Free Marc Emery

Sunday Dec. 19, 2010

4:20 pm

 

Dear Jodie & Loretta,

 

You two just visited and it was wonderful! Having both of you here made it special as we were able to talk outside the usual range of subjects. So pleased to have you Loretta as an official part of the organization (Editor’s note: Loretta will fill the position of ad sales manager for Cannabis Culture) That is going to be great for all 3 of us, I assure you!

 

I’m totally excited by the prospect of elected Representative for the British Columbia Legislature Guy Gentner coming to visit me at D. Ray James, who is nearby in Florida of all things, to investigate private prisons. Please forward an edited compilation of my letters that specifically reference D. Ray James & its treatment of inmates here. Enclosed is that chart I compiled about contrasting regimes for inmates. Also enclosed is an article "Strength to Love: A Challenge to the Private Prison Industry". Both should be copied and forwarded to Mr. Gentner with my edited letters.

 

As a contrast to the very bad recidivism rate of the US system, where 66% of released inmates re-offend: transfer Canadians moving from the US system to the Canadian system have a recidivism rate of about 3%. An astonishingly low figure! I mention this as Mr, Gentner may be interested in this figure (show him that article too) when you ask him to sign the letter to the Justice Dept. and Public Safety Minister. I hope Loretta is able to introduce him to Ralph whose work with private prisons we should find illuminating!

 

As I mentioned to you the mail room has been sending back any books and magazines when more than one is in a parcel, even when it comes from Amazon or the publisher. Dana sent me 4 books; A graphic novel"Return of Supreme, The Man who Wanted to Be King, about a fellow who was the basis of Kipling’s story "The Man Who Would Be King", A biography of Kipling and a book on Genghis Khan. Jodie had two books returned from here that she sent from Amazon; "On Leadership" Thomas Jefferson and Nelson Mandela’s new book "Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela". These were actually refused by the mail room and I wasn’t even told about it.

 

When the mail room removes clippings or other ‘contraband’ ephemera from the letters I get they do not inform me. So even the mail room here does not adhere to BOP procedures that should be added to my chart. And my newspapers are not being delivered promptly due to mail room weirdness. Of course, I’ll go to the mail room on Monday to see what they say. (Editor’s note: Due to the posting of Marc’s letters online the mail room weirdness stopped today. Please see this post for details.

 

Some reminders: I need a copy of the $100 fine receipt. Make sure you fax him the visitation form he has to fill out immediately and provide him with the fax number to fax it to D. Ray James.

 

Also, Jodie, be sure to contact the NY Times subscription/circulation dept. and change my address.

 

It was sure great to see Loretta in 27 months, I guess since Sept. 2008.

 

Loretta: I need you to contact the Atlanta field office of ICE and ask those questions about the stipulated deportation order. I’m curious to know if they can provide any information or insight on applications we have been sending in. (Time it takes to process, an FAQ on it, who is the Atlanta field agent, etc).

 

Also, a divorce kit or a kit with legal forms that includes divorce. Go over all the requests and queries I made and see if you can forward answers to me soon.

 

Monday, Dec. 20, 2010

Library 9:30 a.m.

 

Dr. Davis came and said she loved how the library looked and complimented us on a good job. I’m curious to know what the discussion with the mail room will be like at 1 pm. I’ll tell you later in this letter how that goes. I’m going to try to talk to the warden about mail room procedure.

 

I’m having fun working the library. We (or, rather, I) got no new magazines last week so I know the mail room is interfering with those, too. We’ll see. So, I’m anxious to get some new materials in here. Today’s mail should tell a story.

 

3:00 p.m.

 

Well, the mail room told me to come back on Tuesday (tomorrow) to discuss mail matters.

 

Loretta: I need a kit with do-it-yourself divorce papers good for any state in the US.

 

I’d like to be put on this company’s mailing list for their monthly catalog:

 

Edward R. Hamilton

PO Box 15

Falls Village CT 06031-0015

 

It’s also Hamilton Books online. I should get them as soon as someone sends me some books from them.

