This is a preview from Marc Emery’s autobiography, which he has been working on while in prison. The introductory chapter, called “The Prophecy”, is a strange but true story, seemingly foretelling Marc’s destiny when he was just 19 years old – even before he knew about marijuana.

Marc first mentioned this in an interview in CC #16, from January 1999. Click here to read "Marc Emery: The Prince of Pot speaks out".

One Saturday in September 1977 at my City Lights Bookshop in London, Ontario, I arrived early and excitedly to work on a huge collection of books from the 1800's and early 1900's. It took two trips in my Chrysler van, completely loaded with at least 750 books in each trip, to bring in this purchase from the estate of a deceased person the night before. I have to say, the best collections were always from people who had just died. Usually the children or heirs had no interest in the books and many other ephemera of an entire life of a collector, and in the era before the internet or eBay, those things were either put in an estate auction or, for most people who were impatiently wanting to settle estate matters more immediately, taken away by a bookseller like me. I would pay a nominal sum, and then haul away everything they wanted disposed of.

In this case it was a lifetime collection of religious books from 1800 to about 1930, with a fair bit of British poetry volumes from 1840 to 1900, and perhaps a few hundred illustrated books from the 1870 to 1945 period, probably the best books in the collection. For the 1,500 books in total, I paid about $1,000. The retail price when I was finished marking each one of them up was going to be $10,000 to $12,000. It was a great business, and I loved the old books, as each one was a treasure that was very profitable over time. On days like this, the next morning after a pick-up, it was the most fun my job could be.

I bought a collection of old, musty, rich smelling leather bound books two or three times weekly in those days, so my store was soaked in the smell of old paper and history and stacked with the 1,500 new arrivals in every available space, on counters, on the floor, rising above the counters three feet high above my head. For me to see anyone that morning I'd have to crane my neck around skyscrapers of old books. Only right by the cash register could I see someone in the aisle way.

Upon arriving at 9:30 in the morning, I put in my classic music tape; I was partial to George Frederick Handel Water Music, or Georg Philipp Telemann Flute Sonatas, gentle soothing period music that was clearly suggestive of old books. I unlocked the front door at 10am and started taking the religious books to their section in the back of the store, as I priced a stack of about 20 or so at a time. My store was 100 feet long, so once I was at the back, all I could hear was the classical music piped into every room, and every section was tight with bookshelves stacked with books and little room to move or maneuver. I would often peer around a corner to see if anyone came through the front door or needed assistance, and tried to stay in an isolated section no more than a few minutes before returning to the front area to do another stack of books and take them to their appropriate section. I was pretty fast, but this collection would take the better of three days to price and distribute throughout the bookshop.

I was so thrilled by this new collection of books that I wasn't particularly concerned that very few customers came in, at least for the first 90 minutes. Around a quarter to noon, my good friend and regular David Hogg came in and said "Hello," with a bit more animation than usual. "You didn't come out to see the woman who collapsed in front of your door?" he immediately wanted to know.

"What?" I said. "A woman collapsed? Where?" I was lost in my world and knew nothing about this.

"Right there," he pointed outside the very door he had walked through, "on the sidewalk."

"No; what happened?" I was surprised.

David looked at me askance. "You mean you didn't see an old woman, her head cracked open, blood all over the sidewalk, right there? That's hard to believe, Marc. She hit her head quite badly, apparently collapsed as she walked by, just like that."

"Wow…" I didn't know what to say. "No one told me."

"Well, I don't know how you'd miss it. Jim was following behind her and saw her fall, and called 911 from his store." Jim Weaver was my neighbor and the owner of Belle Air Music, a guitar and instrument shop two doors over. "That was lucky for her; the ambulance was here within minutes. I showed up just as they were loading her on a gurney to take her to the hospital. Jim got a bucket of hot water and washed the blood off the sidewalk just a few minutes ago. And you didn't see or notice any of this? Where were you?"

"Geez, I'm sorry, I guess I was in the back, with the music playing… you know how this place is."

"But you didn't hear the ambulance when it got here or left? It pulled up just outside your window." David was almost accusing me of negligence or something, and I felt a bit guilty. We went out and looked at bloodstain on the sidewalk, already old-looking and dried, but clearly it was quite an injury. I did marvel that I was somehow oblivious to what had happened. "Really odd that you missed that, Marc," David said. "I hope the old lady is going to be okay, but I don't know, it looked pretty bad."

I changed the subject and showed David some the old treasures I had hauled in the night before. Twenty minutes later, Jim Weaver came in and walked up to my counter, looking subtly like he had done a good deed, and also to query me. "Did you see the old woman who fell on the sidewalk just outside your door?"

"David told me about it, but I didn't even notice. Honestly, I had no idea. I must have been in the back, maybe even downstairs in that time."

"Well, it did all happen pretty fast. I was walking right along behind her just ten feet, on the way to get lunch from Between The Bread," (that was our neighbourhood sandwich shop three doors over) "and I saw her just drop face forward like a ton of bricks, not a stumble, just straight as a board fell forward. Oh, and the sound of her head splitting, the 'thunk' sound, just enough to make you sick. Went up to her for a second and then I ran into my store and called 911. Then I came out and knelt beside her and waited. The ambulance was pretty quick but I didn't move her and the blood was pouring out. It was terrible! It’s amazing you didn't hear the ambulance or see any of it, it was right there in front of your doorway. I guess no one came in to tell you."

"Not until she was gone in the ambulance, then David came in and told me, and by then you'd even washed away the blood," I said.

"Ian came out with towels," – Ian was his manager – "and a bucket of soapy water and our first aid kit. I didn't want to move her though, in case her head was really badly damaged. I hope she's going to be okay, but she was unconscious, or worse. She didn't move or anything."

Twenty-three days later, on a Monday morning, I was opening my store. I remember the counter was totally clear of books that day. The phone rang.

"Hello, City Lights Bookshop," I said.

"Mr. Emery?" said an old woman’s voice.

"Yes, speaking."

"Mr. Marc Emery?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Emery, you don't know me. We've never met. But I know all about you."

"Er… yes?"

"Mr. Emery, I was walking along Richmond Street three weeks ago Saturday, and I passed in front of your store when a terrible, terrible thing happened to me. As I passed in front of your store, Mr. Emery, right in front of your doorway – and I know you were inside there – in the space of an instant, just a fraction of a second, I felt this most tremendous surge of an energy… of a force… this invasion of my whole brain by YOU, Mr. Emery, a terribly painful invasion by your aura, your essence, everything that radiates from you was forced into my brain, and I collapsed and fell on the sidewalk and split my head open. I understand from the hospital, when they explained what happened, that one of your neighbours called the ambulance.

"Mr. Emery, I was released from hospital yesterday. I was unconscious, in and out of a coma for two weeks. In that time, doctors operated on me, and remarkably, I only fractured my skull, had a very bad concussion and required stitches. They don't know why I was in a coma for two weeks, but I was on life support. After I was conscious again, I was kept in there for another week for observation, but yesterday they released me, as they think I'll be all right. But I know why I was in a coma, Mr. Emery. I didn't tell the doctors the reason I was there, but I'll tell you. I only know that the entire experience I went through is all about you, Mr. Emery.

"I know all about you now, Mr. Emery, in very strange ways. It’s all I can recall from the moment my brain was attacked with this painful energy that comes from you. I know this doesn't make any sense, Mr. Emery – how old are you, Sir?"

"I'm 19." I was disconcerted by how she frequently called me Mr. Emery with both fear and awe, and she sounded like she was blaming me for her horrible accident.

"All the time I was unconscious, all those weeks in the hospital, the second I fell, Mr. Emery, has all been about you. That’s all I've been able to think about. I can't control it. I'm very scared Mr. Emery; I've never met you. I knew nothing about you, I've never heard of you before. I've never been in your store, and now I feel I know too much about you. My husband made me call you to tell you of this, Mr. Emery, he thinks maybe it will stop once I tell you this… what happened to me. Maybe it will mean something one day. But I know you've got to leave my brain, I can't take it anymore. So I'm going to tell you, Mr. Emery, what I saw, and why I believe I fell into unconsciousness in front of you, and your building. I want my life back. My husband and I are so scared and confused, and he thinks if I tell you, it will stop. I don't know why this happened to me. I've never had any psychic experience. I don't even believe in that sort of thing. I want to tell you this and then I want it desperately to go away.

"Throughout the entire unconscious experience I know I was experiencing your life flashing before me. It was just all about Marc Emery, your name, thousands of times repeated to me, with images, and incredible energy and upheaval, like torrents of electricity and power and violent exchanges of energy, but not violence in any way. It was just your life being forced into my mind, so now I have to tell you these things that are coming, Mr. Emery, coming to you. And you need to be prepared."

This was so strange. Customers came in as I listened to this woman, and I even whispered to a woman across the counter, "This is the weirdest phone call ever!" but did not stop listening attentively. How could I not?

"Symbols, Mr. Emery, important and great symbols tell me about your future, your life, you significance to people, to the world, a great mass of people. Noisy masses of people. These symbols are the key to your future, Mr. Emery, and there’s more but these symbols are so important.

"I know I'm to tell you that you have a great destiny before you, Mr. Emery. When or how, I don't know. But you will lead a great multitude of people to sanctuary, to a liberation of some kind. There is great joy and rejoicing, with flags and symbols. And it will be trying Mr. Emery, it will be painful, you will have adversity, and you will have one very great obstacle, Mr . Emery, that you must conquer. You must not give into despair on this journey, you must practice patience and not lash out in anger at the adversity that comes, because it WILL come, and that is not the answer. That will undo everything, if you give in to bitterness. There is great power and influence where you are going, Mr. Emery, but if you give in to despair, you will risk ruining all the good you are working for. This was the largest warning I saw repeatedly. You cannot give into bitterness, anger, despair; those are your enemies, Mr. Emery. I am to warn you about this, because those internal personal adversities will be a great challenge to you, more than any other person or group in your way. You will feel deserving of this anger, Mr. Emery, but you must avoid giving in to it.

"I saw three symbols repeatedly, endlessly in my time unconscious, and they are certainly about your life. I don't know what they mean. I only know they are very important to what you must do and will do in the time ahead.

