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

[Editor’s note: Find out more about Marc Emery, including how to help bring him home to Canada, and how to send him a letter, at www.FreeMarc.ca. Marc also writes regular blogs, which are posted at CannabisCulture.com and FreeMarc.ca]

 

January 10-17th 2011: I have had many complaints about this concentration camp for foreigners. No US citizens are incarcerated here, where nothing ever seems to improve. But one aspect of my situation has gotten better.

 

The photocopier for inmates is finally available for use after this place has been operating 3 months. My fingers are so aching from writing five or six 8-10 page letters every day that I have decided to type up the whole story so I can mail it to people and add personalized parts at the end. I am falling behind in my correspondence; I’ve about 35 to 40 people I want to get back to but it’s not possible, so I hope this new format will suffice to keep them informed.

 

Nothing at D. Ray James, this private prison run by GEO Group, ever can be an exclusively good thing, so while the photocopier is functioning, the typewriters have not had correctable ribbon for 3 weeks now, so typos will abound this original hand-written newsletter, and there is little I can do about it.

 

This typewriter is vintage 1983. I hadn’t seen a typewriter for over 20 years until I got to D. Ray James. Even though US citizens in a “low” security prison have access to email (hours a day), computers, word processors, and printers, that is far too much for the ‘foreigner scum’ housed here at DRJCI. My apologies in advance for numerous typos in this letter I am unable to correct. [Note from Jodie Emery: typos and errors have been corrected for this online version.]

 

My job here at D. Ray James is to keep the inmate reading library in good order, straighten the shelves, prevent theft, keep the noise level down, and try to encourage the powers that be to spend some money on obtaining current books and magazines. The lady that is the Head of Library Services is Doctor Davis.

 

I was dismissed from this job on December 20th, 2010 because I love the library too much to see it dysfunctional. Not a single book or magazine in the English Language has been acquired in 3 months since D. Ray James Correctional Institution opened “for business” on October 4th 2010. There were 20 or so beat up magazines from July and August 2010 (although the only copy of Rolling Stone Magazine was from August 2009) and about 7 Spanish magazines (for about 1,000 Spanish-speaking inmates!). The library is made up of 3,332 books (I did the official inventory), 2,930 in English, all 10-40 years old, beat-up beyond belief, decrepit, ex-library, obsolete. There are 400 books total in Spanish. These were acquired when the prison opened, but are largely classical novels. That is the only purchase I have seen this facility make for the library.

 

So I ordered magazine & book purchasing catalogs. I, with the kindly librarian, Mr. Folk (not a real librarian; he actually applied to be head of security, but they made him the librarian instead – and he has since retired) giving me permission, filled out requisition forms to order magazine subscriptions. I was told by Mr. Folk to order 20 subscriptions to popular magazines.

 

One day, Dr. Davis came in and was alarmed by a library aide (me) filling out the GEO Group Requisition forms. I nonetheless read her the magazines I had chosen: Car Craft, The Sporting News, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, TV y Novellas, National Geographic… “Oh we aren’t getting National Geographic,” Dr. Davis said. “That’s way too sexually explicit. I know what the inmates are looking for when they read National Geographic. No, we won’t be subscribing to that.”

 

“But” I responded, slack jawed, “National Geographic is the single most subscribed magazine by libraries the world over. Every elementary school has a subscription to National Geographic.”

 

“Well, we won’t be subscribing to it here. Way too sexually explicit.”

 

It’s noteworthy that National Geographic is specifically EXEMPTED in Bureau of Prison Policy and Procedure from being considered indecent even if it does show aboriginal tribes with exposed nipples or genitalia (which isn’t common anyway). So that’s the kind of mind-set of the HEAD of Education and Library Services.

 

The next day, my personal subscription copy of National Geographic arrived with “King David and His Times” on the front cover, perfect for backward southeast Georgia, with articles inside on the 12th century Christian church architecture of Spain. No naked aboriginals anywhere to be found. So I put it up on the magazine rack, and it is without question the most popular magazine amongst the inmates.

 

We have not received any magazines through subscriptions by the institution since the time Dr. Davis took the magazine subscription requisition form. Then, as you might be aware, I had Jodie announce to my Facebook supporters – now numbering over 35,000 – Marc Emery’s D. Ray James Library Resuscitation Program. Since this penny-pinching place won’t improve the library, I took it upon myself to do it. I asked supporters to send me like-new current magazines, and they did. Dozens of them. I asked for contemporary Spanish-language novels and fans responded by sending dozens of them, and over 100 books in English. I was sent current law texts, hardcover Spanish to English dictionaries (the library – incredibly – had none), and large pictorial books, all for donation to the inmate library.

 

Then the people working here started going on the internet, and they learned of my plan to improve the library despite the best effort to keep the inmates in the dark and stupid, without any current reading material (except the atrocious newspaper, USA Today), and dismissed me after 100 items for donation to the library arrived. The mailroom stopped me from receiving any books or magazines. They rejected numerous letters sent to me. They cut off my phone access over the Christmas Holidays from December 22nd to 27th, 2010, as they did to every Canadian here, and some Canadians had not even had their phone access restored 16 days later (but more of that D. Ray James perfidy later). In short, my effort to do what this institution refuses to do – make the law library and reading library viable and current – was stymied and I was punished for caring too much about the inmates’ welfare. It’s clear the people who run this facility do not care, and want the library to be moribund and of little use to inmates.

 

In the law library, I am still doing paralegal work. I have supplied the other paralegals, a team of 4 other inmates, with information and texts and newsletter subscriptions and contacts on the outside to help us because the institution here provides no resources other than a clunky version of Lexus/Nexus, a program that will show all existing federal statutes. The five paralegals do virtually all the documents, inquiries, motions, appeals, grievances, requests, for all the 1,000 inmates, who largely don’t speak English, and very few write credibly in English. This is a huge task, to which they get paid 12 cents an hour (in my case) up to 40 cents an hour (in the case of Guy, a Pakistani-born British man who has a college education).

 

Of course, we can’t use a computer for all these formal documents! We have to use these ancient, obsolete typewriters, using non-correctable ribbon. Using the word processor, which is here, connected to a printer, which is here, would be a standard at every “Low” security prison for US citizen inmates, but we foreigners are too contemptible to be entrusted with the word processor so all our work for the inmates has to be done on these ridiculously time-consuming typewriters. Even though every one of the inmates is here for a non-violent offense, many are just illegal residents within the United States, working without permits. We are treated like we are in a medium-high security prison.

 

I was dismissed on December 20th, 2010, but on January 6th, 2011 I was reinstated. The warden was away for 2 weeks, and on his first day back he saw me. He said, “Emery, you shouldn’t have been fired from the Library. You’re reinstated.”

 

“Excellent, Sir,” I said. “There are issues with the mail room I’d like to discuss. My mail is being rejected, books are restricted to me –”

 

“Let’s talk about that later,” he said. “Right now, can you tell your people to stop the emails and phone calls to my office and GEO Offices in Boca Raton?”

 

So, I’m back in the library, and at some point I can donate books and magazines to the library. I’ve never figured out the reason the top brass forbid inmates from giving books and their own subscriptions to the library. The library is, after all, for the inmates, it is common practice at any other prison. It’s all about control here. Any initiative here by the inmates is a threat to their control mentality. That’s the whole reason. They do not have any rationally grounded reason. At first it was some invented rule about the Dept. of Justice forbidding donations, but in reality it’s just that donations require a bit of 30-second paperwork, which I did when I donated any book or magazine. But it’s all about control really.

 

The library is unfortunately extremely pathetic. All the books are beat-up, decrepit condition ex-library books 10-40 years old. They are obsolete, largely book club fiction hardcovers. There are, inexplicably for a male-only prison, about 300 Harlequin romance novels; one of the biggest – if not the biggest – category in the library. The library hasn’t spent a dime on any new magazines since opening, so the dozen or so that have survived from summer of 2010 are falling apart now. In December there were 15 magazines that were current once my donations from people like you started coming in: Rolling Stone, National Geographic, Runners World, Dog World, Time, Beautiful British Columbia, Newsweek, and others. Donations were the only source of current material, other than the atrocious USA Today. I would donate my personal daily New York Times for actual newspaper content.

 

I’m going to lend around any magazines I get, but the mailroom has me on this bizarre program that in order for me to receive books I have to mail out an equal number of books. So on Tuesday, I’ll go to the mailroom, and pick up to 5 books, but I have to bring 5 books back to the mailroom to be mailed to my friend Loretta Nall. In any other prison, I could just donate to the library, give them away or put them in storage in my property, but not at DRJCI. There is no policy or procedure in their own book of rules specifying this; it’s just made up and applies only to me, as no other inmate is required to do this. But as I shall point out later, there is a whole routine of discrimination against the Canadians here by our American overlords.

 

[Note from Jodie: Marc has been told that the 5-book rule no longer applies, and he is now getting all of his mail and books, but only because the warden spoke to the mail room. Please keep sending mail. Address at www.FreeMarc.ca]

 

The Canadians, being from an English-speaking country with a modicum of civilization, know what’s rational and normal in these circumstances, and are all bitching and complaining about the bizarre conditions here and about the unequal treatment we are receiving in this concentration camp for non-US citizens. A full comparison of the differences in treatment for Canadians in the US Federal Prison system vs. how an American is treated in a US Prison comes later. Canadians know it’s wrong and we speak out.