 

So, I saw case manager Garret Rodgers and gave him my visitation list addition of MLA Guy Gentner. It says Member of the British Columbia Legislature, Parliament Buildings, as address. He said he would submit it \right away so he could visit me soon. I said it could be as early as Christmas Day or the day after Christmas just to get them to do it right away.

 

Then I met the Major and explained my books were being rejected when there were two or more in a package and that this was not BOP policy. He actually stopped me to tell me this though:

 

"I saw you had a visit on Saturday. I was watching you on the camera and the rules say you’re supposed to have a brief kiss, not a movie kiss, and your kiss was too long."

 

I said, "BOP policy at FDC SEA-TAC was 30 seconds, which I believe it was (the kiss in question), and 30 seconds in a 61/2 hour visit is brief. But what do you consider brief, 10 seconds?"

 

He said, "I’ll check on BOP policy, if it 30 seconds or 10 seconds…but 10 seconds sounds like brief to me."

 

Then I asked him about the strangeness in the mail room. Then I, rather joyfully, said, "A member of my Government, an elected member of the legislature is coming to visit me next, so the kiss won’t be a factor there. He’s in the Southeast US and he is visiting government officials and he’ll be visiting me shortly."

 

That’s when the Major, quite animatedly asked, "WHO ARE YOU?!" and looked carefully at my name tag.

 

That moment was so satisfying! So, I have no idea if that will change anything around here in regards to my mail or kissing Jodie. But I’m hoping my library resuscitation program can go ahead. Or if the Major or Warden Google my name they are going to get an earful! I’m sure they are doing that right now! I should show him the Angus Reid poll if he wants to know who I am, since the majority of Canadians want me home and a member of the Legislature is coming to see me.

 

I think I’ve got a fair bit of business for Kirk I think I’ll have three or four Canadians here to retain him on transfer paperwork and procedure. I met a guy who just arrived from New Westminster today and Randy got 36 months for a lot of weed in Oregon. He has 3 daughters, 27, 29, 31 who will likely visit him in Jan. or Feb. But he is just getting here after 3 1/2 months in transit. It seems all the Canadians took no less than 3 months to get here to their designated prison. So my 4 weeks was a record short by comparison.

 

He was at a county jail for one month, the was at Sheridan FDC for a month, then 3 weeks at Nevada Southern (he hated it there the most he said), then 1 week at Oklahoma City, then here. He was able to get bail until he was sentenced on Sept. 10 (sound familiar?) and then he was supposed to be at Sheridan as his designated prison. At least that’s what he hoped & what his lawyer asked the judge for. But, Canadians are not going to BOP prisons anymore. He ended up here. So, I introduced him to Brad and other Canadians. Our number is up to 9 now. Grant (Montreal), Carmen (Van), Peter (Alymer), Trevor (Van), Randy (New Westminster), me (Van), Toronto guy (whose name I forgot), that’s 8…I’ve forgotten somebody.

 

I need a paperback book in German for Peter. There are places like Sophie’s that might sell them and MCC Recenter its an office that works with citizenship’s and passport. It’s a Mennonite organization that works with providing books for Mennonites. Or you can order German fiction books on Amazon I bet.

 

They brought the mail. I got my subscription copy of MacLeans, the Dec. 27 issue, so that’s great! Not one you sent but my actual subscription. I got two envelopes from you full of articles from Atlantic, my facebook page from Dec 1-6, about wikileaks, rabble.ca, Washington Post and a whole bunch or articles from the news on CC.com. Dec. 10 & 12. I got 80 pages in 2 envelopes!

 

Then I got CIA & the Culture War book and the Chomsky reader from Jeremiah. Addie and mary Clemons wrote and sent me the novel "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe" by Fannie Flagg for the library. So, I’m getting those books and subscription copies but I suspect the mail room is doing something with my mail. Mike (Anidas) gets Wall Street Journal and it comes through ok. But, sometimes, his USA Today doesn’t show up.

 

This is a forlorn place, Folkston, with a bizarre prison mail room. However, we shall see what happens tomorrow at 1:00 pm when I talk to the mail room woman.

