmates went to the pod door leading into the sallyport where typically there is a C.O. There wasn’t one at this time – and, in fact, it would be 10-15 minutes (disputed) before a C.O. appeared to respond to the inmates pounding on the door. The emergency buzzers in each pod have been disabled, as my friend Bradley found out when he complained two weeks earlier (see Attachment A) “because a C.O. is always on duty” in the sallyport! The C.O.’s first remark, I heard it, was “If y’all didn’t cry wolf so often I would have responded sooner.”

The fellow was taken away, and then brought back 30 minutes later, where he had another seizure. This time the C.O.’s responded promptly, but took him out to the sallyport and laid him on the floor and held his head, which probably the correct response for a seizure or seizure-like situation. Quickly after this, however, inmates in Pods 1, 2 and 3 all got rowdy and threw objects at the guard observation window that towers above the door to the sallyport, made noise, and were rebellious. No one was harmed or attacked; it is really an expression of disgust with how every aspect of this place is aggravating and frustrating to the inmates. GEO Group receives $1,008,000.00 a WEEK to operate this facility, but it is very slow to spend any of it on amenities that are common at all other GEO Group Federal Prisons and B.O.P. Federal Prisons.

After the inmate required medical attention the first time, I was in the law library, where I was held until 10:30 pm and then returned to the Q building, which was locked down all through Wednesday until Thursday morning, when we were allowed to go outside and to work. Nine inmates from Q building were put in solitary and may get a disciplinary transfer to a medium-security prison, which nonetheless, might be a step-up in terms of living conditions compared to D. Ray James Correctional Institution.

If I were there in Q-2, I would have tried to discourage what I regard as futile and foolish over-reaction. It made a mess of our pod, got 7 people from Pod 2 in solitary, and had us locked down for 36 hours. I tend to believe venting and writing complaints to management and officials is painstaking, but ultimately more effective than disruptive behavior, which virtually forces the institution to take retaliatory action. But I am fairly alone in seeing that point of persuasion and communication, and DRJ makes it very challenging for most inmates to find satisfaction using the exasperating grievance process to motivate institutional change and improvement.

It’s probably just as well I wasn’t there because I might have been regarded as a traitor for speaking out against it, plus I am only one of few English speakers and without speaking Spanish I probably would not have prevailed.

On Wednesday, I received about 25 books in the mail, half in Spanish, about 7 magazines, and 3 catalogs, so they were distributed around to the inmates who needed some calming activities during lockdown. The timing was good for those books! Many of these books arrive with receipts from ABEBOOKS, Thriftbooks, or Amazon.com among others, but no clue as to who paid for them or sponsored them. Peter Maverick of Massachusetts has been a HUGE contributor of books, over 50 so far about spiritual matters, in Spanish and English, history, fiction, biographies.

Brand new books I received include #7 & #8 in the #1 Ladies’ Detective Series, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and The Fountainhead, four new books by Herman Hesse (Demian, Narcissus & Goldmund, Steppenwolf & Siddhartha), Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, a Biography of Henry Ford, Mark Twain’s Autobiography Vol. 1, and American War Machine, which I wrote of in “Injustice & Cruelty As A Laughing Matter”, my editorial on Canadian and American politicians who laugh off the marijuana question. (Read that editorial in my previous blogs at www.cannabisculture.com, with a wonderful over-the-top painting of me nailed to a cannabis crucifix in ‘The Garden of Weeden’, juxtaposed as a sacrificial Jesus straddling the US and Canadian borders. Lady Liberty licking the blood flowing from the nails in my feet is quite the touch. I look forward to comments about the painting and the editorial it is paired with. The painting was done by Chris Wright of London, Ontario, Canada, someone I’ve known since he was a youth, whose work I truly admire and love.)

While I personally have enough reading material for a month, I still won’t discourage my supporters and friends from sending books and magazines in Spanish because the need is huge, especially in the infirmary where sick inmates can’t get out of bed. Books in English are greatly prized by the few other Canadians here. All the many magazines I receive get circulated to dozens of inmates each until I lose track of them. I even received, from Cindy Sleeman of North Vancouver, copies of Hispanic newspapers from the Vancouver ‘Latin American’ community of my hometown. Cindy has sent me a slew of great books, magazines, Spanish, English, including four from Alexander McCall Smith.

Thank to Mary Dague and Jimi Lawrence of Farifax, Virginia for books they sent. Mary sent Cutting Stone and The Longest War and the biography of Henry Ford. Jimi sent me some #1 Ladies Detective books and a 100 years of the GPO (Government Printing Office). Jimi has worked at the GPO for almost 30 years now, and is proud of his work there.