"The first symbol is the symbol of the dollar, Mr. Emery. The dollar sign. The dollar sign is very special in your life. You will rule the dollar. The dollar is a power you can control – it doesn't control you. With this power, you will have no conflict. You will use the dollar to great ends. And it means something very special in your power, different from its use by other men. You have a great gift and ability. It is like magic in your hands, I can't describe it.

"The second symbol that flashed endlessly was your brain, Mr. Emery, your brain in a steel trap. I think it means your mind holds information like a steel trap. It never escapes your mind. But this symbol changed back and forth. It would sometimes be your mind as the steel cage, and then it was like your mind in a cage. It would flash back and forth, so constantly, mind in a cage, the cage in your mind. I kept thinking it all goes in your brain, both experiences or meanings. This is also where I felt terrible premonitions of despair and sadness inside your brain, and I know I'm to tell you to protect your brain, your great and powerful brain, and to use this mind of yours to accomplish the goal of the next symbol.

"The most dominating symbol of all, the one that was always dominant in my mind the entire time, that never left, is the most mysterious to me because I don't understand it. It is a symbol of a leaf, Mr. Emery. It’s like a maple leaf, but it’s not a maple leaf – it’s different from a maple leaf, but I also thought the Canadian maple leaf was there too, and I'm confused about this. Because the leaf I saw had several fronds, each part of the leaf was similar in varying sizes, and the leaf has uniform ridged fingers around its stem. I can't tell you what colour it is, only that this is the most powerful symbol, it is what all the other symbols and messages I received were devoted to. This leaf is in all your banners, all the parades, all the conflicts, the great liberation, the people, whoever they are, are all bound together by this leaf, and you are leading them, to what I don't know, I just know it’s your destiny and it will happen and you will do it. Does any of this mean anything to you, Mr. Emery?"

I had listened to her desperate and anxious story quietly, hardly interrupting, out of politeness to an old woman who, after all, had nearly died because something about me had laid her out on the concrete sidewalk and put her near death. I felt guilty about that, but I felt she was disturbed, possibly nuts, too.

"I'm sorry, it doesn't mean anything to me," I said. "I'm sorry I'm involved in this… terrible thing that’s happened to you." I thought she was delusional, what else could I think?

She gulped. "Well Mr. Emery, I'm going now. I hope I never think of you again. I hope this all goes away. It’s been the most draining, painful, exasperating thing I've experienced in my whole life, and I'm 65. I am so frightened by what happened. I can't make sense out of it. Why me? All I know is that I saw these things and I know I was meant to tell you, to warn you, to prepare you. But now I want these thoughts gone and my life back. So goodbye, Mr. Emery, and remember, you have a great destiny important to millions of people somewhere, but don't give in to despair – that word was imprinted in these visions, don't give into it, Mr. Emery, that is so important. It will be hard but you have to get through the difficulties and then it will all be fine. Goodbye, Mr. Emery."

I said goodbye, and after she hung up I sighed. I didn't get her name and I never heard from her again. And then I didn't think about it for years.

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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.

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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:

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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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I remember Irwin Cotler, Canada’s Justice Minister in the twilight of Paul Martin’s Liberal government, commenting that Canadians had developed a culture of tolerance for marijuana use in the nation. This was on the heels of the Senate Committee urging marijuana legalization, my 2003 Summer of Legalization Tour across all ten provinces of Canada, and our 6-3 Supreme Court loss attempting to find Canada’s marijuana prohibition laws unconstitutional. In mid-2004 Cotler coolly and confidently asserted that his government would have “to change these perceptions.”

Cotler wasn’t concerned that polls even 7 years ago were showing a majority of voters supported legalizing marijuana, and that as a democracy, his government should reflect our will (and the corresponding justice in this new paradigm). He asserted that Canadians were wrong in this new view, and that the government would change the minds of the people who elected them to represent that changed new majority view.

Irwin Cotler was confident because modern governments have total faith in propaganda. Such is their instinctive reaction whenever the public starts to think for itself.

Cotler then carefully calculated on television newscasts that it would take two years to switch the Canuck consciousness back to the dark ages of prohibition. So sure was he of success that his prediction was announced publicly in mainstream media. We’re going to brainwash you. There’s nothing you can do about it.

But has this really happened? While politicians at every level of government in Canada behave as if they have changed public opinion, the polls, YouTube, Facebook, television, radio, movies and contemporary books all show that they have not. In fact, polls show the legalization numbers are rising throughout the United States and Canada. They have been rising since I began my lifetime campaign to legalize marijuana in 1990. The numbers have never reversed direction. Every year the momentum to legalize gets greater, with majorities in every western US state, British Columbia, Quebec, and Ontario. All the other provinces and states have the support of no less than 40% of their voters in support of legalizing marijuana; double the numbers from the year I started my crusade in 1990.

What’s going on? Is this all some sort of political joke?

Many times have I met Michael Ignatieff, the current Liberal leader, and heard him speak. Every appearance I have seen him, he is asked, earnestly, about whether a Liberal government will legalize marijuana. Each and every time Ignatieff laughed off the legalization question, as he did again a few weeks ago, by saying we shouldn’t be talking about it so much. Ignatieff wonders why people are always asking about marijuana. There are so many more important things in life, he says. Like “digging ditches,” as he suggested once in Newfoundland.

Indeed, when it comes to “drug use”, Ignatieff declares, “I just don’t get it.” He adds everyone should be out getting a university education, starting a family and building a community. These are fine things for those so inclined, but to say you can’t do them and be a part of the cannabis culture is a lie. To say you can’t smoke marijuana because it will stop somebody else from pursuing these goal is intellectually insulting.

To say that cannabis and the people who consume it are anti-education, anti-family, and anti-community is really hate propaganda. This is exactly what Ignatieff and his ilk are saying. Can you think of any group the Canadian public ought to hate more than a group that threatens to destroy the Canadian family and the Canadian community? That’s how the government usually labels terrorists – or the cannabis culture – interchangeably.

The fact that Ignatieff and a great many politicians (including President Obama in his 2010 public response to the most requested YouTube question, which was about cannabis legalization) do this in a jocular manner is extra creepy. That’s because joking about maintaining marijuana prohibition in spite of the majority will doesn’t sound like hate. It’s a very interesting technique that seems to be exclusive to marijuana prohibition propaganda. At first, Ignatieff and his audience laugh at the question. “I expected this would come up…” begins a merry Ignatieff, warming up the room. Knowing chuckles come from the audience. A bond has been formed. We’re all hip and cool. We’re all in on the marijuana joke.

If you were talking about a crime that actually warranted the repressive laws of prohibition, it wouldn’t be something you’d be laughing about. Politicians don’t joke about arson, rape, murder, robbery, embezzlement. These are truly serious crimes. If a crime is serious enough to have police regularly smash into homes and hold taxpayers at gunpoint, put them in jail, take their kids, take their homes, well, that would not be a laughing matter. Declaring a culture war at the highest levels of government, empowering police and even ‘safety inspectors’ to invade the homes of Canadians over a plant that is federally recognized as medicine, well, that is not a laughing matter. These are the most serious things a government can do to its citizens in a society. These are things that Ignatieff normally would not be laughing about.

Politicians never mention shooting people, pointing guns at the heads of taxpayers and their children, or shooting dogs dead in their homes. They are never asked about it or any of the other horrific abuses of these bad laws. The people asking the questions, both the voters and the media, never mention the specific abuses and repressive laws within the legalization question.

This schizophrenic combination of laughter and repression is very bizarre. Sending a “culture” to jail while laughing about it is not the sign of a reasonable mind. Name another issue responsible for such barbaric laws that is discussed as a joke by politicians and leaders. There is none.

As to the matter of sending a culture to jail while using that culture’s music to get you elected so you can send them to jail, that is altogether Mephistophelean. Prime Minister Harper singing ‘I Get High (with a little help from my friends)’ and ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash,’ two songs created under the inspiration of huge amounts of marijuana, while Mr. Harper seeks to deliver a final solution (Bill S-10) to the ‘permissive drug culture’ that created such music, is, well, satanic. Mr. Harper co-opted the entirely wrong Rolling Stones song; he should have been singing, “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and fame…”

Ignatieff is saying marijuana and the people who use it threaten to destroy the social fabric of Canada. Any other opinions are not tolerated because “I just don’t get it.”

That the existing government leader, Mr. Harper, has declared war against my people and our cannabis culture, with the flaccid acquiescence of Mr. Ignatieff, demonstrates how perfidious their musical hypocrisy and perverted sense of humor really is.

Mr. Harper holds my fate in his “hands.” He delivered me unto the fate of D. Ray James Correctional Facility, and he can approve my transfer back to Canada. Failing any inherent political compassion to return me to Canada, I believe Canadian citizens will pressure the government in Ottawa to act in a civilized manner, though this is a rarely realized action from the government of Ottawa. At the least, I hope the Angus Reid polls showing a clear majority of Canadians want me returned holds sway, if compassion itself is unmoving.

Some Canada’s churches have recently come out against mandatory minimum jail sentences for cannabis offences. US evangelist Pat Robertson has said that marijuana should be legalized on his 700 Club television religious program. Given the nature of the Conservative base, this is an important development. Given the fact that marijuana prohibition is essentially a religion and is falsely sold as such, this is an exceptionally important moment in politics. Even conservative guru, University of Calgary professor Tom Flanagan, wants the Conservative government to embrace an end to prohibition.

Canada is now sending heavily armed police smashing into a private home and holding a person at gunpoint, all because a skunk was found living under his porch – true story. It is now standard operating procedure in Canada for police to legally smash into private homes and terrorize taxpayers at gunpoint, all because of the smell of a skunk. No apologies are offered; no thuggery is too extreme.

‘American War Machine’ by Peter Dale Scott, a new and superb analysis of the insidiousness of the global drug war, documents the real reason all this is going on in Canada, the USA, Mexico, Colombia, everywhere on Earth. It is impossible to paint a more damning picture of prohibition and the gangster governments it has created. If you want to fully understand why marijuana prohibition is a globally enforced policy, read this book.