 

I had a great visit with you both. Loretta, I hope you can make FreeMarc.ca real functional with links to all my blogs, articles, interviews, in other words a great resource for anyone who wants to learn about my work, my career, my current situation, how they can help, where to send books, money, letters, how to organize Free Marc activism activities etc. And, when you’re not doing that sell lots of ads!

 

Marc

 

CANNABIS CULTURE – For the latest news on Marc Emery, CCHQ, and Canada’s cannabis community, watch new episodes of The Jodie Emery Show each week on Cannabis Culture.

 

Princes of Pot Jodie Emery, the CEO of Cannabis Culture Headquarters and wife of marijuana activist Marc Emery, has started a new weekly show to bring you the latest from the word of Cannabis Culture.

 

 

 

Dear Jeremiah: D. Ray James is a bizarrely run prison – excuse me – “correctional facility”. Of the many wrong things here:

 

Security

 

The facility is designated low-security for INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) ‘deportable alien’ inmates. It is, in fact, run and controlled like a medium-high security prison. But in regular BOP medium-security prisons, you get a two-bunk cell to share; here in this “low”-security prison, we have 60 men in one big dorm with no privacy.

 

At BOP low-security prisons for Americans, there’s a large fence to keep inmates in. Here, there are two rows of huge fence with razorwire on top and all over. It’s very menacing and makes this place seem like a medium-high security facility.

 

Administration

 

As an INS facility, it is supposed be staffed with immigration experts who can do treaty transfer applications. Unfortunately, none of the staff here has ever done a treaty transfer application, nor have they correctly started the procedure for any of the Canadians or anyone else here.

 

When they said they wouldn’t start my paperwork until the Canadian Consulate forwarded paperwork to them approving my return to Canada, I realized they had no idea how the procedure works.

 

Aghast, I had [lawyer] Kirk [Tousaw] contact [transfer specialist lawyer] Sylvia Royce in Washington D.C. (Royce worked for the Bureau of Prisons in Washington as transfer specialist before her private practice). She must have got something going because when I went to see my case manager, Mr. Rodgers – lo and behold – he said, “I just got your package from Washington D.C. 30 min. ago”. There it was, about 15 pages with my name across the top. He said it’s his first one, so he’d contact some INS people to help me. As far as I understand, it has to be completed and back in Washington D.C. by January 16.

 

Well, well, well. That money bomb fundraiser for Royce was more than a good idea – it was essential.

 

Up till that moment these people were operating under entirely false assumptions of how transfers are done. I will keep you informed on how things go.

 

Visitation

 

Jodie is due to visit me tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday for five hours each week – which is wonderful and I can’t wait – but there’s nothing in our ‘inmate handbook’ about getting visitors approved. I found out from other English-speaking inmates (about 40 to 50 of the center’s 750 inmates) that I have to get a form for each visitor to fill out and return. I have, in fact, sent Jodie a blank one so you can visit me at some point.

 

The Commissary Inmate Funds Account

 

The commissary inmate funds account is a total scam.

 

This place is run by The GEO Group Inc, formerly known as the Wackenhunt Corrections Corporation. In a normal Bureau of Prisons (B.O.P.) run detention center or Federal Corrections Institution (F.C.I.) or US Penitentiary Maximum Security (U.S.P.), money can be put on an inmate’s account by money orders sent to the Des Moines, Iowa B.O.P. or through Western Union Quick Collect (online or phone-in).

 

It’s convenient, but there is a charge from Western Union. An inmate can have up to $10,000 in an account. The reason for the $10,000-limit is that an inmate often has to pay child support, order books and magazines, pay bills, pay lawyers, etc., and from an inmate account (also called a “commissary” account) one can issue a certified check. Of course, the commissary account is where you pay for your 300 monthly phone minutes, order up to $350 worth of goods monthly from the inmates store, and pay for Corrlinks electronic mail service ($3 per hour).

 

That’s how it’s supposed to work for all American inmates in any normal US prison. ‘Deportable Alien’ Prisons, like this one, do not run under these rules at all, and we don’t get Corrlinks either.