 

The Hispanics, for now, know that there is little they can do about any inequities, so they tolerate them. But by summer there will be 2,500 inmates, and right now Georgia is cool in winter. When it gets hot and humid in summer, day after day, and this institutional insanity carries on, we shall see what they will and will not tolerate.

 

Starting on Monday, January 10th, I’ll be getting the reading library in order. It’s a mess now. The shelves haven’t been straightened. There is no method for tracking down overdue books, and many books loaned out are overdue. I get most of the paralegal books and newsletters so I’ll continue to help various inmates but that will fall to Guy, Darren, Miguel, and Eugenio to do, although many inmates come to me because they’ve seen fellow inmates get their paperwork done by me.

 

I had a visit from Richard Malloy Barnes, the staff lawyer for Georgia NORML. He drove 8 hours from Atlanta largely just to meet me and see how I was doing. But I asked him if he would be our prison lawyer at pro-bono rates, maybe $60 or $70 an hour, to send letters to the prison in matters of extreme neglect or obstruction of clearly defined legal rights. I figure a good letter taking 30 minutes could be sent to the prison here on a really egregious matter. For example, there is an inmate where who had his dentures lost by GEO last June, now 7 months ago. He has put in 9 requests to have his dentures replaced, but even though GEO Group lost them, they have still been unwilling to replace them. Now, after 9 refusals, GEO Group at D. Ray James Correctional Institution is saying that because he is now less than a year to go on his sentence, they don’t have to replace them! Meanwhile, his gums are in pain from 7 months of trying to eat without his dentures, and swollen too. The prospect of going another eleven months without dentures is very discouraging for him. Yet that’s what GEO Group (DRJCI) is telling him. So I looked up dental care court precedents in my Prisoners’ Self-Help Litigation Manual, a fabulous 900+ page huge tome by John Boston, and found out that “willful indifference” in the case of serious dental need – “serious” meaning there is pain and swelling of the gums – constitutes an actionable negligence. This fellow, having done 7 months now without dentures, now constitutes a willful negligence; to go another eleven months makes it a certainty. On his last grievance form, I attached the relevant court cases and law to underscore his request. Even if they didn’t lose his existing dentures, they are obligated to maintain his dental regime of adequate dentures.

 

In an FCI (Federal Correctional Institution) for US citizens, this would not even be a problem. It would be a routine issuance of dentures. For us foreigner scum in the US Federal System, all these for-profit prisons we are warehoused in care about is spending as little money on us as possible. There is one doctor here for 1,100 inmates, and one dentist. As you’ll see in the chart that follows, we are deprived of virtually every amenity, opportunity or facility that Americans in the US Federal System get.

 

So I asked lawyer Barnes if he could send some letters on behalf of prisoners here who really need a little outside help, and I would have my supporters try to raise $1,500.00 or so to retain him to do these letters and some follow-up. “It’s got be cheap,” I said. So we’re going to discuss these things further, but I think having a Georgia lawyer keeping an eye on this prison and the inmates in here is a good idea if it can be done inexpensively. If you are interested in helping with a financial contribution to legal representation on behalf of the inmate population here at D. Ray James Correctional Institution, email my wife jodieemery@gmail.com and discuss how you can make a $25.00 or $50.00 donation to this retainer.

 

I’ve received many legal texts thanks to my friend Dana Larsen. Paralegal Procedure, Burtons Legal Thesaurus, a US Jailhouse Lawyers’ Manual, Prisoner Self-Help Litigation Manual, and subscriptions to Prison Legal News (see their website at prisonlegalnews.org). The US Jailhouse Lawyers Manual is an excellent primer for understanding and doing writs of Habeas Corpus, despite there being 178 typographical errors in the first 50 pages of the book. Yes, I said 178 errors; it’s self-published I think, and maybe he put the first rough draft disc in the printer, but I hope to send him my edit and maybe I can get an editor credit in the next edition.

 

A writ of Habeas Corpus, a term seldom used in Canada (an American legal term that does, however, stem from British common law), is a demand to be in court requiring the state/authorities of the prison to demonstrate that the prisoner’s detention follow the letter of the law/rule of law. It is a mechanism to seek relief, from the court, of unlawful or unjust conditions, treatment, or detention. So I learned in this book when an inmate can file a writ of Habeas Corpus. The courts require an inmate, for example, to exhaust all internal remedies via the internal grievance process. D. Ray James is sneaky in that regard. Many times you file a form or grievance, the staff here simply do not answer back. What are you going to do? This is a rogue facility. They often don’t even make the proper forms available so you cannot file a proper grievance. Then they didn’t have a photocopier available so you couldn’t make copies of your documents.

 

It’s very complicated, all the forms, the grievance process, etc. Considering 97% of inmates here are non-English speaking and hardly literate in English, that makes the paralegal advisers very valuable. Most staff here at D. Ray James Correctional Institution do not know the correct procedure to recommend to any inmate requiring a grievance form. All appeals about the treatment of an inmate here go to GEO Group, not the Bureau of Prisons, so there is no government agency that oversees these grievances or requests. It’s handled as a business or corporate matter, incredibly. I believe the only real way to get any help for inmates is media exposure, outside pressure, getting the truth out to the Canadian and American public. I think most Canadians are surprised to find out that Canadians in the US Federal Prison System are ghettoed into a concentration camp completely different from what US citizens in the US Federal System experience.

 

I’ve gotten all these great books on jailhouse lawyering from my friend Dana Larsen, who is currently campaigning very seriously for the leadership of the British Columbia New Democratic Party. It’s a quixotic campaign centered on Dana’s sound views on repealing marijuana prohibition. I fear Mike Farnsworth will be the next leader of the BC NDP. Farnsworth is a prohibitionist; he has always parroted the ‘more cops, more laws, more prisons, more punishment’ mantra that the BC Liberal Party and upstart BC Conservative Party already advocate. The only ideological alternative in the case of Farnsworth taking over the BC NDP leadership would be the BC Green Party, who seem to be poorly led by Jane Sterk, a hard-to-like, prickly matron of a leader who clearly dislikes people and politics, and certainly does little to improve her party’s standing with the people of British Columbia. Ineffectual as leader, she may as well be invisible. In the 20 months since the most recent BC provincial election, her distant personality and her lack of any common touch, along with inaction and lethargy, have made the BC Greens irrelevant and a non-factor in BC Politics, even though the brand itself is polling 12%. My wife Jodie is on the executive council of the BC Greens but she has become somewhat disillusioned. Sterk is certain to be ignored in the next election, trounced on the day of the vote, which could be this spring or this fall if a provincial election is called. It’s a huge missed opportunity that the BC Greens cannot take advantage of the political vacuum that exists in BC right now. With both the BC Liberals and NDP searching for new leaders, and the Greens as the third party of BC (the Conservatives are just starting up), no one has captured the public imagination from either party. After the BC Greens get no results in the next election, Sterk will have to resign and then the BC Greens will have only one more opportunity to get a leader with charisma, gravitas, vision, toughness and an enthusiasm for campaigning virtually non-stop. Plus some good ideas that contrast with the NDP/Liberal line, and a vision that can be clearly articulated to the voters of BC. It may take a generation to alter the way we treat the environment and the planet, so the BC Greens should focus on what can be done immediately in the field of social justice in appealing to voters. That means police reform, ending prohibition, more civilian oversight, a viable and accessible citizen initiative process that cannot be undermined by the legislature, more choice in schooling, giving more power back to the people, empowering the cynical mass of citizens who are weary of government being the problem when the solutions stare at us.

 

I did have a visit with MLA (member of the provincial Legislative Assembly) Guy Gentner, on Sunday, January 2nd. This thoughtful and intelligent elected representative from British Columbia (NDP – North Delta) was visiting his daughter in Gainesville, Florida, when he announced in a newspaper interview he was planning to visit me while in Florida. It took him two hours to drive here, two hours to drive back, and he spent four hours with me. We spoke of the conditions here at this peculiar place, and private prisons more generally. I supplied him with my chart outlining the discrimination faced by Canadians in the US Federal system, and urged him to take up the view that while Canadians are being treated in this segregated manner, no Canadian should ever be extradited from Canada to the United States. Prosecute them in Canada until such a time when Canadians receive the identical same regime in the US prison system as Americans. We discussed various things: the ruinous policies of prohibition, the conditions for the ten Canadians here, and our activist/political backgrounds. It was a serious talk with much discussed and I was honored to have such a gentleman take 9 or 10 hours out of his holidays to investigate my current circumstances.

 

So, I explained to Mr. Gentner some of the differences between what Americans receive in the way of services and amenities compared to what is provided for Canadians in the US Federal system. Firstly, all US citizen federal inmates are housed in Dept. of Justice/Bureau of Prisons facilities, subject to oversight by the courts and Dept. of Justice policy and procedure.