My preferred book examining the truly evil genocidal nature of the worldwide prohibition has always been Richard Lawrence Miller’s book ‘Drug Warriors & Their Prey.’ It’s still one of the all time greatest books ever written. But when it comes to understanding how drug prohibition has created global politics and wars for the past 60 years and counting, ‘American War Machine’ is the book. Think of it as Prohibition Meets Dr. Strangelove.

Author Scott is not hopeful this corruption will end anytime soon. The current political climate, he explains, is restricted to those who have the “domination” mentality. Prohibition funds their wars. As long as we have prohibition, we will have endless war. These two parasites have formed a corrupt partnership that now feeds off the world community.

How does authority rationalize, both for its goon squads and for itself, this abuse and corruption? How does it ignite that internal sadism without calling it sadism? How do you get people so wired up that they will smash into taxpayers’ homes and perform all the other global depravities that are the exclusive demented domain of prohibition?

Here’s how, as recounted by the Grand Inquisitor in ‘Brothers Karamazov.’ Dostoevski’s story opens with Christ returning to Earth during the Spanish Inquisition. Heretics are being burned alive as an “act of faith”. The Grand Inquisitor sees Christ raise a child from the dead and knows He’s the real thing. The Inquisitor has Christ arrested and visits Him in jail.

It is here the Inquisitor lectures Christ on the craft of public relations. In Dostoevski’s story, Christ is not to be taken only as a religious figure. He is used as a literary device to represent truth in any form. The Inquisitor is used to represent the suppression of truth by any self-rationalizing and corrupt authority – think Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff, or even my Inquisitor, former DEA Administrator Karen Tandy.

As not-so-grand Inquisitor Karen Tandy stated in writing upon my arrest on July 29, 2005, I was jailed for truth. The more I spoke, the more convinced Canadians and Americans became of the truth. Over those years leading up to my arrest, as I toured, spoke, published, broadcast, and ran for elected office, the more the citizens came to see cannabis prohibition as the evil it is. Tandy did not hide this. Like the Grand Inquisitor, she proudly laid it right on the line. I am in jail, as she put it, because I am a propagandist with my “propagandist magazine Cannabis Culture,” giving away “hundreds of thousands of dollars to legalization lobbyists” (i.e. truth tellers) “active in the United States and Canada.”

I am in jail precisely because I expressed an idea, specifically the idea of freedom of thought, the idea of truth. This is precisely what the Grand Inquisitor tells Jesus Christ: “What are we going to do with truth? Humanity is just too shallow, stupid, and scared to ever be able to handle the burden of the truth, which is the burden of free thought, of being able to think for yourself. Freedom,” claims the Inquisitor, “is simply too heavy a responsibility for people. It is easier and more natural for them to obey.”

“And if it is a mystery, we too have a right to preach a mystery, and to teach them that it’s not the free judgment of their hearts, not love, that matters, but a mystery which they must follow blindly, even against their own conscience. So we have done. We have corrected Thy work and have founded it upon a miracle, mystery and authority. And men rejoiced again that they were led like sheep, and that the terrible gift (freedom) that had brought them such suffering was, at last, lifted from their hearts,” explained the Grand Inquisitor to Christ.

Therefore, pontificates the Inquisitor, people like himself take on that responsibility by deceiving the masses for their own good. We give them a reason to live. We tell them how to live. We give them false hopes and phony beliefs. We make up lies so they don’t have to think for themselves. And Inquisitors can use all and any manner of torture and depravity to accomplish this end.

In the book ‘The Grand Inquisitor’s Manual’ by Jonathan Kirsch, his preface explains the atrocities that were committed by authorities over several centuries with impunity:

“Above all, the Inquisition relied on what it regarded as the extraordinary nature of the CRIME of HERESY to justify every excess and atrocity. These heretics were accused of being ‘thieves and murders of souls,’ and the war on heresy justified the deployment of every weapon in the inquisitional arsenal. To accuse someone of heresy and then allow him or her to go unpunished was simply unacceptable, a threat to the power of the Church. After all, the acquittal of even a single accused heretic would surely bleed away some of the dread and terror that was regarded as crucial in deterring others from false belief.

“Far worse, as the Church saw it, was the spectacle of a true believer of a forbidden faith who was perfectly willing to suffer bravely and die heroically for that faith. This was the real reason that the inquisition sought to avoid making martyrs of the accused heretics by torturing them into abject confession… Torture was not only tolerated but actively encouraged because the Church regarded the war on heresy as an existential struggle with Satan and his minions on Earth; the victims of torture nothing more than ‘traitors to God’ in the eyes of the persecutors. To the horror and sorrow of countless generations to come, the Inquisition demonstrated that the demonization of one’s adversaries makes it legally and morally acceptable to torture and kill them.”

“If only you had given them a miracle at the end,” the Inquisitor tells Christ, “you would have won them over. Easy. All you had to do was come off the cross.”

“But you did not do that,” the Inquisitor criticizes a silent Jesus. “You expected too much of these worthless souls. As a result, we have altered your work. And now they believe us. They will do anything we say. The very people you have tried to save will now destroy you on my command.” To prove this, the Inquisitor says he will order the mob to burn Christ at the stake.

Christ never says a word. His only response is to kiss the Inquisitor. Shaken, the Inquisitor opens the jail door and tells Christ to leave and never come back. (“The kiss glows in his heart, but the old man adheres to his idea.”)

Even the cynical and hardened Inquisitor had some momentary compassion left in him.

I can only hope.

– Marc Emery
February 12th, 2011

Write to Marc in prison!

Rules and guidelines for sending books and mail are at www.FreeMarc.ca

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

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To begin with, on Monday, January 31st, I received a treasure trove of new books, nine of them, including Marc Twain’s Autobiography Vol. 1, ‘Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Writers and Artists Who Made the National Lampoon Insanely Great’, ‘Ain’t Nobody’s Business if You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in our Free Country’, ‘The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s’, ‘Last Call: The Rise & Fall of Prohibition’, ‘Uncle John’s Giant Bathroom Reader’, two prisoner lawyering books, some Buddhist philosophy books, 10 excellent letters from my serious correspondents, some photos from Jodie, and a few magazines. I’m receiving Surfer and North American Hunter magazines, gift subscriptions that my fellow inmates find interesting. I was denied a musical greeting card, but I’m aware of that because I received the proper paperwork advising me of its rejection by the mailroom.

 

All this unimpeded flow of books, magazines, and letters to me without having to go through the bizarre rigmarole I was required to do up till a few weeks ago had me reflect on progress here at D. Ray James. I got all my ‘cop-outs’ (complaint/request forms in the prison argot), and surprised myself with how many of my cop-outs have been resolved. I am often frustrated by the apparent lack or slowness here of progress at this facility, and I make it clear I think treating Canadians and other foreign nationals in the US federal prison system in a discriminatory manner is unjust. I regard myself an eyewitness, a truth teller, a journalist. So, I got out my file of official complaints/requests to management for a review.

 

This next section would have to be titled:

 

“In Defense of The Management at D. Ray James Correctional Facility”

 

Friday, November 19th, 2010:

To the Case Manager: “I would like to begin the treaty transfer process to return to the Canadian Correction system.”

 

Result: Process completed 7 days ahead of schedule when all my transfer paperwork is FedEx’ed to the US Dept. of Justice in Washington, D.C. on January 16th, 2011. The deadline was January 21st, 2011.

 

December 12th, 2010:

To Business Services: www.accesscorrections.com does not take Canadian credit cards for inmate deposits into their commissary accounts. It is also not possible to send inmates at D. Ray James Correctional Facility money orders to deposit into their accounts, nor are Western Union deposits allowed either. This makes the situation for Canadian inmates extraordinarily problematic. Will we be able to receive money by Western Union ever?

 

Result: On January 31st, 2011, it became possible for families and friends of inmates to deposit money in inmate accounts via Western Union. Canadians or Mexicans or individuals outside the USA must use cash and take the money physically to a Western Union location (in Canada, these are at Money Mart). The cost is $15.00 (which goes to Keefe Commissary Network) plus the fee that Western Union normally charges, anywhere from $5.00 to $39.00, depending on the $5.00 up to $2,000.00 being sent to an inmate’s account. This is a huge convenience for those who can afford these service fees, but it’s noteworthy that in the B.O.P. system for American citizens, a money order for the same amount, costing only $1.50 to $5.00 at most, can be mailed to that US citizen inmate’s account. Because these ‘for profit’ foreigner prisons must exploit every situation for the profit of GEO Group, the money order option is not available to us here.

When sending money to an inmate at D. Ray James (like myself, for example), you take cash to a Western Union, use the BLUE QUICK COLLECT form, with the following information:

Pay to: D. Ray James CF
Code City: DRayJames
State: GA
Acct. #: 40252-086 Emery
Attention: Marc Emery

(For any American depositing into my account, using credit cards at www.accesscorrections.com is a lower service charge.)

– 8(f) Nutritional information cards will be displayed for all prepared menu items listing calories, fat, cholesterol, and sodium content of each item.

– 9(a) A nutritional analysis will be conducted annually by a registered dietician to ensure they meet the Daily Reference Intake (DRI) for nutrients published by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of the Sciences.

– 9(c) All nutritional analyses will be certified in writing by a Registered Dietician. This certification will cite compliance with the DRI’s.

I have not been able to find a single staff person here at D. Ray James who can confirm that the filter in the water tower holding all the drinking water has been replaced recently or regularly. I believe, since the surrounding area around Folkston is swampland and Jodie and I saw flecks of blue and black debris in the drinking water provided to us in the visitation room (bottled water has hardly been in the vending machines in visitation for 3 weeks), that the filter in the water tower – if in fact there is one – is not sterile or effective, and that the water here is unfit for human consumption. The water here should be tested; Jodie says it smells and tastes strange compared to the tap water at home in Vancouver. I believe a public safety official would order the water tower filters changed regularly. The water in the surrounding area smells of sulphur and other brackish elements; considering the huge area around Folkston is a famous swamp (the Okefenokee Swamp), the water should be plainly suspect here. GEO Group just spent thousands of dollars painting its blue GEO Group logo on two sides of the tower, a 10’ x 30’ job, to cover the “Cornell” logo from the private prison company that was bought out by GEO Group. Here’s hoping they’ll invest that much in clean water.