I very much appreciate the flood of books and magazines. I supply them to the infirmary, particularly Spanish magazine and books, as well as the inmates throughout D. Ray James. Today I had a ‘Santa Claus’ bag of new books that I simply will not be able to read (I have 20 lined up in my ‘Must Read’ box) so I supply the 12 other Canadians here and other English speakers I know who need books. Randy got my History of Black Sabbath because he’s a professional musician (and a delightful person), Grant from Montreal chose The Trial by Franz Kafka, and Short Stories by D.H. Lawrence.

I received some excellent books on Mexican folklore, histories of each Mexican State, in Spanish. The Mexican inmates relate to their state (Sinoloa, Chihuahua, etc.) and even have gatherings with food in the yard. It is a bonding thing, but also a bit of a mutual protection if the need arises. My friend, Peter, who is Canadian but was raised in Chihuahua state in Mexico until he was 13, is considered one of them, so Peter has 85 amigos here who hail from that state. Peter says this protects me too, as Peter and I are known to be best friends; we always eat and hang out together, as Peter is in pod 2 with me. I don’t need any protection as I have no enemies among staff or inmates, but it may one day be handy to have.

Thanks to Chris Goodwin and Erin Gorman for sending many wonderful Facebook pages of comments and political debate (which I really enjoy, so encourage people to send), and their frequent personal letters. Chris and Erin are setting up a downtown Toronto retail store and activist center for freedom called Freedom Culture Headquarters, or The Freedom Store. It will be a retail store selling libertarian, anarchist, anti-government, pro-freedom t-shirts, stickers, books, buttons, DVDs, magazines, posters, and all manner of product that speaks to liberty. Another part of the building will be used for Freedom Music nights, Freedom Debates, readings, lectures, even Freedom Comedy. Another part of the complex will be used as the Freedom Party of Ontario recruiting and campaign office.

Freedom Party is a pro-freedom registered political party in the province of Ontario, Canada that was founded by Robert Metz and I in 1982. It is now headed by a brilliant man, Paul McKeever, who did the remarkable video documentary of me called “Principle of Pot”. I have actually never met Paul McKeever in person, but we have a wonderful correspondence while I’m in jail. Paul is brilliant and I recommend his writings and blog as genius. Paul is a national treasure on the threshold of discovery by the people of Ontario and Canada. My great friend and a man I have admired for 32 years as a staggeringly lucid thinker and advocate for individual freedom is Freedom Party’s President, Robert Metz.

Watch "The Principle of Pot" for Marc's life mission and accomplishments explained! CLICK HERE!

Chris Goodwin currently heads up Ontario’s famous Vapour Central, a marijuana consumption lounge in downtown Toronto, 667 Yonge St. Chris was inspired by me in 2003 to open ‘Up In Smoke’ in Hamilton, Ontario, where baked goods were sold and marijuana consumed on the premises until the final visit after over 300 police visits put it out of business, and Chris was sentenced to jail for 4 months. Then Chris headed up Vapour Central in 2006, and has made it an incredible success. Chris and fiancé Erin will jointly be running both Vapour Central and Freedom Culture Headquarters.

The name is meant to be a tribute to me as co-founder of FREEDOM Party and Cannabis CULTURE HEADQUARTERS. I love this project and name. It is a retail project I have dreamed of doing myself and think Chris and Erin are perfect for doing this even better than I could. I can’t wait to see the “Jefferson is my homeboy” t-shirt and others by Bureaucrash at the Freedom Culture HQ. They will stock Free Marc t-shirts and all manner of FREE MARC material too. Chris and Erin expect to be open by mid-April; the location is the old Toronto Art Glass location at 2B Dundonald St, Toronto, Ontario, right off Yonge Street, and the website is www.FreedomCulture.ca (it will be online in the coming weeks). Naturally, repeal of prohibition and legalization of consensual activities will be a priority of this unique retail activism store, and I wish them all the best.

Send a quick letter to help get Marc home:

www.FreeMarc.ca – click “How You Can Help”

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Sunday, February 12: The cruelties just pile up here at D. Ray James. Jodie just visited me and there’s a new rule: NO Holding Hands! Wow! After being able to hold hands during the entire visits at Sea-Tac FDC in Seattle, and during Jodie’s first five visits to DRJ, we could hold hands the entire visit. This new rule is very distressing and disappointing.

But even worse, at 11:45am, with Jodie’s visit just under 3 hours of the 6 available hours, our visit and several others were terminated because the visitation room was over-crowded. There are 1,600 inmates here, with 1,000 more inmates to come, yet there are only tables for 27 inmates and their visitors! Other Federal prisons have visitation on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and Federal holidays, but here it is only Saturday and Sunday and Federal Holidays. [Note from Jodie Emery: As of March 3, visits are now allowed on Thursdays and Fridays. More news to come in future blogs.]