 

All Canadians, once sentenced, are housed in for-profit prisons run by GEO Group or Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which don’t have to adhere to BOP policy and procedure, have little oversight by the Dept. of Justice/BOP, and whose primary imperative is warehousing inmates at the lowest possible cost. These private prisons are contracted by the US Dept. of Justice for the 20 facilities that house foreigners exclusively, even though the cost to the taxpayer is no less than the cost of housing a US Citizen in a BOP facility.

 

One of the most glaring inequities for Canadians is that all Americans in the US federal prison system have Corrlinks email. At $3.00 per hour (at no cost to the taxpayer), all US citizens in a federal prison have email, hours a day, with up to 30 correspondents. (Correspondents can be added or deleted). This is extremely important for communication with loved ones, and accessing news and legal material, because both Canadian and Americans only receive 300 minutes of phone time in total for a whole month. Most months, it’s less than 10 minutes a day! This is way too little time. But when an inmate has access to hours of email a day, it makes a huge difference. Currently, sentenced Canadians have no access to email, while all federal American inmates in the corrections system have access to email.

 

There is no exercise equipment here of any kind. Americans in every federal prison facility have treadmills, steppers, and other equipment (in each unit’s gym). There are no plans to bring in exercise equipment here. There are only the most rudimentary courses or vocations available here. In a US federal prison for American inmates, courses are plentiful and accredited, with accredited instructors also required. For Canadians and others here, the instructors are not accredited. Nor are the courses accredited. Currently, DRJCI is offering welding classes, horticulture, and culinary arts course, but these are largely bogus course with little relevant skill-building going on. Canadians have real difficulties putting money into a Canadian inmate’s commissary account here. Americans can have their family send money orders or wire money via Western Union, using their credit cards or cash. Canadian families cannot send money orders, nor use Western Union, nor can Canadian families of Canadian inmates use a Canadian-based VISA or MasterCard. Canadian families must travel to the USA to buy at Wal-Mart or some such place, a US-based prepaid MasterCard or VISA or Debit Card, and then place money in their loved one’s account using the Keefe Commissary Network monopoly at http://www.accesscorrections.com, where service charges are considerable. It is commonly thought that Keefe, which supplies all the items for inmates that we buy in commissary purchases as well as the deposits to our accounts, is owned principally by the Bush Family.

 

American inmates sent to a Low Security FCI are largely housed in 2-man cells. The “low” my judge recommended I get sent to, Lompoc FCI, has 2-man cells. In fact, a man from Sea-Tac FDC – a 9-time bank robber using a bomb threat while robbing banks – was sent to “low” security Lompoc, replete with email, exercise equipment, outdoor visitation, and dozens of courses & vocations, while I, a political prisoner who sold cannabis seeds, am at a “low” security concentration camp for foreigners without any basic amenity American prisoners take for granted. He was sent to the nearest “low” security FCI near his home in Washington State, as Bureau of Prison requirements are that an American should be placed at a facility within 500 miles of their home (though that often doesn’t happen anyway). I am 4,000 miles from my home, requiring my wife to travel by airplane for 9 to 13 hours in flight, and up to 48 hours in total transit time getting here, as has been the case on two occasions so far. All the Canadians here are in the private prison furthest away from their home, the exact opposite situation to what is mandated for American inmates. There is no Federal facility further away from Vancouver than this corner of southeast Georgia (Florida having no Federal prisons for foreigners).

 

The Law Library here has Lexus/Nexus, which is the complete compilation of US law statutes. That is all. Anything else here, I have brought in: the dictionaries, paralegal procedure, jailhouse lawyer manual, Prisoners’ Self-Help Litigation Manual, newsletters, etc. Without email, we cannot make requests for assistance or legal material, addresses of government agencies, or prisoner assistance groups. With only 300 minutes and a set list of phone numbers permitted for us to call, we cannot call outside legal help to send us or provide materials. Americans therefore have a far more advantageous ability to do legal work on their and other inmates’ behalf.

 

The reading library is supposed to have 30-50 magazine subscriptions to provide inmates with a variety of current reading material. There are no contemporary novels or reference books in either English or Spanish. 400 Spanish books, largely classical fiction, were delivered when DRJCI became a federal prison, but nothing contemporary or illustrated was amongst these books. Essentially, the library has largely useless obsolete books and management here refuses donations from outside sources, the inmates, as well as refusing to spend money on a regular infusion of new materials. A certified librarian is required in any BOP inmate library, whereas DRJCI has a part-time teacher sit in on the library, under the controlling auspices Dr. Davis, to ensure that no progress of any kind takes place.

 

Foreigners have unique needs here, yet there is no way they can be accommodated. No inmate is from Georgia, so any lawyer would be extremely expensive to visit an inmate here. There is no information of treaty transfers for foreigners here, or addresses of their consulates, representatives. There is not a single legally trained individual with any experience in deportations, immigration law available to any inmate here. Without email, this becomes extremely difficult to get information, ensuring each inmate stays here as long as possible.

 

Americans in the Federal prison system can use word processing programs (Word, for example), and have these programs connected to printers. That is not available to Canadians here, and no explanation is ever offered, even though this is a low security facility, and none of us were convicted of computer crimes. Dr. Davis even tries to restrict the law library photocopier to “legal” material only, even though inmates are supposed to be able to buy a photocopy card, and pay 10 cents a copy. The photocopier was paid for out the inmate trust fund! Canadians must use ancient typewriters instead of word processing. Americans in US federal facilities are able to have photographs taken of themselves and their loved ones visiting on all federal holidays for a nominal cost (2 prints for $1 per photograph, up to 5 photographs, was the rule at Sea-Tac FDC). Canadians here at DRJCI have not been able to have photographs taken on Christmas or New Years, even though it requires only one inmate taking the photographs. It’s incredibly simple, but they simply don’t care here, so it doesn’t happen, like everything that ought to be provided as an inmate right for US citizens in their system.

 

In Federal facilities for Americans, visitation can happen in outdoor visitation areas (when weather permits). Here at DRJCI, there is no such outdoor visitation area, just a windowless room with a prison guard booth, cameras, and mirrored windows to be watched from.

 

In Bureau of Prisons facilities, fresh fruit is served one or two times daily, rotating between oranges, apples, and bananas. Here at D. Ray James Correctional Institution, we get the scrawniest orange imaginable once every two days. All lunch and dinner meals are virtually identical:

 

1) Ground up chicken or ground up beef

2) Corn product, niblets, grits or tortillas

3) A sweet cake

4) Shredded lettuce

5) Brown beans

6) White rice

 

Breakfast is essentially shredded potatoes and tasteless scrambled eggs with tortilla. Occasionally grits (creamed corn) too. If they don’t have a scrawny orange to give out, they give us canned mandarin slices or peach slices, but neither contain any nutrients. Fresh fruit or vegetables are almost never to be seen here. Nor can we buy fresh fruit or vegetables as can be done at other federal facilities (for example, Taft and Moshannon Valley sell vegetables in the commissary).

 

Americans in the Federal system have upright metal lockers. Canadians have two bins under their bunk to put all their possessions in. They had lockers in this prison when GEO took over this facility. They took the lockers out! Americans qualify for early release, home release, and drug rehabilitation sentence reductions, none of which is available to Canadians stuck in this system. Canadians working a long day in the kitchen, a long 8-hour day, get paid 12 cents an hour. Most inmates here get 12 cents an hour for their work. Americans get 40 cents to $1.40 an hour in their facilities. The staff here is almost always unaware of their own D. Ray James rules on procedures. For example, an inmate is trying to get married, and has been getting the runaround for three months. Yet the rules by GEO in their rule book are clear: the case manager puts together the request, confirms the fiancée is willing come to the facility to marry, forwards the request to the warden, who, if there are no security concerns, then arranges for the Justice of the Peace to come perform the ceremony. The inmate pays all costs of the Justice of the Peace. It’s simple, but they just can’t be bothered here, like just about everything. The mailroom, for example, makes up all its rules. There is no procedure or policy that is in the D. Ray James Correctional Institution policy and procedure book dealing with mailroom procedure.*

 

 

In an Americans-only federal “low” security prison, all toilets are in the cells or have doors on them in the range, and showers have doors on them. In my 64-man dorm, there is no privacy of any kind, and certainly no doors or curtains on the showers or toilets.

 

Yet the US taxpayer pays the same or more in taxes per inmate to house a Canadian as an American, but the executive and shareholders of these private prison corporations are instead pocketing the money.

 

The Bureau of Prisons, their mission statement (Policy 551.90) states: “Bureau staff shall not discriminate against inmates on the basis of race, religion, NATIONAL ORIGIN [Note from Jodie: emphasis Marc’s own], sex, disability, or political belief. This includes the making of administrative decisions and providing access to work, housing, and programs.”

 

Considering DRJCI is a ghetto completely based on apartheid of national origin, this mission statement is fraudulent on its face. Wages paid to Americans are greater, housing is clearly better, and programs (email, exercise equipment, music, law & reading libraries, vocations, etc.) are all clearly superior for Americans.