 

Here, one can only put money in an inmate’s account through a private company known as the Keefe Commissary Network, an affiliate of the Keefe Supply Company, which bills itself as “the nation’s leading supplier of food products, personal care products, and electronics to prison and jail commissaries”. The company does business in many GEO-run private and state prisons and is rumored to be owned by the Bush family.

 

Using this service, Canadian or other non-US Visa or MasterCards are not allowed, and neither are Western Union wire transfers or money orders.

 

Only US credit cards are allowed, even though every inmate here is a non-US citizen.

 

When a non-American inmate’s family can finally find someone with a US-based Visa or MasterCard, they call 1-866-345-1844 from 8 AM to 5 PM Central time or go to http://www.accesscorrections.com and put money in an account at D. Ray James Correctional Facility (being careful not to put it in ‘DRJ Prison’, which is the state prison next door).

AMOUNT TO INMATE FEE BY WEB FEE BY PHONE

$0 – $19.99 $2.95 $3.95

$20.00 – $99.99 $5.95 $6.95

$100.00 – $199.99 $7.95 $8.95

$200.00 – $300.00 $9.95 $10.95

 

Keefe Supply Company also makes many of the products sold to inmates through our commissary accounts, so they are making money on the income of mostly poor inmates in every which way.

 

What’s really strange is that you can’t send a money order to inmates commissary account, even though the inmate handbook says you can. They are, in fact, sent back. You can’t send money via Western Union.

 

If Keefe doesn’t get a cut, there’s no way to put money in an inmate’s account.

 

Collect Calls

 

Instead of just dialing 0 to make a collect call to one of our 30 approved numbers (like you do at a B.O.P. prison), a prisoner here must have someone put money on a ‘prepaid collect phone account’ before he can make a call.

 

A collect call through the phone provider Public Communication Services is staggeringly expensive, and it is not really collect, as it has to be paid in advance – and there are extra service charges to boot.

 

Electronic Mail

 

B.O.P. prisons allow inmates to use an electronic mail system called Corrlinks (or Trulinks) to communicate with a pre-approved list of friends and loved ones. This system is not available in INS facilities.

 

There is a sign in here that says they don’t discriminate in their treatment of ‘Deportable Aliens’, but that is obviously not true. Though we get the same amount of telephone time in an INS facility as a B.O.P. prison, there is no Corrlinks here in GEO World, nor will there ever be. This makes communication with family much harder, and our 300 minutes per month goes much faster.

 

Lockers

 

Instead of having our own lockers, we are expected to put all of our property in these clumsy and awkward ‘barracuda boxes’, plastic bins we keep under our bunks. They are horrible and so annoying and it’s impossible to organize your stuff in them.

 

In a 60-man dormitory, there is no privacy in any aspect. Showers have no curtains or doors, and the toilets are the same. I bunk beside 15 other guys, so when I go through my box it is noisy, cumbersome, public, and completely dysfunctional.

 

They took the lockers that were previously here out just before GEO opened this place on October 1.

 

Language Barriers

 

All the English speakers here are segregated from other English speakers. In my 60-man dorm, 55 to 57 speak Spanish.

 

There are two Canadians (me and Peter), one Nigerian, one Armenian, and about seven others who speak English as second language fairly well.

 

Of our entire 750-inmate population, there are six Canadians, one British guy, one South African, three Nigerians, three Bahamians, three Jamaicans, and maybe 25 others who speak English as their first language; yet we are kept in separate dorms.

 

The six Canadians in this 750-man inmate population should be in one pod of 60 English-speaking inmates so we have each other to converse with, but also so we can watch television shows in English on the limited number of televisions. In my current unit, one TV is permanently Spanish programming and the other is permanently sports.

 

Library

 

I have a new job in the Inmate Library. The Library – though it is now tidy, organized, and staffed with friendly people – is the most pathetic library anyone has ever seen.

 

The magazines, a total of 38, are all one to 18 months old – our single issue of Rolling Stone is from August 2009; the Michael Jackson death issue.