Most visitors of inmates here come several hundred to several thousand miles in order to see their loves one. Jodie has to come over 3,000 miles to get here. Now she can’t even hold my hands! This is also crushing for all the inmates who now have to sit up to 6 hours without any contact in these “contact visits”. The children will think there is something wrong or distant with their parents if they are unable to hold hands. This new rule of deprivation has no explanation because DRJ is one of the few prisons free of cell phones or illegal drugs, yet for the first 4 months, inmates have been holding their loved one’s hands on visitation day. [Note from Jodie: The explanation given later was that a couple was seen getting too close, so the warden instated the new rule to prevent any couples from touching at all. Inmates and family members are still requesting the rule be rescinded.]

Minimums and low security facilities for Americans have outdoor visitation areas, and even the warden’s instructions for visitation in the DRJ Policy & Procedure book indicate there is an outdoor visitation area expected here. Those inmates with just one visitor could double up with another at a shared table to alleviate overcrowding, certainly better than terminating their visit, you’d think.

Jodie also had to wait in the waiting area for 3 hours because her ride back to Jacksonville wasn’t returning to DRJ until 3:30pm, when visits end. Her cell phone, purse, and money couldn’t be brought into the building because DRJ doesn’t have any functioning lockers for visitors to put their property in. They are expected to leave it in the car they came in. This makes it impossible to come by taxi or be dropped off: where are you going to put your purse or cell phone? [Note from Jodie: The next visiting weekend, lockers were installed for visitors.]

Jodie left here very sad and distraught, crying for the 15 minutes prior to being taken away. I know right now, as I write this, she is fuming in the waiting area, no book or anything to read, and nothing to keep her occupied while killing three hours. It was a very sad Saturday on my birthday/Valentine’s Day weekend. No holding hands, just and omnipresent dread and repression during what is supposed to be the highlight of life here at D. Ray James.

Tomorrow is Sunday. Jodie will be visiting again, fortunately. I just hope she doesn’t say anything inflammatory and provocative to the staff for three hours. I’m unsure how to go about trying to rescind this new, inexplicable policy of no contact during a ‘contact’ visit, but I’ve thought of having affected families and spouses of inmates call the regional office of GEO Group, or even the warden here. I’ve put in a cop-out (complain form) to the warden regarding the no-contact policy, as well as one for the way too tiny visitation currently at one time; a federal prison of this size should have space to accommodate 3% to 10% of the total inmate population. That would mean 48 to 160 spaces for inmates and their guests/families.

I was reinstated officially to work in the law library. Dr. Davis’ first remarks to me were, “Did you have a subscription of National Geographic sent here under my name? Because one has started arriving and I just put it right in the garbage. Also, Mr. Emery, you can only work in the law library Monday to Friday, during the morning and afternoon. You cannot work in the law library in the evenings or weekends. And you can NOT do any legal work for inmates in your unit.”

I said I would come to the library in the evenings and work on my own projects. I said nothing about the remark about not helping inmates while in my unit, and you already know what I think of throwing out a magazine of impeccable quality like National Geographic.

Thursday, February 17th, 9:30pm:

Today I was eating the canned green beans at lunch when my left rear molar made a jarring ‘crunch’. I had chomped down on a rock, or stone – bigger than a pebble, anyway. The vibration of noise inside my mouth was a thunderclap and I thought I’d broken a tooth. I was eating carefully because inmates in the ‘chow hall’ had warned me that there was grit in the green beans, and 7 or 8 stones had been discovered, the hard way, while eating the green beans. The stone was the size of one of my molars. It’s not the first time either stones have been in the canned vegetables, although it’s a first for me. Yet another reason to be wary of the food here!

Friday, February 18th:

Despite my complaining, I am always looking for good news to report. I would love to have the problems at D. Ray James rectified. In fact, so would many of the C.O.’s that work here. They say it is more difficult a job when inmates are surly. It is 80+ degrees Fahrenheit (27+ degrees Celsius) in the hot blazing sun today, and air conditioning in “L” building broke down last night. It is going to be 9 months more of consistently hot and humid sun-burning days, and the staff and inmates are affected equally. So an aggravated inmate population does no one any good.

One of those frustrations for the law library staff was the difficulty in having an inmate named Thanongsack Phuangkeo get married to his fiancé Christine at the prison. He started his first request November 23rd, 2010 and after many delays, refusals, and confusions over responsibility for the procedure, Warden Booker put his approval in writing to Nang (as he is called) today! (See attachment A.) So once the Justice of the Peace is arranged, the first wedding at D. Ray James should happen in March sometime in the visitation room, so possibly Jodie and I will be witnesses.

By the way, if anyone is wondering, this marriage cannot save Nang from his ‘deportable alien’ status, but Laos does not have a repatriation agreement with the US, so it’s not immediately clear to me what happens to Nang after his sentence is up. Cuban, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, and some other nationals do not get deported to those countries because of a lack of diplomatic protocols relating to deportation and repatriation.

Perhaps the best news I’ve received so far in jail was a YouGov poll in the February 12th edition of The Economist showing a MAJORITY of Americans in every age group and both Democratic and Republican voters want LEGALIZATION, taxation, and regulation of marijuana. So it is now a matter of WHEN, not IF – sooner rather than later. We have reached the point of obvious inevitability. So 2012 must be the year every US state with an initiative and referendum process gets a legalization/repeal of cannabis prohibition question on their state’s ballot.

Here’s what I said in my interview in High Times, due on newsstands in the coming months, to the question: “What is the most important thing for the cannabis community to concentrate on at this point?”

My answer is: “Legalization initiatives must be implemented in every US state where it can be done for the November 2012 vote. Not just California and Colorado and Washington, but Alaska, South Dakota, Oregon, Washington D.C., and ALL of the other states with an initiative and referendum process (check your US State here: http://www.iandrinstitute.org/statewide_i%26r.htm ). Eight or ten or 12 states with cannabis legalization on the ballot will create the synergy required to begin the last phase of our liberation: the repeal of cannabis prohibition in the House of Representatives, in the Senate and with the President.

“To begin your state initiative process to repeal your state laws on prohibiting personal possession and cultivation, you can join an existing campaign to gather signatures to put the legalization of cannabis on your state ballot, or organize the campaign yourself with others you recruit on Facebook, Twitter, and at rallies and community meetings. Don’t wait for the big donors or MPP or NORML to organize these initiatives. Individuals, right now, in mid-2011, should investigate the initiative process in their state, start a Facebook group, recruit and begin collecting email addresses of signature gathering volunteers. Take the language used by the Washington State activists at Sensible Washington that was used in their failed 2010 try, or their 2011 attempt, and then adapt it to your state.

“Contact me for advice! Just because I’m in prison is no reason not to pick my brain and experience. I have over 50,000 friends on our Facebook pages, the vast majority being Americans. I will direct those from your state to join you. I am available all day, every day, even behind bars to help, guide, inspire, mentor, assist, and advise on your initiative campaign. YOU CAN MAKE MARIJUANA HISTORY STARTING TODAY! You can make marijuana legal in your state by November 2012. Where your state has no initiative process, you CAN donate to, and go to, a state that does have it, and gather signatures with them. Every American must do their duty and their part in this historical final push. We have the numbers, we have the righteous cause, and we are – I speak of my fellow Americans – able to do this. You CAN make history! Never underestimate your power as an individual to change the world! I never did, and I did change the world in many ways that carry on today!

“The other important goal for Americans is to help Congressman Ron Paul get the Republican nomination for President 2012. Ron Paul is the cannabis culture’s greatest friend and ally in Congress and he has consistently spoken out against the drug war and cannabis prohibition. He has voted against the budget for the Drug Czar’s office, the budget for the DEA, every single time. Ron Paul has co-sponsored bills to legalize possession of marijuana, industrial hemp, truth in trials (so med users can testify about it in Federal Court), and many other repeal or reform bills regarding prisons, drug prohibition, policing and the unconstitutionality of federal drug control. He is a brilliant and wise man who, to me, is America’s greatest hero. Former New Mexico Governor, Gary Johnson, is a great man who is also seeking the Republican nomination. My ideal ticket for the 2012 election is Ron Paul for President with Gary Johnson as his Vice-President nominee.”

I submitted 16 typewritten pages of answers to 16 questions High Times editor Malcolm put to me. The most HT can print in their magazine is 4 or 5 pages, so I am hoping they put the entire interview online at HighTimes.com, which will be seen by many in addition to High Times’ substantial print circulation. I’d like to be on the cover of High Times; knowing that a great bud is always required on a cover that sells the magazine, a photo of Jodie and I in a massive cannabis hemp field, taken in the Prince Albert area of Saskatchewan in 2009 on the Farewell Tour, would be ideal, I think. Tell High Times you think so too.

Jodie was able to have a phone conversation with the regional director of GEO Group, a supervisor of this D. Ray James facility, in fact, on Friday, February 18th. This is hopeful in itself, that GEO Group is willing to listen. Jodie had left a message at the GEO regional headquarters, and got a call back the next day. She spoke to him about the recent decision to ban hand-holding during visitation and the overcrowding issue at the visitation area, and the GEO Group Regional Representative listened and took notes, so that is encouraging. He is apparently coming to D. Ray James in the next week ahead, Tuesday, February 22nd – Friday, February 25th. He will be discussing the matter of visitation protocols with the warden.