 

Currently, this prison houses 1,100 inmates, adding 300 monthly until capacity of 2,500 is reached in August. Of the 1,100 inmates currently warehoused here: 1,025 are Hispanic – 800 Mexicans, 75 Hondurans, 50 Cubans, 50 Guatemalans, 15 Salvadorans, 15 Colombians, 10 Argentinians, 5 Peruvians – and 40 are English-language born – 20 from the Caribbean (Jamaican, Bahamian, Dominican), 10 Canadians, 3 Nigerians, 1 from England, 1 from South Africa, 2 from Guyana, 1 from Belize, 10 Asians (2 Laotians, 3 Vietnamese, 4 Chinese), 10 Europeans, and 6 Middle Easterners (1 Swede, 2 Romanians, 2 Armenians, 1 Lebanese), and we have 2 from Brazil (Portuguese-speaking) and 5 from Haiti (French).

 

As to the staff here, the ordinary C.O.’s (Correctional Officers), while completely untrained in BOP procedure (most have never ever worked in corrections before and receive only the most cursory on the job training here), are decent people trying to do their job as pleasantly as they can. Many admit to seeing documentaries, movies, and TV shows that I have appeared in. Very few of the regular C.O.’s show mean or hostile tendencies. Most of them are probably very nice people in regular circumstances.

 

The inmates here I get along with are fine also. In my 59 days here at the time of this writing, I cannot say I have had any conflicts at all with inmates or C.O.’s who do guard or supervision duty. The problem is with management and the corporate dictates that come from GEO. This place has no budget of any kind devoted to inmate amenities.

 

97% of the inmates speak Spanish, but because all staff is local, virtually none of the staff do. I believe there are no more than 4 staff members here who speak Spanish. There is no local lawyer or legal help for these inmates. All their attorneys are in California, Arizona, Canada, Mexico, etc. All legal work for these inmates is done by 5 English/bilingual paralegals, also inmates (I’m one of them), getting 12 cents an hour. Any legal work on appeals, motions, grievances, writs of Habeas Corpus, divorces, requests, treaty transfers, access to government services, etc. is done by us on these ancient model typewriters.

 

Compare the time involved for an American in a federal prison requesting information or legal information. Each email takes about 90 minutes from inmate to recipient and return, so that is 3 hours. Here at D. Ray James Correctional Institution, a request by mail to Canada takes 6 to 8 days each way, meaning what might take an American 3 hours to obtain would take me, a Canadian, possibly 15 days or longer. Americans can print out their emails and have permanent copies of them too on email printers that are available for every American. So making any kind of legal claim is much harder here for numerous reasons.

 

I live in a 64-man dormitory with no privacy, as I have said. All 64 of us share one microwave to cook and heat up coffee. You get line-ups! American facilities have 4 televisions per range (Spanish, sports, news, and variety). Here we have two televisions: Sports and Spanish. I watch neither. There are few if any good rock and roll radio stations in this part of the world, though 3 country western stations come in clearly, as is always so true about rural America. I was spoiled at Sea-Tac FDC, having a 2-man cell, numerous great radio stations, email (Jodie says I sent her over 1,000 emails in the 5 months I was at Sea-Tac; that shows you how important email is to an inmate!), more fruit, no weird rules on books or magazines in the mail, and my newspaper came the day of issue or the day after. Here in nowheresville Folkston, Georgia, my New York Times arrives 3 or 4 days after publication.

 

In my 64-man dorm, I’m one of 3 native English speakers; the Armenian and Nigerian are fluent in English. The 1 Romanian and the 60 Hispanics speak Romanian and Spanish. I have no locker, but two plastic bins under my bed for all my belongings. Quite the stuffing of belongings going on there.

 

An ear splitting grinding-sounding (just evil!!!) fire alarm has gone off 28 times in the 50 days I have been here. It is frightening and painful on the ears. It is always a false alarm. It has actually gone off over 70 times in total since DRJCI opened on October 7th, 2010, but they refuse to fix the defective sensor in pod 6. I have been outside or at the library on about 10 occasions when it has gone off. This is not included in the 28 times I’ve experienced it first-hand. It grinds away for 5 to 15 minutes and I always have to put my fingers in my ears to deal with it. It certainly constitutes as torture, as they refuse to fix the problem. Yet when an inmate is burning baby oil to make jailhouse ink for their illegal tattooing that goes on, the fire alarm never goes off, even though a fair bit of putrid smoke is produced (that’s how they make the black ink, from the soot of the burning baby oil!).

 

At least I am busy. I do lots of work I consider helpful and useful to other inmates. At this time, I can’t solicit magazines and books for donation, but I give my newspapers and magazines that I subscribe to away. Currently I have to mail out a book for every book the mailroom lets me have so I can’t very readily donate any books at this time. This whole prison has way too much razor wire, frisking, and high security behavior to call it a “low” security facility. A “low” has essentially one single fence and far more open movement than this place allows inmates. It is run like a strict medium-high security facility. I’ve had an atlas in the mail refused to me because they believe all maps will be used to plan escapes! I’ve had large books refused to me because the weight or size of them (“75 years of DC Comics” was 18” x 13” x 2” thick – large enough, the mailroom felt, to be used as a weapon). An 8” x 10” hand-made Christmas card was rejected because it was too large. Where do they get these rules? Newspaper clippings are seized. I’m limited to three magazines sent from the public every few weeks or so. Over 20 letters from correspondents were rejected without notification and returned to sender. And so on and so on.

 

Trevor is from Vancouver, just a few blocks from where I used to live. He’s here for cannabis in a vehicle while traveling through the USA. When his parents came to visit him from Smithers in BC, over 5,000 miles away, they arrived one day early in their rented vehicle, and decided to drive around the perimeter road that encircles the prison, so they could see what it looks like, because the road is unblocked nor is there an advisement prohibiting it. The next day, when the parents visited, prison staff noticed the vehicle the parents used as the one that drove around the perimeter road, and cut short the visit after an hour, handcuffed Trevor, accused him of plotting an escape with his parents, and put him in solitary confinement for 9 days! Of course, it took 9 days to realize their idiotic presumption was absurd on the face of it, releasing Trevor from SHU (Special Housing Unit – the “Hole”) and reinstating his parents’ visiting rights.

 

Shortly afterward, Trevor, like all Canadians here, lost his phone access to Canada when the prison telephone control computer “unintentionally” cancelled all Canadian phone numbers from the database. Whereas I lost 6 days over Christmas (sadistic timing you have to agree), Trevor lost his access to the 604 and 250 area codes (his family in BC) for 16 days, from December 22nd to January 7th! Trevor works for 12 cents an hour, 40 hours a week in the kitchen.

 

Bradley, resident of Pender Harbour, is here on a weird charge, “Theft of Honest Services”, the same charge Conrad Black had overturned in the US Supreme Court. Bradley is a fine fellow with many skills, a certified sailor, and a licensed pilot. He has been trying to take a correspondence course in advanced aviation from Ohio University’s Prisoner Correspondence course. For two months he has been refused on the basis that – you guessed it – he’ll try to escape, steal an airplane and fly back to Canada! The mailroom rejected a map of Croatia he received as part of his ingenious (non-existent) plot to escape. It’s why I had an atlas of the world seized as contraband last week when someone sent it to me in the mail. We Canadians are thought to be obsessed with escape! This is a “low” security facility whereas the maximum-security facility Sea-Tac FDC where I was at, allowed me to have detailed road maps for all fifty states (so I could advise & direct FREE MARC rallies across the USA and Canada on Sept. 18th 2010).

 

Randy, of New Westminster, is here on a three-year sentence for marijuana transport. When Randy arrived, DRJCI lost his paperwork so he was put in solitary confinement for 14 days until the paperwork arrived. I remember walking around the yard explaining to Randy how fucked up this place is and he said, “Oh, it doesn’t look so bad.” I said, “give it a few days, you’ll see how dysfunctional it really is.” Sure enough, each passing day, Randy became more and more annoyed at the absurdities that pass before our eyes each passing day, and then one day last week, Randy got put in the “Hole” for allegedly inciting a riot, which all witnesses say is nutty. A very disliked C.O. was pissing off all the inmates in his unit. Randy uttered to another inmate, “What a Bitch!” and so far, he’s spent 5 days in the “Hole” on that. In between his two visits to solitary confinement, Randy’s phone access to his daughters and family in Canada was “accidentally” suspended from December 22nd to January 7th, sixteen days, pretty well the only time he was out of solitary since he’s gotten here in early December.

 

Peter is from Aylmer, Ontario, and he is a slave in the kitchen 40+ hours a week at 12 cents an hour. By the way, if an inmate refuses to work their slave-labor job assignment, they get put in solitary confinement until they “reconsider” and go back to work. It is reputed that there are about 15 inmates in solitary for refusing kitchen work. An inmate is allowed to pay another inmate to do his kitchen job; the going rate is a one-time payment of $35 – $50 dollars, which is a bargain price to permanently avoid kitchen detail.

 

When an inmate arrives here, each of us is issued a pair of work boots, decidedly uncomfortable ones, but in Peter’s case he was issued two left feet as his pair of boots. When he complained that they were two left feet, that his right foot was hurting as he worked on his feet 8 hours a day, the management refused to issue him a proper right & left foot pair of boots. Eventually all his right socks developed holes in them, and his right foot was in considerable pain, but still the DRJCI refused to issue a proper set of boots. Only after eleven weeks of complaining, did the inmates in the clothing section replace the boots. Peter’s phone access to Canada, like all the Canadians here, was down during Christmas December 22nd – 27th. Peter has now worked in the kitchen three months, and after three months in one job, you are supposed to be permitted to change “assignments”, but so far they are refusing to let Peter change jobs, so desperate is this place for kitchen workers. Of course if they paid the workers properly (like American inmates get in their FCI’s), say 45 cents to $1.00 an hour, you’d have line-ups to work in the kitchen.

 

And so it goes. Me, I keep busy, writing five or six letters to correspondents daily, reading voraciously when I’m not writing or working in the library. I’m 80% through Keith Richard’s autobiography “Life”. I just finished reading all the material I received from Prison Legal News (online you can see their stuff at prisonlegalnews.org). Next up after the Richard’s autobiography is “On the Road to Freedom (A Guided Tour of the Civil Rights Era)”, and then “Dumbing Us Down, the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling”, then the “Dark Tower” graphic novel, and then “The Flag: An American Biography”, which is a history of the development of the US flag from its earliest incarnations.

 

I read perhaps the best graphic novel not written by Alan Moore, originally from 1993, called Marvels (#0 – #4), a brilliant painterly reinterpretation of the Marvel Comics stories of their superhero universe from 1939 to 1975, seen through the eyes of an ordinary human observer. Another wonderful comic I enjoyed was a two-part “Enemy Ace” comic by Garth Ennis and Russ Heath. Strange and beautiful was this very exciting reinterpretation of Shakespeare in a graphic novel called “Kill Shakespeare”, very original and surprising and beautifully illustrated. I read “The Return of the Supreme”, another collection of terrific Alan Moore stories. This Alan Moore fellow wrote the greatest comic book stories ever, full of references throughout all his work (though especially in “Promethea” and “Supreme”) of the artists and styles of the comic books of the golden age (1939 – 1947), the EC Comics period (1950 – 1956), the Adventure and science-fiction pulps, the cartoon comic strips of newspapers, the late 50’s DC Comics universe (Supreme), and of course the 60’s Marvel Comics world. My favorite Alan Moore comics, highly recommended, are: Promethea Vol. 1-6 (#1 – #36 in comic book form), Tom Strong Vol. 1-4, #6, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 1 & 2, Supreme and Return of Supreme. If you are a comic book historian and scholar as I am (I collected comic books and sold vintage 1940’s, 1950’s, 1960’s Marvel, DC, EC, comics, science-fiction and adventure pulps, newspaper comic strips and Sunday Color pages from 1925 – 1955 and managed to meet Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, Mike Kaluta, Len Wein, Jeff Jones, Vaughn Bode, and other great comic book creators in the 1970 to 1974 golden era of comic book collecting) – this is a wonderful tribute to that era. Watchmen – still terrific after three readings.

 

Best books I’ve read in prison so far would have to be the hero-smashing biography of John Lennon, “The Many Lives of John Lennon” by Albert Goldman, and “Hitch-22”, the memoir by Christopher Hitchens, timely in view of Hitchens’ current and potentially fatal battle with esophageal cancer that affected Hitchens immediately after its publication. Hitchens is simply one of the most erudite and entertaining writers of English prose in the world today. Vanity Fair columns of Sept/Oct/Nov 2010 addressing his cancer and the reactions to it are hilarious and poignant.

 

My magazine subscriptions have been slow to get transferred to the gulag here from Sea-Tac FDC. MacLean’s, National Geographic, The Hockey News, The Economist have all finally been rerouted here, but no sign yet of Rolling Stone, Atlantic, Harper’s, Mother Jones, Reason, Discover and a few others that escape my memory.

 

It is my supporter base that got my library job back and it is my supporter base that protects me from retaliation by the forces of evil here. MLA Guy Gentner reiterating in two newspaper interviews that I was a political prisoner is extremely helpful.

 

This is my 300th day in prison on this sentence, as I write this: 66 days in Canada, and 234 days in the US. With a good time credit of 235 days, that is 535 days off 1,825 days (5 years), so if I get stuck in the US Concentration Camp system for foreigners, I have 1,290 days to go, a release date of July 7th, 2014 – 42 months away.

 

If I get transferred back to Canada, I qualify under current Canadian law for full parole November 16th, 2011 – this year, 10 months from today. In the Canadian federal system, a non-violent first-time offender gets parole at one-third sentence, in my case, 20 months. Of course, I’ll be on parole for 40 months after that date (Nov. 16th, 2011). So if I screw up, I would be put back in jail. But I’m retired from the seed business, and otherwise a law-abiding person, so I will be able to do my parole successfully as I was able to maintain my bail conditions (while awaiting extradition) for five years from 2005 to 2010.

 

But 10 months to go is far more appealing than 42 months to go. That is why I need a tremendous outpouring of support from citizens of the USA and Canada, and from elected officials in both countries, to assure that my transfer application to the US Dept. of Justice and Canadian Minister of Public Safety are approved. Instructions on the kind of letter to send are at FREEMARC.ca and CANNABISCULTURE.com.

 

It’s only fair to say some good things about this place. The inmates like me and I get along with them. The working people, the ordinary C.O.’s, are polite and try to do a good job with the often-chaotic instructions they get. The weather here, in winter, is pleasant (although it will be hot & humid and I think unbearable in summer). My Case Managers, Mr. Rodgers and Mr. Maynard, are very responsive to me and have kept all their promises so far, and have always tried to be helpful with any requests regarding visitors, and transfer paperwork. The warden is a good person too, but he’s given no budget to make changes, and I often think his subordinates try to undermine his innate sense of reasonableness.

 

My greatest pleasure of my existence here is getting a visit from Jodie every 2nd weekend. Your donations to her are how she can afford to visit me. Otherwise, it’s simply too expensive for us to afford. The visits are 6 ½ hours each day on Saturday and Sunday, and the upcoming weekend, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (Monday January 17th) is a visitation day also, so I’ll get 3 days in a row of visits from Jodie!!! It requires Jodie to fly 4,000 miles from Vancouver to Jacksonville Florida, clear across the continent and back, which is grueling and exhausting for her. Sometimes, when bad weather strikes, flights get canceled and what would normally take 10 hours of flying and airport time can take 48 hours of waiting, flying, and airport processing time, as has happened twice already.

 

We are allowed a brief kiss at the beginning and end of each visit, and we can hold hands throughout the visit. After my visit with Jodie on December 18th, I was stopped by an officer on the walkway outside a few days later, and day before my phone access was cut off to Jodie for 6 days. “Emery, you had a visit Saturday. Was that your wife?”

 

“Yes, sir.” I responded.

 

“I was watching you on the hidden camera, and I observed your kiss at the beginning was too long. It’s supposed to be a brief kiss, not a movie kiss. I don’t think your kiss was brief.”

 

I was stunned. I said “BOP regulations at Sea-Tac FDC in Seattle were a kiss under 30-seconds. What do you consider brief, 10 seconds?”

 

“10 seconds is more like what I had in mind. But if BOP rules are 30 seconds, I’ll take that under advisement.” He responded.

 

I wanted to say, “If you stare at any couple kissing after a long absence, their kiss is going to seem very long because you’re intruding on a couple’s intimacy, something normally a person might be a little self-conscious of. 10 seconds will seem like a minute if you just stare at a couple clearly in love, 30 seconds probably seems like 5 minutes. After traveling 4,000 miles and spending days in planes, airports and hotel rooms, that kiss is going to have a bit of urgency to it, you know?”

 

Jodie was in an extended malaise, a 6-week period that I would call depression from mid-November to January 1st. The death of my seed business partner, Michelle Rainey, at age 39 from cancer, hit her very hard at the end of October. By mid-November, with the dark, gloomy, rainy Vancouver weather, her first Christmas holiday period without me in 7 years, business pressures, and extraordinarily long travel to see me, it was all getting to her. She was exhausted, sad, having a hard time getting work done, her hair was falling out, her skin irritated, her sleep disturbed. Her visit of Saturday, January 1st was full of cynicism, doom and gloom. I spend the whole visit reassuring her we’d get through this ordeal, no matter how long it took. We have support from millions (I feel), her family, our close friends, and elected officials, and it was just rest and prioritizing her immediate tasks that she needed to do.

 

Finally, on Friday, January 7th, I heard over the phone, an invigorated, energetic, positive and powerful optimism. I said right away, “Hey, my Jodie is back!”

 

She said, “I feel like I’ve come out of a 6-week depression. I feel strong again, boo, I’m feeling improved. Guy Gentner the MLA, referred to you as a political prisoner in an interview today in a newspaper. I’ll be strong for you now, Marc; I’ll get you out of there. You were strong for me, you pulled me through. So now I’ll be strong for you again.”

 

Each day over the last 3 days, Jodie has rested, and gotten stronger so I am very relieved. I was worried about us, and with all these stresses, I was fearful of her health and her drive being compromised. So it goes for a couple like us, under all this turmoil and challenges!

 

Since her visit, MLA Guy Gentner has referred to me as a political prisoner in two media interviews. That reaffirmed to Jodie that even in the political establishment, there is widespread support and sympathy for the underlying activist nature of my life’s work.