 

There are a total of four magazines in Spanish in a place with over 700 Spanish speakers! There are about 250 Spanish paperbacks, but only about 100 are popular.

 

The English language books are universally 10 to 40 years old, severely beat up, although now well organized and labeled.

 

I’m encouraging my many supporters to send copies of magazines or simply send a one-year subscription from www.Tradewindspublications.com to me (click here for Marc’s mailing address) or to

 

D. Ray James Correctional Facility

Mr. Folk, Library

P.O. Box 2000

Folkston, GA

31537-9000

USA

 

Tradewinds has one-year subscriptions at bargain prices, and it would be great if my supporters could send interesting magazines (there are over 400 to choose from). The Library will think they ordered it and he the inmates would really appreciate it.

 

We desperately need Spanish-language magazines on sports, celebrities, TV shows, and on current events in Mexico, Cuba, and Central America (these are often published in Miami or Mexico City).

 

Any English-language magazine subscription from the original publisher, Tradewinds, American Magazine Service (1-877-4-INMATE), Amazon.com, or any other source would be greatly appreciated.

 

Paperback books can be mailed to me from any supporter’s personal collections, or new from a bookstore, Amazon.com, or anywhere else. Books must be sent one per envelope in new or like-new condition.

 

Hard covers books must be sent from Amazon.com

 

English- and Spanish-language newspapers must come from directly from the publishers.

 

We are in urgent need of hardcover reference books including Spanish to English dictionaries, Encyclopedia Mexicana, Libros de Historia De México (books in Spanish on Mexican history), how to write letters, formal business, etc.

 

We are in need of books and magazines on topics including business, investing, sports, fitness, art, tattoo, travel, science, current events, horses, animals, nature, cars and trucks, computers, boating, swimming, skateboarding, celebrity, movie stars, and just about anything else you can imagine (but no skin mags).

 

Popular authors we need include Dean R. Koontz, Stephen King, James Patterson and any current fiction or non-fiction bestsellers.

 

It would also be great to have works by Spanish-speaking authors like Victor Villasenor, Paulo Coelho, Carlos C. Sanchez, Isabel Allende, Gabriel G Márquez, J.J. Benitez, Vargas Llosa, Julia Navarro, and Carlos Ahumada.

 

I’d like to have Ayn Rand’s books here too, in English and Spanish, and Peter Schiff’s Books on investing and finance. Ron Paul’s books, Mark Twain, H.L. Menken, Trump, Buffet, etc.

 

The good news is, I’m responsible for choosing the magazines and books for the Library, so hopefully we’ll have a great selection. My first order from Tradewinds publications was one-year subscriptions of National Geographic, Muscle and Fitness, Home Business, Chevy High Performance, EQUUS, Hispanic Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Tv y Novelas and Wired. I hope to order 10 magazine subscriptions a week until the Library has 50 coming in by February or March.

 

They have to pass through the bureaucracy here and it’s likely magazines won’t begin to arrive until late January and February, so please tell supporters to send their current new or like-new magazines to me now or get the prison Library a one-year subscription for Christmas. One magazine will be seen by hundreds of inmates in just one month – it’s a tremendous gift that costs only about $1-2 an issue, but is worth so much more here.

 

At my Library job I get 29 cents an hour and work from 8 AM to 10:30 AM and 1 PM to 3:30 PM, Monday to Friday. That is $1.45 a day – $7.25 a week. I like the job though, so doesn’t matter that the pay is so low. I type up legal letters for inmates and help them do requests and fill out job forms. Most of them have limited English skills, so there’s a lot to do.

 

Ok, Jeremiah, that’s my report.

 

Thanks for everything!

 

Marc

 

UPDATE: Marc has sent a longer list of books and magazines that would be good for the library. Please send them today to Marc the address above (one per envelope).