Jodie encouraged viewers on her popular “The Jodie Emery Show” on www.YouTube.com/PotTVNetwork and www.YouTube.com/JodieEmery to call the D. Ray James Correctional Facility at 912-496-6242 to POLITELY voice your concerns about the new policy of no hand-holding during inmate visits. I too have encouraged inmates here to have their family call GEO Group or the warden at DRJCF to express, POLITELY, the rehabilitative effect of contact visits WITH CONTACT that are obviously acceptable at all other GEO Group Federal facilities. You can see that particular segment of the “The Jodie Emery Show: February 17”, as well as the follow-up show where she discusses her conversation with the GEO Group Regional representative. Jodie always knows the right approach to take. She is so wonderful a spokesperson. I learn a great deal from her patient style of communication. We make a great team together, and I can’t wait to be home!

Marc Scott Emery #40252-086 – Unit Q Pod 2
D. Ray James Correctional Facility
PO Box 2000
Folkston, GA
31537
USA

HELP GET MARC HOME! Write a letter to the US and Canadian government telling them to approve his transfer application, which they both have – addresses and an example letter are posted under "How You Can Help" at www.FreeMarc.ca

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February 8-14: On January 6, Warden Booker told me I was to be reinstated to my job in the law/reading library. After three weeks of waiting and going to the library daily in any case, I saw on the call-out sheets (daily assignment sheet) in late January that I was assigned to pick up garbage on the compound in the afternoon and evening. Considering any inmate can do this job but only 4 or 5 English speakers in the entire population can do the paralegal/secretarial work I was doing on behalf of the 1,500+ Hispanic inmates here, this new assignment was clearly an attempt by someone here to thwart the warden and humiliate me.

About 7 days ago I saw the warden and brought this to his attention. He remarked, “I’m a man of my word,” and proceeded to make a call on his cell phone to correct the ‘error’ on the call-out sheet. I left him to do that, and 7 days later, 30 days after the warden said I was reinstated, I am still unassigned but still available in the law library. We shall see what happens. [Note from Jodie Emery: Marc has since been reassigned and now works Monday through Friday in the library.]

I would get paid 12 cents per hour to do either job. What I can’t understand is how a private corporation like Geo Group can legally hire all these “deportable aliens,” none of whom have visas to legally work in the United States. Have they received a special exemption from the Federal government that allows a for-profit US corporation like GEO Group to do what no other US business entity is allowed to do: hire illegal aliens to work in their factory/business/enterprise? Many of these ‘illegal aliens’ here were undocumented workers doing labor for US businesses and they were incarcerated for doing precisely that. So by what political or legal alchemy can these same illegal “workers” be hired by GEO Group to essentially maintain this ‘industry’ here at D. Ray James Correctional?

And this business of 12 cents per hour: if you don’t concede to work on the assignment given to you, you can be put in solitary confinement. So a private, for-profit, US corporation, answerable only to shareholders, can put any inmate here in a lonely dungeon for 23 hours per day if they refuse to be a slave? The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery “within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” So either GEO Group seems to be illegally hiring illegal aliens, or employing slavery, or both, but I’d like to know what law permits a for-profit US corporation to do either.

Meanwhile, GEO Group has cut back on the hours of many of its employees here. Many Correctional Officers (C.O.’s) have had their hours cut from 40 to 32 hours a week. This was an unhappy bit of news for them because most, if not all, full-time workers cannot easily readjust their lifestyle and obligations with a 20% cut in pay. One extra unpaid day off in this economically depressed area is not something anyone who works here needs. One C.O. drives 52 miles a day to come to work here at D. Ray James, that tells one story of how difficult jobs are to come by in south Georgia and north Florida. The collapse of the housing market and the reduction of tourism from the recession and the Gulf oil spill have turned south Georgia and north Florida into one of the areas of highest unemployment in the United States. A competently run prison would be a benefit to the inmates here AND the local population so desperate for gainful employment.

More and more I am concerned about the quality of the water we are drinking here. The staff largely drinks bottled water, which is not available to inmates except in the visiting room, but staff have been buying all of the visiting room water bottles. That’s why the machines are often out of water for visitors on weekends. The water that we inmates have to drink is yellow when put in a white cup, smells, variously contains debris, paint flecks, etc. The water tower that recently was embellished with a massive GEO Group paint job has never had a filter changed within it, if it even HAS a filtration device within it all.

Ominously, the subcontracted group responsible for our very poor food diet, the Canteen Corporation, is about to get replaced by GEO Group’s own food services. GEO Group ran Rivers C.I. in Winton, North Carolina, which was closed down by order of the NC legislature, and many inmates from Rivers are here. All uniformly agree the food at Rivers was the worst they had ever encountered in the Federal system. So, incredibly, it’s possible what is already a monotonous and repetitive diet deficient in vitamins B, C, calcium, potassium, essential fatty acids and so much more, plus high in starches, sugars, and protein, is about to get even worse!

It would seem very few people running the show here are qualified to do so. The psychologist on staff has no degree in psychology or psychiatry; he’s a drug and alcohol counselor of some kind. The welding teacher has no credentials in welding. The recreation director has no credentials in health, fitness or physical education. The library does not have a certified librarian (it usually has no one supervising at all, to save money), and the director of education has no degree in education. The chaplain does not have a Masters of Divinity. Not a single Corrections Officer has ever worked in a Bureau of Prisons facility before; therefore they have no experience with federal regulations of federal prisons. Many of the staff here worked at the state D. Ray James prison, but state regulations are substantially different than federal regulations, and that results in a fair bit of confusion.

Most B.O.P. minimums and lows have an outdoor visitation area. D. Ray James has, according to the D. Ray James Procedure Statement, an outdoor visitation area. I sure hope one is planned because thus far, it’s not available. I will be asking the warden if one will be provided here, consistent with his statement SEC-014.06, which was signed by him only a few months ago: “Visitation may be conducted in a designated outdoor visitation area if approved by the Shift Supervisor. Only inmates who have had clear conduct for six months and have no security issues within the facility will be allowed to have visitation outside.”

Occasionally the visitation staff tells the inmates and their visitors not to hold hands, even though it is called a ‘contact visit’ and from my understanding, every federal minimum, low and medium security federal prison in the B.O.P. system permits handholding. The staff in visitation are otherwise good.

I’ve been reading ‘Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do (The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country).’ This is a marvelous book by Peter McWilliams. Peter was stricken with AIDS in later life and after Proposition 215 was passed in California, proceeded to participate in a marijuana garden (with Todd McCormick, who spent over 4 years in jail) and was convicted under Federal law for growing marijuana. Peter used cannabis to stanch the nausea form the cocktail of AIDS medicines his doctors prescribed him. The Federal judge had forbade Peter from using marijuana for his nausea, and days later Peter McWilliams died in his bathtub choking to death on his own vomit. Peter was an author of many books on positive thinking, emotional survival and personal wealth (titles include ‘Surviving the Loss of a Love’, ‘You Don’t Have the Luxury of a Negative Thought’, and ‘Wealth 101’). I decided to re-read Peter’s great literary contribution to law and philosophy, ‘Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do’ when the online curator of Peter’s legacy [click here] sent me a gift copy to inspire me here in jail. The book is truly brilliant and wonderful, at once straight forward and easy to read, and I’m learning so much; when you’ve been an advocate for 31 years, sometimes you think you can’t learn anything new about liberty, only to be proven delightfully wrong.

I found McWilliam’s discussion of relationships illuminating. “The idea behind laws against consensual activities is that if some people are in a bad relationship with something, then that thing should be banned. The problem is, that solution doesn’t solve anything: the problem doesn’t lie with the thing (or substance) itself, but with some people’s relationship to it. Yes, there are some things with which it is easier to be in a bad relationship with than others. Cigarettes practically beg for a bad relationship. But then, they were designed that way. For the several centuries prior to the Civil War, tobacco’s use was primarily recreational: people would inhale it, choke, get dizzy, fall on the floor, roll around. For the most part, people used tobacco (a botanical relative of the deadly nightshade) once or twice a week, and that was it. After the Civil War, the south needed a cash crop less labor intensive than cotton. A special strain of tobacco was developed that allowed people to inhale deeply without coughing. This let people smoke almost continuously if they liked it. It also resulted in almost immediate addiction. Almost every tobacco smoker is addicted. While there are many ‘social drinkers’, there are no ‘social smokers’. Smokers begin from the time they wake up to when they go to sleep… Addiction is a sure sign of a bad relationship.”

Sex, food, caffeine, gambling, religion, marriage, sports: all of these and virtually every other substance, activity or opportunity has the potential in all of us to be a good or a bad (or neutral) relationship.

Halfway through the book I’ve re-learned much about the US Constitution (and how, tragically, myself being a case in point, the United States has abandoned the Bill of Rights and other restraints on government), the history and ideas and strengths in the separation of church and state, and the separation of society and state. Peter makes it all fun too. I was being educated on every page with what seems like no effort.

The book I finished before Peter’s was ‘The 10 Cent Plague – The Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s’. This recounting of hysteria that surrounded comic books causing ‘juvenile delinquency’ from 1949 to 1956, putting 80% of all comic books out of business by municipal, state, and in Canada in 1949, Federal laws. There were huge public bonfires of comic books in dozens of communities, and a frenzy of indignation blaming comic books for all manner of crime and youth corruption. The US Constitution was no more an impediment on the US Government committee that hounded the comic book industry with scurrilous hearings, nor was the Bill of Rights any defense against state and city laws that saw sellers and producers arrested, fined, and even jailed. Over 800 people lost their jobs in the comic book industry and never got them back, as it took the comic book industry 15 years to recover. The hysteria resulted in censorship that drove out of business all the best comic books and left only the innocuous to survive.

At various times in US history, movies, television, more specifically horror movies, marijuana, racy pulp magazines of the 30’s, gum cards (Garbage Pail Kids), rock and roll records, religious “cults”, dance crazes, and more have all been subject to local or even state censorship, but none of the whipped-up furors ever had the destructive effect on free expression as did the 1949-1956 anti-comic book crusade. At its peak, comic book publications issued in 1952 totaled nearly 100 million copies monthly, by 1958, laws were passed, distributors, printers, producers, newsstands, intimidated, distribution was down to under 17 million copies monthly.

Sometimes censorship is disgusting on the smallest scale. The reading library here at D. Ray James Correctional is kept as useless as possible. No current books of the last 10 years, virtually no educational texts in math, English, science – nothing at all for a student to learn. No contemporary books like James Patterson, Stephen King, etc. Just beat up old library books from 10-40 years old, of no use to anyone. No magazines had been ordered since D. Ray James opened 4 months ago. Then one magazine arrived today, a Hispanic magazine, ‘ALMA’. It’s a terrific publication, and while it’s in a language I can’t read, it made me wish I could. It contained articles and interviews with Noam Chomsky, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jean Michel Basquiat, Orson Welles, and Ryszard Kapuscinski. There was a series of famous photographs by the “Three Giants of Photography” Stieglitz, Steichen, and Strand. The quality of all the magazine’s photographs is very good, the material very elegantly laid out, and it was clearly all very intellectually superior material.

Dr. Davis brought the magazine into the library, and before our very eyes scrawled in thick black marker “D R J C F” (the prison name initials) across every one of the 112 pages of the magazine. The reason given was that the Halle Berry photos were too lascivious, and that marking up every page would deter theft. I copied a selection of 16 pages of the defaced ALMA to highlight the experience of seeing a beautiful magazine defaced, while knowing the perpetrator is head of Library and Education Services. This one act describes the desperate and hopeless situation facing anyone here who wants to see the library here function with the noble purpose of knowledge and enlightenment.

I will admit I’ve been depressed over the most recent 8 days since Jodie’s visit on January 29 and 30. My daily life is full of frustrations and aggravations, but I can usually try to forget these hassles of D. Ray James life and move on. But as happened to me around Christmas for 10 days, sometimes a darker, more pervasive malaise sets in, and this makes each day an ordeal. My property should have arrived within 30 days of my arrival. But it hasn’t. It was sent to Taft where I was supposed to end up, but at the last minute I was somehow sent here instead. I miss my Sony radio, Koss headphones, and nighttime book light, my photo albums of Jodie. I’ve only had a half dozen to a dozen photos of Jodie in the 3 months I’ve been here. Jodie’s most recent letter to me did not arrive. One sent to me eight days ago from Alabama has not arrived. (Jodie was emailing letters to our friend Loretta who printed them up and mailed them here, usually it takes 2-3 days to arrive, as is typical of all US mail to me, vs. 6-8 days for a letter from Canada). Originally Jodie was going to try to send me a letter every day, once we no longer had “Corrlinks” email like at Sea-Tac FDC. In 5 months at Sea-Tac, she sent me approximately 500 emails and I sent her over 1,000 emails in that time (she saved every one of them). But Jodie is very busy, so in December I received only three letters and in January only one letter. Her letters are usually 4 to 8 typed pages full of wonderful detail and I treasure them above all others, but I am crestfallen at her sending me so few of them lately.

Today, when I went to the post office to mail Jodie a Valentine’s Day gift, the post office was arbitrarily closed. It is only open for one hour on Tuesday and Thursday, from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm, so when they close like that, with no explanation, it is very frustrating, as I have waited since Saturday to mail it (it’s in a home-made tube and needs weighing and a customs document to ship by mail), and if I had been able to mail it today, there was reasonable hope it would arrive by next Monday on Valentine’s Day. Of course, the obvious thing would be to hand it to her myself this weekend when Jodie visits me on Saturday February 12, and my birthday Sunday, February 13, but of course, here at (‘We Put the “D” in “Dysfunctional”’) Ray James won’t allow that.

Exercise of any kind, sit-ups, push-ups, jogging on the spot, walking around the pod, has been banned and inmates have been threatened with insubordination write-ups if they continue. All inmates are now ordered to exercise out in the yard only. To do sit-ups in the yard would be cold or muddy or dirty or uncomfortable, but that’s the rule, whether it’s raining, cold, hot, or humid. Currently we only get outside 5 to 6 hours daily tops, but are awake and in our pod up to 18 hours daily. There is no explanation for this enforced prohibition on stationary exercise. My sleeping has been disturbed for four nights in a row, usually I sleep soundly and without interruption, but these last few nights I am awake much of the night, shuffling and shaking. Most of the English speakers I know are fatalistic and sad or certainly resigned. I am more annoyed with the shrill whistling, yowling, yelling, and repeated childish voices that some of my Hispanic dorm mates persist in doing (reminder: we don’t have cells, we’re put into dorms with 64 bunks beds). Not all of them are annoying, mind you, but just enough to make me rue at the thought of three and half years of this depressing place. All these things and the additional daily frustrations are getting to me, I fear.

My eyesight is getting weaker. I need new prescription for glasses. I have no confidence in the medical services here. If I did get a new optometric prescription for my lenses, I’d mail it to Jodie and she’d send me a new pair of glasses. My request for a dental cleaning 7 weeks ago has thus far been ignored. I was assured that I was put “on the waiting list”. I haven’t had any dental work of any kind since I was put in jail last May.

I had written to my wonderful supporter and friend Catharine Leach asking her if Rhode Island had an initiative process, so cannabis legalization could be put on the ballot. The voters of Rhode Island voted for one in 1996, but the legislature did not pass an initiative process bill into law. There was also proposed legislation in both the House and Senate in 2010 to pass an initiative process and no vote was ever taken, thus the bills died. So that was disappointing, as we both wanted to get a legalization initiative mirroring Washington’s on the ballot in 2012. I think Rhode Island voters would approve legalization into law by the ballot if they had the chance.

A Maine state legislator, Diane Russell (Democrat), has made the news by introducing a legalization bill in the statehouse there. While 40-55% of New Englanders may support legalization, legislators who represent that view are still virtually non-existent. This is also the case, perhaps even worse, in Canada’s provincial and federal governments. That is why I was so excited to believe (mistakenly) Rhode Islanders could go through an initiative process.

Malcolm MacKinnon of High Times made an attempt to interview me here at D. Ray James for a feature article, but owing to High Times’ stated support of marijuana, the warden here turned down the request. So Malcolm submitted 16 questions to me and my expansive and candid answers should show up in an issue of High Times out in May or June. Jodie will also have some comments regarding her perspective on coping with my incarceration.

I would like to thank four people, none of whom I know, who put $50 in my commissary account here at D. Ray James, over the past two months: Martin M. (twice!, on Feb. 7), Lawrence J. (Feb. 1), Matthew W. (Jan. 4), and Ashley N. (Dec. 20). That helps relieve the pressure off my wife Jodie to send me money I need for commissary, phone calls, photocopy machine cards, photographs, and more. [Note from Jodie: You can send Marc money through Western Union now! Go to www.FreeMarc.ca for details.]

A special thanks to Paul Maverick of Massachusetts who sent me 34 books over the last 8 days. 11 I will try to read, the remaining 23 I’ve distributed around the pod for anyone else to read. Many of them are on spiritual matters, U.G. Krishnamurti in particular, which isn’t really my interest, but two books by Paul’s father Maury (a columnist for Texas newspapers) and 9 books of historical nature I’m going to try to tackle.

By Sunday, February 13, my 53rd birthday, I will have served 335 days on this 1,825 day sentence, with 235 days good time credit. That’s 570 days from my total 1,825 to be served, meaning there are 1,255 miserable days to go if I get stuck in this American gulag for foreigners. (July 7th, 2014 is my US release date). If I get approval from the US government in June for my transfer to Canada, and the Canadian government approves the application in the following months, I could be home by early next year. Please continue to write letters and make phone calls for my transfer to be approved – the addresses and details are at www.FreeMarc.ca.

Marc Emery #40252-086 Unit Q Pod 2
C.I. D. Ray James
PO Box 2000
Folkston, GA
31537

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Marc helps make changes in the D. Ray James Correctional Institution in Georgia — and his bad spider bite is getting better. Jodie shares an amazing present from Marc, a purse made out of folded-up chip bags, done by the artist inmates. The Toronto Freedom Festival is not so free… denied a permit for the first time ever. Cannabis Culture will still be there with 40,000 others marching in the Global Marijuana March, which is still happening at the same location as the Freedom Festival, as always. Go to http://www.CannabisCulture.com for updates!

http://www.FreeMarc.ca/
http://www.CannabisCulture.com/
http://www.TorontoFreedomFestival.com/

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Jodie talks about a prison lockdown, the warden getting fired, Marc getting a bad spider bite (or worse?), and more. She shares a wall hanging made by inmates, and a beautiful piece of art from a supporter. Read Marc's prison blog at http://www.cannabisculture.com for his review of improvements made at the prison after he filed complaints. And plan ahead for the Toronto Freedom Festival and Global Marijuana March on Saturday, May 7th! HELP FREE MARC EMERY!

http://www.FreeMarc.ca
http://www.CannabisCulture.com
http://www.TorontoFreedomFestival.com

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