 

My treaty transfer paperwork is due in Washington in eleven days from writing this page. After that, the US Dept. of Justice will consider my application to transfer to the Canadian Correctional system. I would dearly love to be home in Canada this year, so please do what you can to help to that end.

 

The most important goals this year are, for Americans: 1) Getting legislation on the ballot in Washington State, 2) Supporting and working to make RON PAUL the Republican presidential nominee for 2012. Petitioning for signatures begins in April to make Washington state the first state in the USA to repeal all state laws restricting the personal use and cultivation of cannabis. Polls in Washington show 56% of voters support legalization of cannabis. Last year, only 195,000 signatures of the 247,000 necessary were successfully collected. In large part this shortfall was due to rainy, cold weather in April and May, and zero funding. This year Sensible Washington will be better prepared, better organized. I hope Cannabis Culture can assist the organizers in a few live-streamed moneybombs, with a target of $10,000.00 per moneybomb, in February and April. Activists from California and Colorado, two states that I’m sure will attempt ballot initiative drives for legalization in 2012, should go north to Washington state as soon as university and college is over in April. Let’s do it like they did in the 60’s, just move to Washington state for 3 months and live and breathe the life of signature-gatherer! Petition unrelentingly! Even Canadian activists should consider going to Washington from BC and Alberta to gather signatures, whether for a weekend, a week, a month, or the whole campaign!

 

If Washington repeals cannabis prohibition on Nov. 1st, 2011, it will have a huge impact on the success of initiatives in Colorado and California in 2012, ultimately causing a change in federal law, and the likelihood of other states passing their own repeal bills!

 

RON PAUL, the greatest congressman ever, a great and true libertarian, my personal hero for many, many years, a friend to all in the cannabis legalization movement, will likely announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President for 2012. Ron Paul is truly a wonderful man, a principled man, and I so enjoyed campaigning for him in 2007 and 2008 when he first sough the Republican presidential nomination. Oh, how much improved America would be today if he had been elected President November 2nd, 2008!

 

If you have never heard of Ron Paul, or researched his brilliant ideas and proposals and writings, you must! Then be ready to join his campaign when it is announced! For Canadians, the 4 goals in the upcoming year are 1) to stop Bill S-10, the mandatory minimum jail-time-for-drugs bill from becoming law 2) defeat the Conservatives in an election that hopefully will come soon, 3) urge all your American friends to support the Presidential aspirations of Ron Paul once he announces his candidacy, expected in early spring, and 4) please bring me home, if I can immodestly suggest this as one of your political goals for the upcoming year!

 

Upon my return to Canada and release from custody, I plan to run for elected office in a fully funded campaign, traveling across Canada and British Columbia extensively. I believe that whenever I am able to do this, in 2012, 2013, or 2014, once I emerge from this ordeal, my political star will finally be ascendant. I feel I will be able to capture the zeitgeist of the times. “It’s broken, let me fix it.” Clearly, our democracy is dysfunctional, much like prohibition. For over 30 years, Canadians have heard me relentlessly prescribe the correct treatment for the ills of my country, and for 30 years the voters have chosen to swallow more of the poison election after election. I believe Jodie and I together will be able to win over enough of Canada to put me in government, to finally undo so much of the damage that has been wrought on our country from the miscreants who have exploited the people’s trust.

 

Jodie and I will be making a huge effort upon my return, in fundraising, touring Canada, speaking, meeting with Canadians, organizing, to finally once and for all bury this prohibition and restore liberty, principle, and greatness to the country that I love. Until next newsletter,

Marc Emery #40252-086 Unit Q Pod 2

D. Ray James Correctional Institution

P.O. Box 2000

Folkston, GA

31537

USA

 

Find out more about Marc Emery at FreeMarc.ca

Join Jodie at the CannaMedFair coming up on February 4th-6th in Vancouver, and the 12th Annual Hempology 1010 Cannabis Convention in Victoria at the University, February 20th. Jodie also shares possible election plans and news about Marc’s transfer.

 

http://www.CannaMedFair.ca
http://www.Hempology.ca
http://www.FreeMarc.ca
http://www.CannabisCulture.com
http://www.JodieForMLA.ca

 

#1 CONTACT CANADA’S PUBLIC SAFETY MINISTER
 
The Canadian Minister of Public Safety is Vic Toews (pronounced "Taves"). Please contact Mr. Toews and tell him that you want him to support Marc’s prison transfer back to serve his sentence in Canada. Please be polite and respectful — but very firm — when contacting Vic Toews office. The best way is to write and send a letter to Vic Toews, postage free for Canadians. Write your own, or use the Repatriate Marc Emery letter we’ve written up at http://www.freemarc.ca
 
The Hon. Vic Toews
Parliament Hill
Suite 306, House of Commons Justice Building
Ottawa, ON  
K1A 0A6
Canada

Vic Toews can be reached by email at: Toews.V@parl.gc.ca and toewsv1@mts.net

#2 CONTACT THE US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
 
Ask that Marc Emery’s transfer request be approved so he can serve his time in his home country of Canada, which will save the United States the cost of incarcerating him.
 
NEW LETTER GUIDELINES as of DECEMBER 2010:
 
GO HERE FOR THE ADDRESS: http://freemarc.ca/group/freemarcca/how-you-can-help
 

Here is the latest update from Marc – Dearest Jodie: On Thursday November 11th at 10am in Nevada Southern Detention Centre, a guard said, "Emery, roll up!", which meant I was outbound. I was taken with about 100 others to a series of tiny cells, where I waited until 3am (17 hours) to be chained with leg irons and handcuffs secured to a chain around my stomach, then put on a bus to Las Vegas airport.

We were at the airport at 7am but the ConAir plane didn’t arrive till around 10:30am. Still in chains, we were boarded onto the plane at around noon. I was the only Canadian. The plane first flew to Arizona and landed to let off prisoners going to Arizona federal prisons, and picked up more prisoners. The plane has room for over 200 prisoners. Then, still chained, we flew to Oklahoma City, the processing hub of the Bureau of Prisons, where we arrived around 5:30pm (central time) and were unchained during intake.

That was over 12 hours being chained up, often to another prisoner. Intake took about six hours of mostly monotonous waiting, and by Friday at midnight I was one person in a two-man cell in unit E5 at El Reno, OK processing. It took 36 hours from "Roll up" to arrival in my cell here, a grueling experience.

I have been here six days now and may be shipped off any day toward my new designated privately-run prison, D. Ray James Correctional Facility in Folkston, Georgia. It’s an INS (Immigration & Naturalization Services) low security federal prison for "deportable aliens", which are non-US citizens. It used to be a state prison, but was closed and taken over by the prison industry giant, GEO Group, and turned into an INS low security facility. I was supposed to be sent to Taft FCI in California, but the BOP has changed it to send me as far away from you as possible.

Still, I really would like to get there so I can receive mail, my magazine subscriptions, do my transfer application back into the Canadian correctional system, and most of all, get visits from you every other weekend. I miss you more than anything in this hard and tough existence. I have been in prison eight months now, and it’s only because of you that I have made it, I’m sure.

Your visits to me will stretch across as long a path across America as is possible: Vancouver to Seattle, to Jacksonville in Florida, then a drive north into Georgia from there. The cost isn’t that much greater, just the time in the air. I’m glad my friend Loretta Nall will sometimes be meeting up with you and accompanying you to the prison I’ll be at, or your friend and employee, CC ad manager Britney, will be with you. The visits are going to be like at Sea-Tac FDC, so we can hold hands and I can kiss you at the beginning and end of the visit, and they may even be all-day visits (9am to 3pm) from what I can deduce, so I am so excited to be able to do that.

It’s unlikely there will be Corrlinks messaging there, but I’m happy to have it here at this Oklahoma City transfer facility. Corrlinks is so vital to keeping in touch with family and friends; it really does go a long way to making prison bearable. But I will finally be settled in and able to receive and write letters in Georgia. I was able to write to six of eight people I received letters from at Nevada Southern Detention Center, and feel bad I got shipped out before I was able to write to Trevor in Pennsylvania, who helped out on the Washington DC “Free Marc Emery” water bottle campaign event on October 30 at the Stewart/Colbert “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear”, or my good friend Howard Ulep, also in Pennsylvania, who writes me wonderful letters regularly.

I’m pleased to see the Canucks are at the top of their hockey division (Britney wrote me with updates), but I tell you, news was scarce until I got on Corrlinks today. I haven’t seen a newspaper or magazine in a month. I miss my subscription to Macleans; it is a great Canadian magazine and kept me up to date on my own country. I hope you can have all my magazines rerouted to D. Ray James soon after my arrival. I hope they deliver USA Today, the Atlanta Constitution, and hopefully the New York Times at the prison there. Hopefully it’s not too remote to get newspaper subscriptions!

The food here is very poor, and I look forward to ordering commissary at D. Ray James to supplement my diet. Sea-Tac FDC was a pretty good place in comparison with my experiences since, as I always had enough fruit there to maintain good regular health. Since then, I’ve had very little fruit, although Nevada Southern had some fresh vegetables with most meals.

I am impressed by your terrific blog of your experience campaigning for Proposition 19 in Oakland, which you read over the phone to me, as well as Catherine Leach’s great blog on the “Free Marc Emery” water handout and info event in Washington, DC that she and her husband Keith pulled off for you.

Your letters to me of November 11, 12 and 13 are so wonderful in the detail you put in. They are like listening to you talk to me in loving words and details across the universe in perfect clarity. Many times, like now, when I think of you and our great love, I want to break down and cry (and I often do), but you reassure me when you can and I pull myself together and pray for the better times ahead when we are reunited once again.

I have read two light fiction books: “Next week will be better” by Jean Ruryk, and Alexander McCall Smith’s particularly good “The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.” The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency is about this African woman in Botswana who sets up a detective agency, and is delightfully written. The romance of Botswana is quite affecting. There are five more in the series I’m hoping you’ll send me at some point. The Jean Ruryk novel is a sort of mystery that takes place around flea markets, and since I went to estate auctions and flea markets for years from 1975 to 1985 in London, Ontario when I was a bookseller and curio dealer, I found her situational detective story taking place largely at these kind of venues familiar and entertaining in her observations.

Since I was connected on Corrlinks yesterday, I have read many of the articles from the CC website Jeremiah emailed me, and Russ Bellville’s "10 Lessons from Prop 19’s Defeat" is terrific. Russ Bellville is a great writer and a genuine treasure for our movement. All his writings are exceptional insights and I do hope CC continues to carry the work he writes for NORML.

Eight months in prison is a long and very challenging experience, but so far I have gotten through it. I hope that in 12 months from now I am in Canada, getting released on parole as the law today would apply, and able to be home with you for Christmas. For that to happen I need political support in Canada and the US for approval from both the US Department of Justice and the Canadian Ministry of Public Safety.

Click here to contact the US and Canadian governments for Marc!

I’m hoping my American supporters will arrange meetings with any elected officials they know well and urge them to join the letters prepared for the governments in Canada and the US, and also have Canadians meet with their representatives for the same purpose. I dearly need their help in this regard if I am going to be able to be repatriated back to Canada. I’m hoping former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson and Texas Congressman Ron Paul will endorse our request for my return to Canada, along with other Congressmen and legislators in America, in addition to the many Canadian public officials who are already signatories to these two letters. I know you will do all you can for me to get home!

I hope you will be visiting me soon. My dearest wish is to see you.
My sweetest love, to my great soul mate,
Your husband
Marc

Latest video update from Jodie Emery about Marc:

The wife of Marc Emery, Jodie, brings us up to date on how Marc is doing in US federal prison, and what lies ahead for him. He will be moved to a new prison at some point in the near future: Taft FCI, in California. Read Jodie’s latest blog for more information. (Correction from the video: Marc Emery Legal Fundraiser Moneybomb is Saturday October 16th, not the 19th.)

 

Marc was ordered extradited from Canada on May 10th, was formally removed from Canada and taken to SeaTac FDC in Seattle on May 20th, and was sentenced to 5 years in prison on September 10th. Information about the sentencing is found at www.FreeMarc.ca and www.CannabisCulture.com

Marc’s Canadian transfer application to return to Canada to serve his sentence is now with the Public Safety Minister of Canada, and we need help to get him to say YES! Marc will soon be sent to Taft FCI in California to serve his sentence, and will apply to the US government for transfer to Canada. We need people’s help to get them to say YES too! We also need to fundraise $8,500 to hire the US transfer specialist lawyer, so please join our fundraising moneybomb on Saturday, October 16th!

So to help FREE MARC EMERY, please go to www.FreeMarc.ca and www.CannabisCulture.com

Also subscribe to Cannabis Culture’s YouTube account at www.YouTube.com/CannabisCultureMag and Jodie Emery’s account at www.YouTube.com/JodieEmery

 

 

 

Please write to Marc about what's going on in your life, the activism you've done, the little pleasures and joys of your day, the news about what's happening in the world and your area, etc. Prison life is just endless boring repetition, cut off from the outside. Nothing ever changes and nothing new ever happens, so Marc would really appreciate getting reports from the outside world. Marc tries to write back to everyone who sends him a letter, too.

 

MAIL MAY BE READ BY PRISON OFFICIALS. Do not write about illegal activities or anything that you feel might jeopardize your safety.

 

Photos are permitted, but don't send pictures of bongs, marijuana use or plants, nudity, or anything illegal because it will be refused. You can't send stamps in the mail. Inmates must purchase their own stamps and writing paper and envelopes.

 

Newspaper clippings are not allowed. Newspaper stories must be photocopied or printed on 8.5 x 11 paper and sent as a letter.

Marc can receive books and magazine subscriptions, but they must be sent directly from the publisher or store, such as Amazon.com. Books cannot be sent from individuals; the prison will return book packages unless they come directly from a retailer.

 

You must include a return address on mail. You can use an address different from your home if you want to keep that information private, but if your letter is refused it will be returned to the address you use, or thrown out if there is no return address.

 

 

If you would like to send Marc money for his commissary account (to cover expensive long-distance phone calls, mail postage, writing paper, food, toiletries, etc.) you can do so through WESTERN UNION Quick Collect money transfers available at Money Mart and various other locations, or over the phone at 1-800-235-0000.

Pay to: 40252086Emery
Code City: FBOP
State: DC
Acct. #: 40252-086 Emery (may not be required)
Attention: Marc Scott Emery

(Note: If you have problems with this information, please let JodieEmery@gmail.com know)

If you would like to send money to Jodie to deposit in Marc's commissary herself, or to contribute to her travel and accommodation costs to visit Marc, send mail to the address below or contact JodieEmery@gmail.com for details.

Jodie Emery
307 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC
V6B 1H6
Canada

 

From the www.BOP.gov website:

Funds may be sent to Federal inmates via the United States Postal Service or via the Western Union Quick Collect Program.

U.S. Postal Service

Inmates' families and friends choosing to send inmates funds through the mail must send those funds to the following address and in accordance with the directions provided below:

Federal Bureau of Prisons
Insert Valid Committed Inmate Name
Insert Inmate Eight-Digit Register Number
Post Office Box 474701
Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001

The deposit must be in the form of a money order made out to the inmate's full committed name and complete eight-digit register number. Effective December 1, 2007, all non-postal money orders and non-government checks processed through the National Lockbox will be placed on a 15-day hold. The Bureau of Prisons will return to the sender funds that do not have valid inmate information provided the envelope has an adequate return address. Personal checks and cash cannot be accepted for deposit.

The sender's name and return address must appear on the upper left-hand corner of the envelope to ensure that the funds can be returned to the sender in the event that they cannot be posted to the inmate's account. The deposit envelope must not contain any items intended for delivery to the inmate. The Bureau of Prisons shall dispose of all items included with the funds.

In the event funds have been mailed but have not been received in the inmate's account and adequate time has passed for mail service to Des Moines, Iowa, the sender must initiate a tracer with the entity who sold them the money order to resolve any issues.

Western Union Quick Collect Program
 

Inmates' families and friends may also send inmates funds through Western Union's Quick Collect Program. All funds sent via Western Union's Quick Collect will be posted to the inmate's account within two to four hours, when those funds are sent between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. EST (seven days per week, including holidays). Funds received after 9:00 pm EST will be posted by 7:00 am EST the following morning. Funds sent to an inmate through the Quick Collect Program may be sent via one of the following ways:

Click here: www.westernunion.com

1) At an agent location with cash: The inmate's family or friends must complete a Quick Collect Form. Click here to view a sample Quick Collect Form. To find the nearest agent, they may call 1-800-325-6000 or go to www.westernunion.com.

2) By phone using a credit/debit card: The inmate's family or friends may simply call 1-800-634-3422 and press option 2.

www.westernunion.com

For each Western Union Quick Collect transaction, the following information must be provided:

Please note that the inmate's committed name and eight-digit register number must be entered correctly. If the sender does not provide the correct information, the transaction cannot be completed. The Code City is always FBOP, DC.

Each transaction is accepted or rejected at the point of sale. The sender has the sole responsibility of sending the funds to the correct inmate. If an incorrect register number and/or name are used and accepted and posted to that inmate, funds may not be returned.

Any questions or concerns regarding Western Union transfers should be directed to Western Union by the sender (general public). Questions or concerns should not be directed to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

For additional information concerning inmate Commissary account deposit procedures, please see the Bureau of Prisons Trust Fund/Warehouse/Laundry Manual (PS 4500.07) or 28 CFR Parts 506 and 540. For information concerning a specific deposit, please contact Federal Bureau of Prisons' staff at 202-307-2712 between 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. ET.

3) ONLINE using a credit/debit card: The inmate's family and friends may go to and select "Quick Collect."
• • 1) Valid Inmate Eight-Digit Register Number (entered with no spaces or dashes) followed immediately by Inmate's Last Name
    2) Committed Inmate Full Name entered on Attention Line
    3) Code City: FBOP, DC

First of all and most importantly, please be polite and respectful – but very firm – when contacting the following people. Secondly, strongly emphasize that Marc Emery is a Canadian citizen who never went to the USA and carried out his activities in Canada. If he has broken the law in Canada, he should be tried and sentenced in Canada, not sent to a foreign country to be punished under much harsher laws. Try to bring up these important points along with the "Facts About Marc Emery" (listed further below) to help you better explain why Marc Emery should not be imprisoned in the USA:

1) Contact your Member of Parliament in Canada or your Representative in the US Congress. Let them know about Marc Emery’s situation, and why you and thousands of other voters want Marc to be free in his home country Canada.