 

Magazines

 

* Sports Illustrated

* National Geographic / NG Traveler

* National Geographic – Spanish

* Muscle and Fitness

* Men’s Health

* Runner’s World

* Home Business

* American Photo

* Artists Magazine

* Basketball Times

* Car Collector Caribbean Travel & Life

* Chevy High Performance

* Super Chevy

* Discover

* Disney and Me

* Drag Racer

* Equus

* Farm and Ranch Living

* Fast Company

* Flex

* Hispanic

* US Weekly

* Don Balon (Spanish) – very popular

* Horse Illustrated

* Reptiles

* Hot Rod

* Inc Magazine

* Interview

* Islands Magazine

* Wired

* Low Rider

* Slam

* MAD magazine

* Maxim

* Muscle Mustangs / other muscle car mags

* Business Week

* Auto Week

* People (Spanish)

* TV Novellas (Spanish)

 

Books

 

* Books by Warren Buffe

* Books by Donald Trump

* Books on Business or by Businessmen

* Books about Horses

* Paperbacks by R.A. Salvato

* Paperbacks by David Copeland – Christian

* Louis L’Amour

* Spanish Language Novels or non-fiction

* Exercise, Running, Physical health

* Cars and Engines

* Science Fiction

* War Books

* Illustrated; cartoons, art books, comic books

* Soccer! (Spanish)

 

More Magazines!:

 

* Barrons

* Card Player

* Card Maker

* Economist

* Esquire

* Fight

* Hispanic Business

* Hispanic

* In These Times

* Skin and Ink

* Urban Ink

* Tattoo Flash

* Nascar Illustrated

* Savage

* Ultimate MMA

* Franchise Handbook

* Surfing/ Skateboarding

* El Grafico ( Argentina)

 

* subscribe at bcmag@cox.net

 

Jodie catches pollster Angus Reid skewing results about Marc. She also tells about Marc’s new situation in a Georgia prison. You can write to Marc at:

 

MARC SCOTT EMERY #40252-086 – UNIT Q POD 2

CI D. RAY JAMES

CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION

P.O. BOX 2000

FOLKSTON, GA

31537

USA

 

Please visit:

Jodie catches pollster Angus Reid skewing results about Marc. She also tells about Marc’s new situation in a Georgia prison. You can write to Marc at:

 

MARC SCOTT EMERY #40252-086 – UNIT Q POD 2

CI D. RAY JAMES

CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION

P.O. BOX 2000

FOLKSTON, GA

31537

USA

 

Please visit:

By: Darcy Wintonyk, CTVBC.ca

 

The majority of Canadians want B.C.’s self-proclaimed ‘Prince of Pot’ to return north of the border to serve his prison sentence for marijuana offences, according to a recent survey.

 

In an online survey of 1,010 people by Angus Reid Public Opinion, most Canadians said the federal government should take action to bring Marc Emery home.

 

Emery was jailed in the U.S. in September on charges of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, conspiracy to distribute marijuana seeds and conspiracy to engage in money laundering.

 

Fifty-four per cent of respondents agree with the Canadian government approving a citizen transfer. One-third of those surveyed oppose it.

 

The highest level of support for allowing Emery to serve his sentence in Canada is in Atlantic Canada (65 per cent) and Quebec (59 per cent).

 

Mario Canseco, vice president of communications for Angus Reid Public Opinion, said Emery appears to have a national appeal to Canadians.

 

"I don’t think we’d see something like this for anyone else in jail," Canseco told ctvbc.ca. "There’s a bit of a folk hero appeal when it comes to Emery in this country, especially with young people."

 

In September, Emery was sentenced to five years in federal prison for his crimes. Thirty-four per cent of those surveyed felt the sentence is correct for the offence, while 19 per cent say he should have been punished more. More than one-third, or 35 per cent, believes it is too harsh.

 

Canseco said most Canadians don’t view marijuana as harshly as other so-called "hard drugs," like cocaine or crystal meth.

 

"So what he’s pleading guilty for isn’t something Canadians see as something totally terrible. He didn’t do anything that was going to merit prosecution in Canada, so in that vein why not allow him to serve his sentence here?" he said.

 

A recent survey found that public support for the legalization of marijuana stands at 50 per cent in Canada.