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January 24th-31st, 2011: In one of my previous blogs I wrote that the Chaplain was getting 25 guitars for a music program similar to other prisons where inmates have regular and easy access to instruments to play. This was the understanding of Randy, a Canadian here from New Westminster (near Vancouver) whose music business associations back home had his Canadian musician friends offer 25 Spanish guitars to DRJCI for inmate use, since hundreds of inmates here are musicians. The management here turned down this offer to have 25 guitars donated free to D. Ray James, no explanation offered.

Then, Randy’s understanding was that D. Ray James would provide these guitars, as of course they should. GEO Group receives $1,004,000.00 US EACH WEEK on this contract, enough to pay for standard inmate amenities. Yesterday I spoke to glum and dejected Chaplain Higbee who stated that he was unsure if GEO Group would provide for any musical instruments at all for D. Ray James. He was inclined to think they wouldn’t. Saving souls is his stock-in-trade, but I think he’s discovered he’s working for a devil of an employer!

So GEO Group turns down 25 free guitars for inmates, but won’t commit to providing any instruments with its total $2,450,000,000.00 (yes, $2.45 BILLION) received from the US taxpayers in 2010 alone! GEO’s competition, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), provide for inmates at the foreigner-only federal prison up the highway in McRae, Georgia; there they have a collection of guitars, drums, bongos, congas, and even two pianos for inmate use. There is a music practice room. Inmates put on concerts in the gym once a month for any musicians who put themselves on the concert performance list. There is a band practice room. There is a CD player room where inmates can plug in their headphones and listen to a CD currently playing. Most prisons have similar programs, but not this place.

One microwave oven per unit of 64-80 men is providing problematic. I put in a cop-out (request) for a second microwave in every unit and the written response was “no.” Yet the microwaves are in such constant use 18 hours a day they are burning out rapidly. It would probably save money and reduce wear and tear to have 2 microwaves in each unit, as well as easing tensions of long line-ups for use. Microwaves in Q building’s Pod 5 & 8 burned out in the past week, so inmates from those pods were invited into the pod next door (6 & 7) to use their microwave, making even longer line-ups and increased stress on the microwaves.

At McRae, there are seven (7) televisions in each unit or range: four in Spanish and three in English. Here we have just two televisions in each unit: one in Spanish (largely sports), and the other is supposed to be for English. However, because each unit here is 95% Hispanic [native language being Spanish], there is some unsubtle pressure in each unit to make both TVs Spanish-Language, a perspective I understand given the inmate population. But this brewing conflict is abetted by the stinginess of GEO Group management. When I posed this to the B.O.P. monitor on site, they remarked that the third TV for each unit is already here, but “coaxial and electrical issues” are the hold-up.

Nine days ago, ten exercise bicycles were put in the basketball courts for inmate use. As of today, all of them are out of order. I sat on every one of them and tested them myself. Despite a claim to have spent $2,000.00 per bicycle, they seem to be light-duty household models worth no more than $300.00 each. Something doesn’t jibe here. Bradley, another Canadian inmate here, just fixed them!

They installed a kiosk out in the yard area that is to be used to load songs onto the Mp3 players they plan to sell in commissary for $130.00 each. There is a satellite dish atop the rec office to receive the latest songs, which will cost inmates $1.60 per song to download onto their “Secure System” inmate Mp3 player (no iPods for us!). The Mp3 players are not for sale yet, so we’ll see how that goes. A critical matter is whether the $130.00 cost and $1.60 per song cost is to be counted towards the $320.00 monthly maximum limit inmates have on their commissary spending. For example, January has 5 commissary purchase days, which for my unit happens to be Mondays on January 3, 10, 17, 24 and 31st. As of today, January 24th, I’ve reached my limit, so next week, January 31st, I can’t buy anything from commissary, and I just typically order food. So if I order an Mp3 player, it means that month I’ll have to cut back on $130.00 worth of food (packaged meat, fish, condiments, tortillas, hot-sauce, spices, noodles, etc.) Ordering 20 songs in one month is a $32.00 purchase, and that means I’ll have to order $32.00 less of food. Even under regular circumstances like this month, I’m going to have to go a week on austerity rations. You can see someone is making money on these inmates because these songs are available from $0.79 to $1.29 per song from mainstream providers like iTunes and Amazon.

DRJCI now has an inmate photographer taking photos for $1.00 each in the visitation room every Saturday, Sunday and Federal Holiday, which is very good. Inmates will also be able to get a photo taken of themselves in the yard against a wall on every third Sunday for $1.00. The price is OK (although SeaTac FDC offered 2 copies for $1.00), but probably 200 to 300 inmates will be lined up to have a photo taken in the 7 hours (8:30 am – 3:30 pm) one Sunday a month. It means many will have to wait SEVERAL hours just to have their one photo taken. And if it’s raining and you have to wait outside, or on February 20th, raining and cold…? There’s no reason it can’t be done weekly, it just requires one camera and one inmate. After all, it will make money. The cost of a 4” x 6” glossy photo from a digital camera is approximately $0.20.

I’ve been reading numerous jailhouse lawyering and paralegal texts, and familiarizing myself with Lexus/Nexus, the database that contains all federal statutes. I made a disconcerting discovery in the last few days filling out forms, grievances, reviewing appeals, motions, requests for transfer of inmate funds, and all the useful activity I like to think I do on behalf of the inmates. When I started here on November 30th, the other paralegals, Guy and Darren, would fill out this “Half-Time” early deportation status request form on behalf of the largely Hispanic inmates and mail it to and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in Atlanta, GA. All done at no charge, of course, as is all our paralegal work. This form was an application for an inmate who had never been deported before to get early deportation at the halfway point in their sentence.

Needless to say, this excited the inmates who “qualified”. Over the next six weeks I assisted a dozen inmates fill this “application.” A little leery, I asked my friend Loretta Nall to call the ICE office in Atlanta, GA to confirm the program existed. Buy by mid-January she had not done this for me. That is a glaring difficulty here, that there is no way for us to email or call any government office, lawyer or reference on the “outside” to corroborate the many legal concerns that come our way. Even though this is supposedly an Immigration & Naturalization Service Federal Prison for deportable “aliens”, there is no one here in any way knowledgeable in immigration matters to advise or assist us.

On Saturday, an inmate brought in a 2-page form (attachment B) called a “Motion for Sentence Relief under the Federal Prison Bureau Non-Violent Offender Act of 2003.” I found this suspicious immediately. It seems to be a motion, or application, for early release of a non-violent offender over the age of 45. It is framed as a motion, but H.R. 3575(a) is a House Resolution, meaning that this may have once been proposed legislation, but actual laws use differing numbering. Federal Prison Bureau doesn’t exist. It is the Federal Bureau of Prisons. When I put “non-violent offender relief act of 2003” into Lexus/Nexus, nothing came up. The so-called application was a fake; a hoax. The so-called law doesn’t exist. I came back to the inmate and said, “This is a fake.”

Attachment B (Page 1)

Attachment B (Page 2)

I then took it to Miguel, a Hispanic paralegal from Peru who has worked in law libraries for 14 years (1991-2004, 2009 to present), and is really knowledgeable around Lexus/Nexus, and he said, “of course it’s a fake. If it was real, I myself would qualify.” I asked him why hoax documents circulate in prisons, he said that so-called jailhouse lawyers charge money (commissary) to file these fake motions they’ve convinced other inmates are real, exploiting the hopes and frustrations of prisoners who are desperate to get out and whose English or knowledge of the law is unsophisticated. These unscrupulous people charge $5.00 or $10.00 or $15.00 or whatever they can to “help” inmates, largely Hispanics, to file bullshit motions, or writs of Habeas Corpus, or even these “half-time” early release applications.

Pondering this, I took a closer look at the so-called “half-time” release application we’ve dutifully assisted 30 to 40 inmates in filling out since I’ve been in the law library. I put the term ‘Stipulated Deportation Order’ and A.R.S. 41-1604.14’ and ‘Class 3’ ‘felony offense’ and ‘A.R.S. 13-1404’ and ’13-1405’ and ’13-1406’, ’13-1410,’ and ’13-604’ and I could not find ANY of these so-called statutes or terms anywhere in the Lexus/Nexus. For example, felonies are classified as “A, B, C, D, & E Class” felonies; there are no class 1-6 felonies. (Attachment A)

Attachment A

There is no term “Stipulated Deportation Order” anywhere in any deportation or immigration statutes or regulations. This “application”, too, is a hoax. I was careless and didn’t verity it early on, and sincerely helped a dozen inmates fill them in and send them off, no doubt giving them false hope of early release. After I “assisted” them, they looked at me and said “how much do I owe you?” and I was always so pleased to say “Nothing. This is my job to help you and I’m happy to do it.”

Now I feel foolish. I feel I should make an announcement in my unit that the half-time application is a hoax and apologize to the four people in my unit who got their “applications” filled out with me. I feel crestfallen giving false hope to those inmates. I even sent one by certified mail with $5.54 worth of my own stamps and I was somewhat curious when the ‘letter received’ signed portion never came back.

When I told Miguel of my discovery, he said, “of course it’s a fake. That is what I told them.” (‘Them’ being the two paralegals.) “What?!” I exclaimed, “You didn’t tell me!” “They didn’t want to believe me,” he said. “This fake notice is even at other prisons like Leavenworth (Kansas) and in Arizona.” The two paralegals are whom I learned from, so that disappointed me. They didn’t do due diligence on the authenticity of this bogus ‘application’. I went to them and said “The Half-Time for is a hoax. None of it checks out. None of it.” One said, “I’ve gotten a response.” Then he showed me his response (attachment C), which is a form-letter brush-off that doesn’t in any way acknowledge the “half-time” application. Basically the form-letter response says, “We don’t know you. There is nothing we are doing for you.” When I said we should tell the inmates it is a hoax, they said, “I don’t want to be the one to do that.”

Attachment C (Page 1)

Attachment C (Page 2)

This is the problem with having no connection to the outside world by email or phone. With only 300 minutes monthly, I can only afford brief 10-minute conversations once a day with Jodie; I have no minutes available to seek legal help from anyone. This discovery has made me a bit sad, but certainly wiser into doing my due diligence on any work, and not taking anything at face value until I’ve confirmed the actual facts of a matter.

Yesterday and today I filed two “Hail Mary” requests that are unlikely to get desired results with Bureau of Prisons. A “Hail Mary” is a very long shot attempt at something. Pablo, an Argentinean inmate in my unit, failed a urine test at McRae C.F. last year, a private prison run by Corrections Corp. of America (CCA) in Georgia, north of here. His dirty u/a (as a failed test is called) showed ‘marijuana metabolites’ in his urine. His punishment was severe and draconian, totally over-the-top, for a failed urine test; he received:

– 90 Days total in solitary confinement (30-days while waiting for the verdict, 60 days for the punishment)
– 67 days loss of good time credit (67 days extra jail time)
– 1 Year loss of Visitation
– 90 Days loss of Telephone
– Disciplinary Transfer to another prison

This is extraordinary for a solitary failed urine test; loss of 67 days’ good time credit, loss of visitation (for a year!), phone, and 90 days solitary confinement! Wow! That’s really piling it on. And then to get moved to another prison – all over maybe one joint! So I’ve filed a request to have some of his good time reinstated, appealing for mercy. To get this request to the B.O.P. Department that can relevantly make a decision, we will have to file the request 5 to 9 times, going to the next level as it gets refused, as it certainly will the first 4 times because DRJ cannot reinstate good time, particularly from a disciplinary action that took place at another (non-GEO Group) facility. Only by the 5th appeal does it get dealt with by Bureau of Prisons (B.O.P.).

Today I met Mr. Peters, the inspector from Washington D.C. for Bureau of Prisons, and had a twenty minute conversation with him. I went over my list of what I feel are necessary improvements that ought to me made here; Corrlinks/email, exercise equipment, additional TVs, additional microwave ovens, shower curtains for privacy, more money spend on current books and subscriptions to the library, a music program with instruments, practices and performance opportunities, legitimate accredited courses, a career room with pamphlets and brochures for correspondence courses, all the amenities and opportunities that are at McRae (again, it’s a facility exclusively for foreigners like this one) or any Federal low security prison for Americans. I added, “What did I do that was so bad you had to send me to THIS place?” Of course, I was emphasizing my point with the last remark. He dryly responded, “The designation center in Grand Prairie, Texas sent you here, it had nothing to do with me.”

He went on, “but I will say that when McRae opened – and I worked there for two years – they had none of those things they currently have now. All that progress was achieved by having a continual dialogue between the Warden and inmates. So keep taking your case to the Warden. I can’t order him to do anything in regards to expenditure of monies. You keep bringing your concerns and requests to the warden and things will come. I’m aware McRae has seven televisions per unit and an excellent music program, but that didn’t happen right away. When McRae opened, there was nothing. It came about over time.”

In fact, at McRae they have dozens of pull-up bars, exercise equipment (treadmills, steppers). After the Chow Hall is closed, it’s turned into a games room. There are special meals on all religious holidays, celebrating even the Santeria holy days for the Haitians. There is a veggie tray for vegetarians and Kosher meals. There is a special meal for all inmates of each nationality’s Independence Day (any inmate with a population of over 100, so the national holidays celebrated are the Mexican, Dominican Republic, Haitian, Cuban, and Colombian Independence Days.)

I pointed out that while it’s true everything takes longer than you think it ought to, one of our washing machines hasn’t worked since October 15th, 2010, over 3 months ago, and has never been repaired. The fire-alarm issues persist after 14 weeks of aggravating aural assaults. As to Western-Union deposits to inmate accounts, we are being told that for Canadians and others outside of the USA, that service should be available within the week. We shall see about that, but I hope so, because Canadians cannot put money into a Canadian inmate’s account here by money order, Western-Union, or Canadian VISA or MasterCards, so it’s impossible to put money into MY commissary account from Canada. How discriminatory is that?!

My friend and fellow paralegal Avedis, or “Mike”, has been a powerful voice for the rights of Jews here at DRJ, in regards to religious services, dietary requirements, and religious observation. The Rastas, Muslims, and other faiths have similar grievances to Mike. (See Attachment “M”).

Attachment M (Page 1)

Attachment M (Page 2)

Attachment M (Page 3)

The water to drink here contains sediment, floating flecks of black and blue. Jodie saw this when she came to visit and the pop and water machines were broken; we were given styrofoam cups for the drinking fountain water, but warily examined bits of debris or paint or metal in the bottom of the cups we had to drink water in. The tap-water here comes from a giant and old water tower on the DRJCI property. I talked to the infrastructure person on staff today and told them in my opinion the water here was unfit for human consumption.

His first response was “I’ve been drinking it for 13 years and I’m OK.” I agreed that was a good sign, but I questioned whether the water tower had any filters and whether those filters had been kept clean. They said that the water was filtered on the way into the tower but were unsure if it was filtered on the way out and how often, if ever, the filters were cleaned. Mike’s family is in the water bottling business and is familiar with potable water and reverse-osmosis filtration. His opinion is that the water here is unfit for human consumption, and that the area surrounding Folkston is swampland. The water would be of very poor quality.

DRJ’s Library made its first acquisition of “new” books today, about 150 remaindered books of little use to the inmates – but it’s a start I guess, albeit pathetic, penny-pinching response at that. The library needs 500 to 1,000 contemporary bestsellers like Stephen King, James Patterson, Dean R. Koontz, contemporary business books, modern text books, and contemporary Spanish authors en Espanola. Notably the inmates were not consulted about the books they would like to read, nor were any of the Library Aides, and especially not me. I’ve only had 35 years of bookselling and library experience, what would I know?

Whatever was cheap and easily available with the least amount of thought was what was acquired, so they can refute my repeated refrain that no money has been spent on the library since DRJ opened in October 2010. However, still no money has been spent on relevant paralegal or prisoner litigation books or newsletters for the law library. I have had to provide all of that. B.O.P. regulations require a certified librarian for a prison of this size, but there is not a certified librarian at DRJCI. The D. Ray James Correctional Institution’s inmate manual states: “D. Ray James provides easy access to a full range of materials for education and leisure purposes.” There is virtually no educational material at DRJ however.

There is still no progress on the Laotian man, Nong, being granted permission (as is his right) to marry his fiancé here at DRJCI, after 10 weeks of complying with all the requirements. No updates on the man requiring replacement dentures after GEO Group lost them 7 months ago.

Recently an inmate came into the law library to tell us the sad news his mother had died. He’s indigent and has no money on his phone account. He went to the Chaplain, explained what happened, and asked if the Chaplain could arrange a free call to his family. The Chaplain told the inmate that rules here required the inmate to “write or call your family and have them fax the death certificate” and THEN he could get the free “family emergency” phone call that DRJCI procedures allow for! The next day the paralegals, including me, brought this up with the Assistant Warden, and he immediately agreed, “That’s the wrong answer. He should get his call.”

My Political Agenda

All of this time in prison is helping crystallize my political agenda to take to the people of Canada upon my release. Canada and America are broken, and I can fix this. But it requires not tinkering, not soothsaying; it requires a rational prioritization of what government can provide and what it cannot. It must not attempt to indulge the futile, the irrational, the impossible.

Currently, The Conservative Party of Canada, propped up by opposition political parties too timid to go to the polls to push them from government, are indulging in a (sterile) orgy of deficit spending, military aggrandizement and aggressive prison building and incarceration. All three of these self-destructive policies drain the blood and treasure of any nation that travels this path to its inevitable destination, a ruinous police state.

The Canadian Military has been unnecessary for 50 years, and today serves no valid purpose, as we are not under threat from any outside force (except from, perhaps, those whom our troops, alongside the American military, terrorize and kill in occupied countries overseas – so any attacks against Canada would be the direct result of our government’s own actions).

The Tory policy of spending $450 billion over 20 years is catastrophic folly. Think what $450 billion could do in the pocketbooks of ordinary Canadians: it could pay for staggering improvements in health care, education, job creation and individual well-being and personal wealth. Prison expansion is emblematic of a failed society. The goal is to abolish prisons. Prisons are schools for criminality, they do not rehabilitate, nor, as our criminal justice system is structured, can this be made possible. Our society is made more unsafe and more violent by the policies that make incarceration inevitable: Prohibition, and prisons themselves, whatever the offense, make criminality more pervasive.

As I speak across Canada when I return, I will explain how Canada can be made perpetually prosperous, demonstrably free and just by:

1) Repealing the prohibition of cannabis and all substances.

2) Abolishing the military and withdrawing from NATO.

3) Ending the ‘security & surveillance’ state apparatus and repudiating the US government ‘security’ state integration.

4) Abolishing the current prison system and replacing it with home detention, restitution, and in the case of violent threats, remote-area detention. We live in a sophisticated electronic ear where it is easily possible to restrain individuals with total monitoring and electronic pain-control to correct behavior. Public safety in this regard is the only legitimate use of the ‘security’ system. Housing criminals together at such huge expense and no benefit must end.

5) Ending all corporate subsidies, loans, and monopolies by the federal or provincial governments.

6) Abolishing the Income Tax and taxes on Canadian-situated investment. Taxation required will be through consumption/consumer taxes (sales taxes).

7) Ending taxpayer financed foreign aid while abolishing the tariffs on products from developing nations, which will truly help the ordinary African or Latin American worker.

8) Ending any preferred status or monopoly privileges for phone, telecommunication, cable carriers. Unlimited Canadian based competition is to be facilitated.

9) The government will continue to finance the nation’s health care and schools. The nation’s health care program will expand to include universal dental care. Taxpayers will choose the recipient of their tax dollars in choosing schools, medical and dental services. Competition among service providers will be robust.

10) Deficit financing, provincially and federally, is outlawed. Prioritization as I have described it is imperative to maintain Canada’s standard of living.

11) The tar-sands oil extraction project is environmental insanity. No government should permit such poisonous defilement of a nation’s natural heritage.

Decisions regarding the governments’ priorities need to be made: I choose schools, hospitals, doctors, dentists, universities, the CBC, a just society, competition, and genuine wealth sharing with our lesser-off fellow workers in the third world. I reject failed or irrelevant institutions of the past: prisons, prohibition, the military, income tax, deficit financing, and all of the crime, crisis and economic malaise that comes with them.

Write me at:
Marc Scott Emery #40252-086 Unit Q Pod 2
D. Ray James Correctional Institution
PO Box 2000
Folkston, GA
31537
USA

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January 21st – 28th 2011: I just finished reading a 450-page adventure novel, "Pirates of Savannah" written by a fellow Libertarian. It’s a fun read about the early settlers of the area along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, taking place in the years 1720-1740. It’s a story of struggle by ordinary (but heroic & brave) folk (all prisoners from English jails released to go to the “New World”) vs. the King of England and villainous lackeys, referred to as “lobsterbacks”, “Red-coats” and other harsher terms.

In the course of this adventure tale the reader learns much of the history of coastal areas apparently known in Georgia and South Carolina as the “Low Counties”. It’s a self-published work in a handsome binding, released on December 10th. Tarrin Lupo, the author, sent me a copy on the day of its release. Last week I cracked it open and was intrigued enough to enthusiastically finish it in four days. Although the author/publisher clearly used a spell-check, I found over 100 words spelled incorrectly, or words missing, or words present that should have been deleted. In total there were 172 corrections or revisions I found that I, as a professional editor in my former life, needed to be done for this book to be considered print-ready. I realized the phenomenon of the self-published book era is upon us. A month ago, I received from Amazon.com a copy of a book called The United States Jailhouse Lawyers Manual by Esteban Garcia. Although it’s the best little book on describing the application of "Writs of Habeas Corpus", within the first fifty pages I found 164 spelling errors, many egregious mistakes beyond the kind I found in "Pirates of Savannah" by Tarrin Lupo.

In Lupo’s book, spellcheck still did not detect over 100 errors, because words that were spelled correctly in the proper context were the wrong words in the context used. I found “idol” instead of “idle”, “where” instead of “were”, “scared” instead of “scarred”, “scrapes” instead of “scraps” and so on.

In Garcia’s book, $20.00 on Amazon.com, its clear no spell-check was used, as errors found include “doctrime”, “disrrict”, “ptrscribed”, “prtition”, “chage”, “Teaxas”, “dome”, “wrot”, “shouls”, “in”; the latter eight examples all come from one page (pg 13) and ought to appear as “prescribed”, “petition”, “charge”, “Texas”, “done”, “writ”, “should” and “on”.

Both are excellent books whose credibility is undermined by absence of an editor. This is to inform all would-be self-publishers I am available and I am cheap, to edit your book BEFORE you publish it. I have offered up my edited copy of both books to their respective authors at no charge, as I hope they will publish new editions with corrections and improvements made.

In addition to my volunteer editing, I finished Keith Richard’s book “Life”. Not a single spelling error found in over 500 pages. (I know what you may be thinking, “If he doesn’t find any errors, he misses the whole landscape…”). Since I grew up hearing my older brother Steve play “(Hey, Hey, He, He) Get Off My Cloud” several hundred times in early 1965, I’ve been a Rolling Stones fan. This book sure comes across in Keith’s ‘voice’, and the man has ingested drugs-o-plenty and is candid and unapologetic about his previous passion for mind-altering substances. ‘Keef’ survived a decade of serious drug-abuse but the problem I find with these rockers who give up on hard drug abuse or self-destructive use, is though they can perform their music well sober, their creative productivity seems to end. I refer to the Stones, whose last great albums were several from “Let It Bleed” to “Some Girls” 8 years later (1967 – 1975), or Aerosmith, who since they have been sober (starting around 1983) have had all of two hits in nearly 30 years vs. about 15 hits from 173 to 1981 when they were admittedly drug-addicted.

Drug abusers seem to create incredible music, though maybe it’s a combination of drug excess and youth. I’d say the same creative characteristic is true of Eric Clapton, David Bowie, Don Henley, Joe Walsh, and I’m sure you, my dear correspondent, can think of your own examples. I mean, Keith, Mick, Bowie, Tyler, Perry, Henley, and Walsh can sure PLAY their old songs that they wrote & created completely blotto on some dangerous substance really well, but when was the last time they WROTE a great song? Let add Fleetwood Mac to that list. Next up: “Doom Let Loose”, the history of Black Sabbath. Ozzy hasn’t written a great new song since “Crazy Train” thirty years ago, but he still abuses alcohol. After that, a history of Johnny Cash. Yikes, every great musician worth having an autobiography or biography was a notorious drug abuser. I read “Hammer of the Gods” (Led Zeppelin story), and am planning to read “‘Scuze Me While I Kiss the Sky”, the Jimi Hendrix story.

I started my serious study of speaking and writing Spanish. I’m using this wonderful book called Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish. I’m writing every lesson in notes, and saying the words aloud and getting feedback on my pronunciation from the 60 Hispanics in my dorm. Today I worked 5 hours on Spanish and that kind of concerted uninterrupted effort is productive. I’m feeling more comfortable attempting some Spanish phrases, but I’ve only just begun to comprehend the basics. But I’m going to try to study Spanish daily. I’m inspired by the approach this book takes. I received this book from my great friend Dana Larsen, who has sent me dozens of books over my 45 weeks in jail so far. Dana is even so considerate as to send books to other inmates who are in need of them. An acquaintance I made in Sea-Tac, who was the only other inmate from there that ended up here with me, named My, a Vietnamese gentleman, needed and English-Vietnamese dictionary, and asked me if the library could order one. Well, that’s never going to happen, and My is only one of two Vietnamese here, and speaks very little English but has decided its time to become bilingual so he is beginning to study English; at 37 years of age, it’s overdue. My is such an excellent fellow and I put it to Dana that he could really help my friend My out, and lo, My thanked me today for his dictionary that arrived yesterday in the mail here. He was elated and very optimistic about learning English.

There are improvements here at D. Ray James, but it’s fitful progress. There are now 10 stationary exercise bicycles in the basketball court areas. The inmates are using them. But they are cheaper home-use models meant, I think, for an hour or two use a day, not the kind of frequent use they are likely to see here. In the basketball court outside, they can only be used 7 hours a day. If we had then in our units, they could be used 18 hours a day (6:00am rise to Midnight bed). Many more inmates could make use of them. With over 1,400 inmates now, to rise to 2,500+ by summer, each pod needs 2 stationary bicycles of a heavy-duty quality; that is about 40 bicycles of better quality we require. The bicycles were put out Monday and 7 of the 10 are out of order already. [Note by Jodie Emery: Marc later spent time learning how to fix the bikes, finding a fault in the parts that has to be repeatedly attended to.]

The mailroom procedures have been made rational, conforming to Bureau of Prison policy and procedure, so my complaint about the mailroom has abruptly ended, as I am able to receive books and magazines without complications. I only hope that letters sent to me will not be returned to sender, as has been the case for about 25 letters sent to me thus far.

<a href="http://freemarc.ca/group/freemarcca/send-mail-and-money-marc-emery-us-federal-prison">Send Marc Mail!</a>

Dr. Davis, head of Education and Library Services, has been cheerful and helpful, though my official position at the library has yet to be printed up and instituted. I remain very busy with paralegal work and distributing books and magazines to my fellow inmates outside of the library aegis, so it is still fine.

Some things haven’t changed. The aggravating false fire-alarm went off six times yesterday, bringing the number of times it has gone off when I’m in the pod to 36. It has gone off over 85 times in Q pod since D. Ray James Correctional Facility (DRJCF) opened October 7th, 2010. Outside in the yard today I heard the fire alarm go off in R pod, so it’s a very annoying and insidious problem here. (Marc Note: Since written on Jan. 19th, on Thurs. Jan. 20th, it went off 4 more times, on Fri. Jan. 21st, 3 more times.)

While Jodie visited me last weekend for a wonderful three days, they had the halls outside the visitation room painted with pungent oil-based paint, giving some visitors and inmates a headache as the smell at times was overpowering. I would have thought that such noxious smells could have been avoided during visitation, especially since visitors have to travel far to get here and are a bit tired and weak from such a long trip – giving them hours of toxic fumes seems like something that could have been avoided. Oh well, DRJCF won’t be improved overnight. That much is certain! The visitation staff were extremely helpful and polite though, being very courteous. However, at the library on Thursday, January 20th evening, they had just painted the hallway and I developed a pounding headache. We are not allowed out, only on the hour, so by the time I got back to my unit at 9:15pm, I was very ill and threw-up and had the pounding headache for 2 hours – Toxic Fumes!

My friend Guy has typed up his adventures in bureaucracy at the end of this letter. It outlines in painful detail how some aspects of life here can be so exasperating. In Guy’s case, it is about his months’ long struggle to obtain a pair of orthopedic tennis shoes. I asked Guy to tell the tale because he recounts it so calm and deadpan.

My hair was getting longish. I wanted to get a trim, and what I discovered one night two weeks ago is that there is no Mexican/Hispanic phrase for “just a trim”. So I ended up with the shortest haircut I’ve gotten since I was 5 years old and my Dad gave what was in those days called the dreaded “buzz cut”. A whole generation of mine fought for the right to have long rebellious lengths of hair only to see kids and adults since the 1980’s embrace the very same “buzz cut” style I loathed in my youth. I got scalped is what I got, two weeks ago! Less than half an inch of hair was left! Ulp. Looked very strange to me when I looked in the mirror! Plus I have this ganglia on the left side of my neck below the nape of my hairline that looks like a serious tumor, but it isn’t. It’s just a buildup of sebaceous skin, a bump that looks freaky if you haven’t noticed it on my neck before. It’s been there for 25 years or so now, doesn’t hurt and doesn’t impact on my health so I’ve never had it removed. But now its visible and probably 40 or so inmates have said in worried tones, “Marc, there is a big lump on your neck, you should get that looked at.” I look completely different.

While looking on the commissary kiosk in our Q-2 pod, I saw that inmate photo tickets are finally available so I bought three for $1.00 each. That means on the next US holiday, an inmate photographer will be taking photos. I think Presidents’ Day is February 12th, which means that photos in the visitation room will be taken, which is Saturday, and Sunday February 13th is my birthday and Jodie visits me both those days so we’ll get our photo taken together, so that is 23 days away from today so my hair won’t look so starkly short. [Note from Jodie Emery: Photos are now available on every visiting weekend, so we got pictures taken on January 29th and will get them every weekend we visit.]

Last week, my transfer application was FedEx’d to the US Department of Justice. So now it is done and I wait for the verdict from the DOJ: approved or rejected. If approved by the USA, it then goes to the Canadian Minister of Public Safety for his approval or rejection. If approved by Canada, I get moved into the Canadian Corrections system within 3 months of the approval. To send a letter on my behalf to encourage my transfer home, go to www.FreeMarc.ca for the address to write your letter. Mine was the first transfer application done by the staff here at DRJCF, so I am grateful to my Washington, DC lawyer Sylvia Royce, and the supporters who I believe successfully cajoled the process along and raised money to hire Sylvia.

When I return to civilian life in Canada, one thing will be different; I’ve developed a taste for spicy food. To add flavor to the very bland food given to us, I use jalapeno peppers, minced garlic, half a bottle of hot-sauce, generous shakings of Mrs. Dash, mayonnaise, and olive oil. All these are available from the inmate store (commissary). I’ve suggested vegetables to be sold in the commissary, as is done at Taft and Moshannon Valley Prisons – both private prisons, the latter run by GEO Group like D. Ray James here – but there is resistance. I tried to emphasize that selling vegetables is keeping the inmates in good health (less demand on the doctor/medical staff) and would diminish the demand for vegetables on the “Black Market”. Some kitchen workers are known to steal the occasional vegetable and sell them to other inmates. Having these items sold in the Commissary, I put forward to the Warden, would take away the Black Market.

Shockingly, on Friday, January 21st, I enjoyed the best lunch ever served in the dining hall here. The baked beans had fresh tomato and jalapeños, the baked whole breast chicken was excellent, the salad had lots of carrot in it, green beans, a nice fresh bun, even the rice was special! I told the Head of Food Services “Great Job!! Best food here EVER!”

Unfortunately, because fresh fruit and vegetables are otherwise non-existent, I eat meat and fish that I can buy from commissary. I am looking forward to eating vegetarian when I get back to civilian life. Jodie, on her visits here, finds it difficult to get tasty and healthy vegetarian food in this part of the world. They like meat with everything, she finds, so she usually has salads (without the chicken that’s always included), and side orders of vegetables. I’m looking forward to making a spicy lasagna when I get home, with fresh spinach, ricotta cheese, and spicy tomato sauce. Oh, and to have a salad with broccoli, tomatoes, carrots tossed in a proper dressing. What I would give for a mango, a peach! I used to conk open a fresh coconut every week or so when I lived at home. Oh, nostalgia and excitement for the days back with my wife ahead!

My beloved hockey team, the Vancouver Canucks, are having their greatest season ever, and I haven’t seen a complete game this season (I saw three periods of one game at Sea-Tac only to have it go into overtime and then it was Lockdown). The Canucks are first place in the NHL, both conferences, if they can hold that premier position, it will be the first time the Canucks have won the President’s Trophy (first place over-all). Go, Canucks, Go! And save some glory for when I get back to (no longer GM Place) Rogers Arena, a few blocks from my home in downtown Vancouver!

Jumping topics, I wanted to say that Jodie’s visit Sunday, Jan. 16th, was notable because the Warden, Mr. Booker, came in the visitation room and introduced himself to Jodie and sat down with us exclusively, in a kind of gesture of recognition and interest. This is a courtesy on his part because he is well informed of my criticisms and complaints that find their way into the public discourse (internet & newspapers), as well as I rarely hesitate to tell him my complaints and concerns when I see him at chow hall.

One of the good things about the structure of D. Ray James is that most management staff can be found outside of the dining hall for 1 hour between 11:00 am and Noon, or Noon to 1:00 pm. On these occasions, Monday to Friday, any inmate can voice a concern or make an inquiry to the person responsible. Often I and other inmates are cynically inclined to believe nothing changes if you do voice your concerns, but I’m a believer in the adage the “squeaky wheel gets the grease”. A concern I am bringing up frequently is that Canadians cannot easily put money in a Canadian inmate’s commissary account here, not by Western Union or money orders, and not with a Canadian credit card, all of which are available if the Canadian is in the BOP system (like I was at SEA-TAC FDC). Only an American Visa or MasterCard is acceptable, which Canadians can only get by driving the USA and buying a pre-paid Visa or MasterCard at Wal-Mart. Angelo’s wife had to do this, drive from Bolton, Ontario to Niagara Falls, New York to buy $500.00 worth of pre-paid credit cards. The Canadian, Harris, had his wife go to Plattsburg, New York for the same reason.

The person responsible here for inmate money matters insists that by the end of this month, people will be able to send money to Canadians here via Western Union, but I have heard this since I arrived here 65 days ago. Same with the imminent release of Mp3 players; I heard that announced when I arrived here, but still no Mp3 players for sale (songs will cost $1.50 each to download). I also agitate for Corrlinks (inmate email) which all American inmates in the Federal Prison system have unlimited access to. No commitment to Corrlinks either.

One device that I’m hoping to convince the Warden to permit is the Kindle electronic book reading device. This would greatly save space for an inmate, allow us to read in the dark, poses no threat to the security of the prison and would further the education of any inmate. Since electronic devices like Sony portable radios and Secure System Mp3 players are now permitted at D. Ray James, I cannot see why Kindle book readers would not be allowed. I will let you know how that conversation goes. DRJ could even sell Kindles in the Keefe Commissary.

There is tension brewing in the units. Each unit houses up to 64 to 80 men. The 80 are in 40 2-man cells. Part of D. Ray James has 2-man cells now being used, just not the part I’m in. So each unit has only two televisions for all these men. In each range/unit, there are 55-60 Hispanics, and 3-20 English speakers. The Spanish speakers have one TV dedicated to them, and one TV is dedicated to English speakers. What is happening in numerous units is the Hispanics, greatly out-numbering the English speakers, are attempting to wrest control of the English TV. Today it reached violence in R-5 Pod, where an English speaker was intimidated, harassed, then confronted over his resistance to the Hispanics taking control of the TV. The answer is simple, but D. Ray James management resists the obvious: add another TV to each range, or put all the English speakers, number no more than two units (say, 120 – 140) in their own units, which is what all the inmates, including myself, would prefer. I would definitely rather be with all Canadians, Caribbeans, and others who speak English. Then we could converse, have 2 televisions in English, have all our notices on boards in English (instead of wading through Spanish Language notices), and our interaction in English.

Many Hispanics belong to gangs. None of the English speakers belong to gangs. The Hispanics tend to be nosier and less respectful of the idea of “quiet-time”, and if the Hispanics were all together, it would double the number of televisions in Spanish, which they would certainly welcome. I explained this to the Bureau of Prisons monitor here and she agreed it was a good idea, but she said “How would we look if African Americans were segregated from Caucasians, and the Hispanics, etc.” I pointed out that the difference is this is a situation created by D. Ray James, either add more TVs, or put people with their own language groups. The English speakers would be a mix of blacks, whites, and Hispanics whose native language is English. Other prisons have 3 to 4 televisions; it is only D. Ray James that limits a unit to two TVs. In Canada, at North Fraser, each cell has a TV, a cheap flat-screen that costs $150.00 each, paid for by the inmates from the inmates’ trust funds. The inmate trust funds here could easily cover the cost of additional microwaves, televisions, exercise equipment; all things that urgently needed! I should note that I never watch TV, so I pay no attention to what is on, and I have no objection to the TVs both being Spanish, but there is tension being created unnecessarily because of it. These situations that occur here, where the obvious answer seems unlikely to be implemented, is what makes life here unnecessary and miserable.

Still no progress on the fellow I mentioned in Newsletter #1 in getting dentures GEO lost 7 months ago replaced. Still no progress for the Laotian guy who has been trying for months to get married here and has done everything required by D. Ray James’ own procedure statements. (Update by Marc: word is the Laotian man has been given the ‘green light’ to get married at DRJCF! We’ll see if it happens, as rumours abound here.) I am still waiting for my property from Sea-Tac FDC to arrive, which is supposed to follow an inmate within 30 days. 65 days later and it has not arrived. I have written Sea-Tac advising them I am here. My radio, headphones, booklight, books, food (no doubt gone bad after this length of storage), correspondence, my political writings, my autobiography, my 2011 Canadian election guide, are all in this property which I believe is sitting at Taft Correctional in California, where I was designated to until last-minute I was directed to this remote ‘facility’. Most importantly, all my photographs of Jodie (including her sexy photos!) are in my photo albums in my two property boxes. [Note from Jodie: Marc’s property from Sea-Tac was indeed sent to the Taft prison in California, where Marc was supposed to be imprisoned, and has supposedly been shipped out after our lawyer contacted them asking for it to be forwarded to Georgia.]

Jumping topics again; I just received two books I’m about to read. One is called “Jailhouse Lawyers” by Mumia Abu Jamal, a man who has been on death row for decades, and work of fiction called “Cutting For Stone” by Abraham Verghese, a Booker Prize nominee for best work of fiction. Mumia’s book is about the jailhouse lawyers over the past 20 years whose efforts gave prisoners the few rights they actually have inside jail. “Cutting For Stone” is about conjoined twins who are separated and what epiphanies and tragedies befall them and the world around them. These books were sent courtesy of two supporters.

As of January 20th, I’ve put in 312 days on this 1,825 -day (5-year) sentence. With 235 days good time credit (provided I don’t lose all or part of that with disciplinary reprimands), that is 547 days off 1,825 – leaving 1,278 days to go if I serve every day of it in the US Federal Prison system. If I get transferred to Canada, I qualify for parole 6 months after I return to the Canadian Correctional system. The earliest I could be transferred back to Canada is this summer, if all goes well, so January or February 2012 is (optimistically) my hoped-for parole release date. The remainder of my time up to early 2015 would be on parole. If I serve the time in a US Federal prison, my release date (with good time) is July 7th, 2014.

You can write me or send books or magazines to me at:

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

If you want to put money on my Commissary account, you can do this using an American credit card, at www.accesscorrections.com – register at the website, look me up at D. Ray James Correctional Facility using my name and prisoner # 40252-086, and that helps me pay for the photocopies for these newsletters that I send out in the mail. It also helps cover the large cost of postage I go through mailing them out.

Thank you for your continued support and activism to help end this drug war. I am only one of countless individuals locked up for being involved with the amazing cannabis plant, and I hope that by bringing attention to what a seed seller from Canada endures will motivate people to do everything possible to stop the continuation of this insane and unjust campaign of persecution. Don’t just wait for change to happen, make it happen yourself!

<i>"It’s possible that one person can undo the evil of several thousand people. You should never underestimate your power." – Marc Emery</i>

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<u>“It’s Just a Damn Pair of Tennis Shoes!”</u>

By Guy Atkins, D. Ray James Correctional

I started this painful story with my unfortunate arrival at D. Ray James on October 13th, 2010. After going through the initial arrival process (ouch) I was finally put in a unit with 62 inmates, ALL but one spoke no English. (As you’ve heard, this concentration camp is designed “mainly for the Devil’s rejects”; that’s how it was put to me by an un-named officer.) Well, after approximately a month of being here, D. Ray James decided that inmates can have their own tennis shoes IF you had them when you got here.

So I excitedly ran (yes, I did run) to R&D to retrieve my tennis shoes. I was met by a horrid woman, who first looked at me weird because I was talking English, not just any English, but the Queen’s English (I am British). She actually asked me to repeat myself more than once – which I did. Anyway, after checking my tame tag… twice… and checking the spelling… also twice (‘Guy Atkins’ what a difficult name…?) she disappeared to the property room and returned with a brown paper bag containing my tennis shoes. My tennis shoes are made by LaCoste. They are all white with exception of a red stripe no bigger than inch by two. She said told me that I cannot have them because they are red. I asked her to repeat herself, and sure enough, this “White Tennis Shoe” was being called “RED”. No shoes or items of clothing here can be any color. Only white, grey and black are allowed. So because it was being called “RED”, it is a gang color, which makes it contraband for me to have it. I tried to reason with her that the entire shoe is white NOT red, but I soon realized that I was talking to myself, so humble as I am, I walked away.

The following day I went to see the doctor. This couldn’t happen, because unless you are dying or dead, GEO Group policy will not allow  you to see at doctor. You have to first put in a request to see the doctor, and a few days later you’re met in the medical department by a nurse “with a smile”. So I told the nurse that due my car accident 6 years ago I usually wear orthopedic shoes. I told her I needed my shoes, as otherwise I will start getting back pains, etc. She said she understood, but still insisted on taking my temperature, blood pressure, and pulse (yes, I still had one). She told me she’d go through my records and get approval from the doctor that I should have my shoes.

As a week went by, I caught up with a staff member in medical by the name of Mr. Friday, who in front of me confirmed with the doctor that I am allowed my tennis shoes. He got on the phone and advised Major Gallindo to take care of my issue as per doctor’s instructions. Mr. Gallindo gave his “word” over the phone that it will be dealt with on that same day.

Another week went by and I approached Mr. Gallindo and asked him “Sir, I’m Atkins, Guy; have you had a chance to take care of my tennis shoe issue yet?”. I thought there was a plane crash behind me as I could swear he was looking right past me. Anyway, he replied “No”, and that he’d get around to it the following day. This told me his “word” is obviously no good to his fellow colleagues, so him telling me, an inmate, I couldn’t really believe it on face value.

The following day I returned to the doctor, this time due to a terrible flu which turned out to be pneumonia. The doctor actually remembered me and asked if I had gotten my shoes. I explained what happened and he made a call to Mr. Friday again, Mr. Friday then told him “he’s on it”, (I’m not quite sure what he was actually “on”). Later that day I saw Mr. Friday in the dinner hall. He asked me if I had gotten my shoes. I just had to smile. “No, Sir. I obviously haven’t.” He again called Major Gallindo and asked “what’s going on?” The message I got back was it will be dealt with today. Yet another week went past and nothing.

Finally I caught up with someone from “security” who told me that because of the slight “red” on my shoe, it’s considered a “gang color”. I tried to reason with this gentleman saying I understand that in certain places the color “red” symbolizes “Bloods” and “blue” for “Crips”, yet all our prison-issued jackets and platform shoes are “blue” so technically aren’t we all “Crips”? Needless to say he had no answer for me. I took it upon myself to return to R&D and ask an officer if I’m allowed to have the same tennis shoe sent in for me in all white. “Yes” he replied, as long as it’s ordered direct from the retailer and is sent directly here. So I ran (yes, I’m still running everywhere, as I’m scared if I walk and take my time the rule may change be the time I reach my destination). Ok, so I call one my girlfriends and ask her to go online and send me some all white tennis shoes, by LaCoste of course. So after a few days go by she confirms that she actually sent me two pairs (she must love me!) and that they should be at the facility in 3 days.

Four days later I turned up at R&D with a big smile on my face ready to collect my shoes which, according to the tracking number, had been delivered. I saw two boxes sitting on the table from LaCoste (Yay!). They were opened up in front of me and first shoe has a little green on the alligator logo. The logo is no more than an inch. “Sorry Atkins. They’re GREEN. You can’t have them.” “GREEN?” I replied. “The whole entire shoe is pure white.” I could tell I wasn’t going to win this argument, so I let it go.

We opened the second box and this was ALL WHITE, no logo of any color, just pure white. “Err, sorry Atkins, you can’t have these either.” I almost died (ok, slight exaggeration) but I was dumbfounded. “You can’t have them because they are over $100.00 as per the receipt here,” showing me the cost (it was $139.00). My smile again was taken away from me, what I have so far learned is that there is no point in arguing with the system. Just be smarter and find another way.

Now I had to go back to the unit, call my girlfriend and tell her what happened. Before I could say anything I further learned that she had just purchased some “all white” Louis Vuittons for me that I’d love. (Err, slow down honey!) I told her the story of what had unfolded. She agreed that it is a dumb silly rule, long(er) story short, she AGAIN purchased some ALL WHITE tennis shoes from LaCoste (of course), and under $100.00. Another 3 days later I went to the mailroom to check if my shoes had arrived yet. (Mailroom gets them first, then they give them to R&D.) “No Atkins they’re not here, and the rule NOW is you need to get a specific form that allows you to order shoes from outside.” It’s actually called a BP331 “Authorization to Receive Property.” I explained that I never required one last week. “That was last week. This is the new rule.”

Okay, so I went running (in case you haven’t noticed I am running a lot) to the unit in search of a BP331. The first 3 officers I asked looked at me like I was an alien asking for their mother’s date of birth. I finally came across Mr. Gray (a nice gentleman) who said he has one in his office. So I got the form, it’s pretty basic, I needed to put the name and address of the actual company shipping the shoes, the amount, and it has to be signed by an “Authorizing Officer,” so I managed to bump into case manager Mr. Maynor (another nice gentleman – very helpful) and he was kind enough to sign it, so I went back to the mailroom but it was closed. I left it there for them to attend to the following morning.

The following day it was confirmed that they received my package, but now it was questioned “who authorized” my paperwork? “Mr. Maynor” I replied. Well now I was being told that it HAS to be the Warden who can authorize it. So I pulled my copy of the signed BP331 and asked where does it say “to be signed by the Warden”. Nowhere exactly. It says “authorizing officer.” I could see where this was going, so I calmly walked out and went to medical yet again. I could not see the doctor until I put in a request, it just so happened that coincidentally I was on a callout the following to day to see the doctor about my “follow up” from my pneumonia. I saw the same doctor, who asked me if I got my shoes yet. “No sir” I replied. I gave him the latest events, he shook his head and signed a request form clearly stating “Give this inmate his Shoes”. That has been forwarded to the relevant parties. Today, January 20th, 2011, I approached a member of staff and asked if I can collect my shoes. I was told that she thinks I need the “other” doctor to sign my authorization too.

With this latest “smash on my face” I had to take a walk and, come on, have a bitchfit with this vintage 1960’s typewriter I’m typing on. I’m going to give this to my good friend Marc, who I’m sure will add it to his excellent newsletters! With me luck people. After all, it is just a pair of damn tennis shoes!

After I had my bitchfit moment and let myself calm down, I went to R&D today at 1pm. Upon my arrival a nice officer, Mr. Luggers, asked me to wait in one of the holding cells as it wasn’t quite 1:00pm yet. They only deal with R&D and mailroom issues between 1:00pm and 2:00pm sharp. Upon it being 1:00pm, I was asked to approach the desk. “Can I help you?” is what the officer said. “Yes sir, I’m here to collect my tennis shoes.”

He asked me to wait and went to the property room, retrieved my box and brought it out and started doing the paperwork to give me the shoes. I couldn’t believe it. I was finally going to get my shoes! Just then, a woman staffer started making comments saying that I shouldn’t be allowed to get them as “they are not orthopedic tennis shoes.” “And how would you know this Maam?” I asked in my broken voice. “Because I went online and looked it up, and they are not orthopedic.” I was speechless. No, really, just speechless. In fact, my mouth was probably left open but I found no words in my voice to push forward. “Maam, are you saying that you took the time to go online especially to check on my ever-so-fly-looking kicks, to check if they are orthopedic or not?” Wow, as she went on she was told (yes, told) by Mr. Luggers that as per the “procedure statement” that he just read and went over, I did actually follow all the procedures and that I should be given my shoes. I could feel the heat steaming from her head. Before it got any further I picked up my kicks, signed my paperwork and headed out. So, yes, I finally got my shoes.

Just so that you know, this stated on approximately November 15th, 2010. Today is January 20th, 2011. Yes, it took awhile, but thank God I finally have my ALL WHITE tennis shoes! Later on this day while I was walking towards the chow hall, I walked past the same lady who told me I “got the wrong doctor to sign my approval.” I will give you one guess where she was looking… and it wasn’t at my cheesy smile… Happy reading. I’ll keep you posted to further events.

– Guy

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