2) Contact the Canadian Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews (pronounced "Taves"), and tell him that if Marc Emery applies for a prison transfer from the USA to Canada, the Minister should approve it right away.

3) Contact President Barack Obama and tell him that he should pardon Canadian citizen Marc Emery and let him return home to Canada.

4) Contact the media and express your concern about Marc Emery facing extradition to the USA. Spread the story!

5) Wear a FREE MARC t-shirt, hoodie, or button.

6) Download, print and share the FREE MARC logo.

 

DEA admits Marc Emery’s extradition is ALL about politics and activism The US Drug Enforcement Administration admitted on the day of Marc Emery’s arrest that his investigation and extradition were politically motivated, designed to target the Marijuana Legalization organization that Emery spearheaded and ran for over a decade in Canada. Large image of Karen Tandy Statement: here Here is the original text of DEA Administrator Karen Tandy’s statement released on July 29th, 2005: Today’s DEA arrest of Marc Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine, and the founder of a marijuana legalization group — is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement. His marijuana trade and propagandist marijuana magazine have generated nearly $5 million a year in profits that bolstered his trafficking efforts, but those have gone up in smoke today. Emery and his organization had been designated as one of the Attorney General’s most wanted international drug trafficking organizational targets — one of only 46 in the world and the only one from Canada. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery’s illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on.

Canadian Marc Emery has been fighting extradition to the USA and possible life imprisonment since July 2005. In March 2008, the Canadian Government decided to turn down a unique type of plea deal the USA and Marc Emery’s lawyer had arranged — one that required Canadian charges to be laid and the incarceration be in Canada. In July 2009, Marc’s co-accused, Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams, were sentenced to 2 years probation in Canada because Marc had agreed to take a plea deal. In early September 2009, Marc Emery signed a plea deal for a 5-year sentence in the US federal prison system, which was the only way to avoid the possibility of a mandatory minimum 30 years and up to life in prison. You can read Marc’s reasons for taking the plea deal in his blog post "Why I’m Cutting a Deal".

FACTS ABOUT MARC EMERY: • Marc Emery is a Canadian citizen who never went to the USA as a seed seller. • Marc Emery operated his seed business in Canada at all times, with no American branches or employees. • Marc Emery declared his income from marijuana seed sales on his income tax, and paid over $580,000 to the Federal and Provincial governments from 1999 to 2005. • Marc Emery is the leader of the British Columbia Marijuana Party, a registered political party that has regularly participated in elections. • Marc Emery has never been arrested or convicted of manufacturing or distributing marijuana in Canada, as he only sold seeds. • Marc Emery gave away all of the profits from his seed business to drug law reform lobbyists, political parties, global protests and rallies, court litigation, medical marijuana initiatives, drug rehabilitation clinics, and other legitimate legal activities and organizations. • Marc Emery helped found the United States Marijuana Party, state-level political parties, and international political parties in countries such as Israel and New Zealand. • Marc Emery has been known as a book seller and activist in Canada for 30 years, fighting against censorship laws and other social issues long before he became a drug law reform activist. • Marc Emery has been a media figure for 20 years with regards to marijuana and drug law reform. He is very well-known to Canadian, American and international news media organizations. • Marc Emery operated his business in full transparency and honesty since its inception in 1994, even sending his marijuana seed catalogue inside his magazine "Cannabis Culture" to each Member of Parliament in Canada every two months for years. • The US Drug Enforcement Administration admitted in a press release from Administrator Karen Tandy that his July 29th, 2005 arrest was based on drug legalization efforts — a copy of the document can be viewed at http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/4685.html —

Who is Marc Emery? Marc Emery is a Canadian businessman and political activist who owns and operates "Cannabis Culture Magazine", "Pot-TV", the "BC Marijuana Party", and "Marc Emery’s Cannabis Culture Headquarters" (previously "BC Marijuana Party Bookstore" and "Hemp BC" before that). Marc also ran "Emery Direct Seeds" in a store in downtown Vancouver BC and through mail-order, for over ten years, with the goal to fund anti-prohibition and pro-marijuana activists and organizations across North America and the world — a fact that DEA Administrator Karen Tandy crowed about in the press release about Marc Emery’s arrest. (Numerous other seed-selling businesses operate in North America, some even on the same block as Marc Emery’s businesses today, but they are not seen as high-profile activists, so they are not targeted by the United States Government and law enforcement.) Marc paid provincial and federal taxes on his income, had no business outlets in the USA, and never went to the USA to conduct seed transactions. Everything was done openly and transparently, because Marc has always been honest and vocal. He’s a political party leader and media magnet, always happy to explain how and why he did everything. He spent the proceeds from all sales on ending the drug war in Canada, the USA, and all over the world: he financed numerous political parties, ballot initiatives, election campaigns, court challenges, medical programs, drug treatment centres, legal fees, conferences, organizations, events and more. That’s what his mission was, and he even ran in provincial and municipal elections five times as a seed seller, gaining many votes and endless media coverage. Marc Emery had two employees that worked for his seed business: Michelle Rainey, and Greg Williams. Together they were called "The BC3" in earlier "No Extradition" efforts. They, along with Marc, are Canadian citizens who were heavily involved in Canadian and American anti-prohibition activism for over ten years, though they remained in Canada at all times. The US Justice Department wanted to have the BC3 extradited to the USA to be charged with conspiracy to produce marijuana, conspiracy to traffic marijuana, and conspiracy to launder the proceeds of crime. ("Marc Emery Direct Seeds" was a marijuana seed business; the accused never sold any marijuana. The DEA even went undercover and tried to buy ten pounds of pot from Marc Emery, but he gave them a lecture about how he sold seeds, not pot, and told the female undercover agent she was ignorant and reckless to ask him to sell marijuana, because he’s never done it before and assumes he’s always monitored by law enforcement.) Because Marc Emery was so successful in fighting against the US-led War on Drugs, the powers in America decided to shut him up along with cooperation from Canadian law enforcement who wanted him punished more harshly than the monetary fine he received the last time he was arrested and convicted in Canada for selling seeds. The United States Justice Department and DEA had Canadian police help execute a raid and arrests for extradition of three political activists to face 10 years up to life in US prison. Greg and Michelle are now free, while Marc Emery still faces extradition the USA. Did You Know? – In Canada, there are two precedents for selling marijuana seeds: 1) In the year case R. v. Hunter in the year 2000, the BC Court of Appeals found that a $200 fine, not jail time, is the appropriate punishment for selling seeds. Read that decision here. 2) On March 7th, 2008, the BC Appeals Court released a decision that the punishment for selling cannabis seeds should not be more severe than one month in prison and one year of probation, the punishment handed to a marijuana seed retailer in BC who was selling to Americans. Read that story here. – Marc Emery, Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams never went to the United States. The seed business, "Marc Emery Direct Marijuana Seeds", was Canadian-based and run by Marc Emery. There were no US-based employees, and only regular mail was ever sent across the border from Vancouver, BC to Americans who made orders online or through the mail. – According to a 2005 survey done by the Strategic Counsel & Angus Reid Polling, 58% of Canadians oppose extradition in this case. In the years since, public opposition to extradition has only grown, with national newspaper editorials, local news columnists, and even Members of Canada’s Parliament all urging the Justice Minister to refuse extradition in this case. – Marc Emery paid Income Tax to Revenue Canada and Revenue BC on all of his income generated from his seed business. He paid more than $500,000 in taxes between 1999 to 2005, and put his occupation on the income tax declarations as "marijuana seed vendor". – Marc Emery’s magazine "Cannabis Culture" was sent to every Member of Parliament for over 12 years. Every issue of Cannabis Culture up to #57 (the issue printed on the very same day as the raid, July 29th, 2005) included the entire seed catalogue in it, so Parliament knew about the business. – Health Canada, when it first began licensing medical marijuana users, recommended to Members of Parliament and licensed users that new cannabis growers should purchase seeds online from Canadian seed sellers such as Marc Emery Direct. Svend Robinson, the New Democratic Party Health Critic in Canadian Parliament, will testify to that fact. – Marc Emery brought a capitalist approach to the marijuana legalization movement by starting "radical retail" outlets such as Hemp BC, and got politically involved by helping organize the Canadian Marijuana Party and creating the BC Marijuana Party, the latter which he still leads today. – Marc Emery created his seed business with the purpose of using the profits to fund the cannabis movement worldwide. Through the sale of cannabis seeds, Marc was able to finance numerous drug law reform groups and events around the world, mostly in Canada and the United States. He funded global rally/march promotion, American and Canadian ballot initiatives, election campaigns, lobbying groups, conferences, drug rehab clinics, class action lawsuits, protests, patient bills and bail fees, and more. In total, over $4,000,000 was contributed to various activities and organizations.