 

Fifty-four per cent of British Columbians surveyed said they want to see marijuana legalized.

 

Angus-Reid Polling

 

About three-in-five men and respondents aged 34-to-54 support issuing a citizen transfer for the Canadian jailed in the United States.

 

Most Canadians believe that the federal government should take action so that Marc Emery—who was jailed in the United States in September—can serve his sentence in Canada, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.

 

In the online survey of a representative national sample of 1,010 Canadian adults, 54 per cent of respondents agree with the Canadian government approving a citizen transfer so that Emery can serve his sentence in Canada. One third (33%) oppose this course of action.

 

The highest level of support for allowing Emery to serve his sentence in Canada is in Atlantic Canada (65%) and Quebec (59%). The only area where a plurality of respondents disagrees with issuing a citizen transfer in this case is Alberta.

 

Men (59%) and respondents aged 35-to-54 (57%) are more likely than women (49%) and respondents over the age of 55 (45%) to urge for a citizen transfer.

 

Emery was indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, conspiracy to distribute marijuana seeds, and conspiracy to engage in money laundering. In May 2010, Emery pleaded guilty to the charge of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana in a Seattle court. In September 2010, he was sentenced to five years in prison.

 

While 34 per cent of Canadians believe a five-year sentence is correct for this type of offence, 35 per cent believe it is too harsh and 19 per cent deem the sentence too lenient.

 

Analysis

 

A survey conducted earlier this month showed that public support for the legalization of marijuana stands at 50 per cent in Canada. For the past three years, it has become clear that Canadians are decidedly more likely to seek different guidelines for cannabis than for so-called “hard drugs”, such as cocaine or crystal meth.

 

On this particular case, a majority of respondents suggest that the federal government should allow Emery to return to Canada to serve his sentence—a recommendation first issued by his defence team in September 2010 and which was met with the concurrence of District Court Judge Ricardo Martinez.

 

By DHARM MAKWANA, Toronto Sun

 

VANCOUVER – A pollster’s error has convicted marijuana advocate Marc Emery in the court of public opinion, his wife Jodie claimed Monday.

 

Angus Reid Public Opinion released the incorrect findings of an omnibus poll on Canadian attitudes towards drugs, which included questions on if Marc Emery’s five-year prison sentence was too harsh or too lenient, and whether respondents agreed or disagreed with the federal government’s decision to extradite him to the U.S. to serve his time.

 

Jodie Emery said the wording of questions published by Angus Reid misrepresented his offence of mailing marijuana seeds to customers across the U.S. border.

 

"(The question is) absolutely untrue and it skewed the results because most people would support the extradition of someone who sold marijuana," she told QMI Agency. "The issue is seeds.

 

"The government is considering whether it should transfer Marc home or not, and in order to do that they’re going to try and gauge public support."

 

Angus Reid vice-president of communications Mario Canseco explained an automatic generator for statistical tables piped in the wrong questions and wrong results in the published document posted to the website.

 

The eight-page post was pulled hours later and a replacement omitted any mention of Emery.

 

"It’s the wrong question, it’s the wrong table. It never should have been there. We’re going to release the right questions (Tuesday) with the answers and the right definition on what he plead guilty to."

 

 

 

By: Marcella Bernardo, CKNW

 

More than a week after marijuana activist Marc Emery was transferred to a prison in a southern U-S state, his supporters continue working to bring him home to Vancouver.

 

The self-proclaimed Prince of Pot is now at a low-security facility in Folkstone, Georgia that mostly houses non-U-S citizens.

 

In September, he was sentenced to five years for selling seeds by mail and phone order, but lawyer and friend Kirk Tousaw says Canada’s Government can act quickly to bring him home, "We’d just really like to get Marc back here. Have him serve his sentence here right? He plead guilty. The United States has gotten their pound of flesh and that’s all they should get. We should bring Marc home, so he can be with his wife Jodie."

 

Tousaw says Public Safety Minister Vic Toews can bring Emery home by this time next year by simply writing a letter.

 

 

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: