Free Marc Emery

Dear Jodie: What a wonderful day-after-our-4th anniversary visit! After we kissed goodbye, I went into the anteroom where I get stripped down and take all my clothes off, I’m asked to riffle my fingers through my hair, open my mouth, move my head from side-to-side and bend my ears, show my underarms, lift up my “sac”, turn around and show the bottoms of my feet and – there’s no other way to say it – spread my ass cheeks, to make sure I have not taken any contraband from you (though it would be impossible). My clothes and shoes are checked, and then I’m clear to get dressed and I’m brought back to my unit, Delta Bravo as it’s called, or DB.

 

It was a wonderful two-hour visit. I had all my freshly ironed clothes on, my brown visitation t-shirt under my khaki smock, my khaki trousers pressed so sharply, just for this visit. I always save my best clothes for when you come, and I hang them in my locker so they keep all the fresh sharp creases from the ironing they got on Wednesday. I love the passionate 30-second kiss we’re allowed to have when we first meet, and I love lifting you up and holding you with my arms while we kiss. You always look so attractive in your beautiful dresses. After our kiss, which is so electric to me, we sit opposite each other and our eyes are usually only 6 inches away while we talk up a storm, pretty well non-stop for two hours. It’s amazing how we get all the politics, social, reminiscing, your business, the people you work with, your challenges and difficulties, as well as many amusing vignettes and anecdotes covered, all in that two hours. Holding your hands and rubbing your arms as we do is so satisfying, you almost purr when I rub your arms. And then the lovely goodbye kiss at the end and your beatific smile that is so reassuring to me. Unlike so many other prisoners here, I have the committed devotion of a completely loving, faithful wife who once vowed when she was 16 that "One day I’m going to work for Marc Emery, or marry him, or both!" Oh, my sweet wife, what a brilliant prediction that was 9 years ago. So glad I made such a good impression. When we fell in love three years later, I had hopes, but little could I predict that we would become the dynamic couple we have been since – and you, such a brilliant public speaker, compassionate and remarkably intelligent leader of people, the perfect loving wife, and a truly liberating voice of the oppressed and marginalized.

 

Knowing these things about you makes my time here more bearable. My 5-year expected sentence is officially pronounced on September 10 in the Seattle federal court. That means, with 135 days served on my sentence already (65 days here at SEA-TAC FDC and 70 days at North Fraser in Canada awaiting extradition), and in anticipation of 270 days of time off my sentence for good behaviour (54 days off each year), my expected released date if I spend every day of my sentence in the US penal system is June 16, 2014. I have 3 years, 10 months, 21 days to go. The only way I could endure such an ordeal as it already is, is with the kindness, sincerity, devotion, sweetness and competence of your love and your skills. You are my saviour, Mrs. Emery; you are the greatest person to ever come into my life. I often think it’s because of your clearly sincere devotion to both me and my life’s cause in your blogs, videos, and public statements, that people, especially women, have taken to admiring my work and what I represent and who I am. They trust your judgment, Jodie, and they know that a woman who believes in me like you do after over six years together with me, almost 24 hours a day 7 days a week, cannot be fooled. They see your total devotion and they see a love like few others, like out of a romance novel, like out of a epic tale like Tristan and Isolde, or like Robert & Elizabeth Browning, a love for the ages, a love uncorrupted, a love based of principles of noble idealism. Your unmistakable sincerity in your love for me makes people believe in and want to help me, because they want to assist in that kind of pure love. It’s their way to be part of a romance, part of noble cause, something the universe wants to be done. You are doing God’s work, my sweet beautiful Jodie, and people can see that. They tell me so in the letters I get daily. "Your wife loves you so much," "Jodie’s blog about visiting you made me cry," messages of that nature are in those heartfelt letters I receive here in my cell every day.

 

My daily routine begins at 5:40 am when the C.O. (Corrections Officer) unlocks my cell door. I share a 12′ x 7′ space with a "cellie", as my cellmate is called. Our cell has a bunk bed; I have the top bunk. It is narrow, about 28 inches wide, and six and half feet long. I bound out of bed and head to the inmate "computer room". I am always the first one there at 5:45 am, but the computers begin to operate at 6 am. The only function of the keyboard is to type; the control and alt functions do not have any purpose on the keyboard. As the Bureau of Prisons screens all emails, they have to hire an army of censors and reviewers to review all emails inbound and outbound. Therefore they charge me $3.50 an hour to use the Corrlinks Inmate email service. I use the email 3 to 4 hours a day! I am allowed 30 contacts maximum. I have my lawyers, my dear wife, most of my close friends like Dana, Jeremiah and Jacob, your mom, my sister, Tommy Chong, and more activist friends among my 30 email contacts.

 

Each night you send me a lovely note describing what you did that day, and I see it first thing at 6:00 am as the email program kicks into gear. I love reading about your previous wonderful, challenging busy day. It used to be my life too, before my principles and activism got me put in this grim place. The way you write in detail of your decisions, your worries, your interviews, our supporters, the political situation, the sit-ins and MP office occupations, and, of course, your deep abiding love for me, both relieves me and saddens me. Last week was the most challenging week for me so far. I cried many, many times uncontrollably when I read your notes and wrote to you. Tears streamed down my face on probably six occasions, and then once the tears rolled out, my nose runs too… Normally I can cope with this estrangement, this terrible ache in my heart, always missing you in this alien place where I am the "criminal alien" (more about that term later), but sometimes it becomes emotionally difficult.

 

On Friday night (July 23rd) five inmates came over to my cell and asked what the matter was. I said, “it’s my 4th wedding anniversary and I’m so missing my wife. She’s everything to me," I told them, "and the thought of years without her is just too much to bear". I then started to cry again – I couldn’t help it – right in front of them. Then the unexpected happened. Each one added, "I’ve certainly been there, it’s okay to cry." My cellie said, "I was crying last night, didn’t you notice?" I said, no, I hadn’t. "I pulled my hat over my eyes and turned up the radio,” he said. “I was just sobbing." A big fellow named Kodiak (after the big bear), whose job before here was "collections", let’s say, added, "I’ve cried many nights here, we all have". All of them chimed in with their stories of many times crying. An African-American inmate came by and spoke to me at length in a most profound way, saying, "I wish I had someone who cared for me as much as your wife cares for you, I’d be so grateful to cry because I miss her. If you can cry, if you can keep your humanity, then when you get out of here, you’ll still be a human being. If you get hardened, and you lose that humanity, and lose that part of yourself that is real, that is of the real world, then prison has defeated you. When we get hardened by this awful place, we lose as human beings. I sure wish I had someone to cry over. Be grateful you aren’t on the phone screaming, ‘You dirty bitch!’ after you find she’s had sex with your brother or best friend, like my woman did". It’s true, Jodie would never be unfaithful. And indeed, all of my fellow inmates were in more sad situations than I, and I was grateful they all took some moments to reassure that all is normal and I’ll get through it. No one held it against me that I cried, and I was thankful for such kindness in unexpected places.

 

After the email program comes on, I am on that until 6:40 am when it’s morning lock-up. Normally breakfast is at 6:00 am, usually milk, an orange, and cereal (like corn flakes) or porridge. I pass on breakfast so I can read emails from Jodie and my friends from 6 am to 6:40 am. Then we are locked in our cells from 6:40 am to 8:00 am. I got back to sleep in this period, and when our cell door is unlocked at 8 am, I go out to the showers that are available from 8 am to 10 am (and also 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm, and 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm). By 8:30 am, I’m showered and shaved, in clean clothes. We get all our kit of clothes washed on Tuesdays: 7 pairs of underwear, 7 pairs of socks, 6 t-shirts, 3 smocks, and 3 trousers. The socks and t-shirt are pale pink/salmon coloured, the trousers and smock are khaki. I have one pair of white socks and a brown t-shirt, which I wear as my dress clothes for your visits, as I did today! I hope the 5 photographs we took when you visited me on the 4th of July come back in the next week, and I will send them to you so you can remember what I look like when I am in my "Sunday best" clothes. I am looking forward to seeing those photos myself; they should be back any day now!

 

For the rest of the day I read and write. I get 3 newspapers daily – the NY Times, The Seattle Times and USA Today – so I read them and stay well informed. I have 9 magazine subscriptions: Reason, The Atlantic, National Geographic, Harper’s, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, The Economist, and MacLean’s. I enjoy MacLean’s because even though they can be jingoistic police-loving Conservative-Party fascist sympathizers, it’s nice to get a round up of all things Canadian. When my MacLean’s subscription started, I was in solitary confinement, and I was so desperate for reading material, I was grateful the subscription had started. I got to page 12 of the June 24 edition and was reading about Alanis Morrisette’s wedding, the new prime Minister of Japan, and lo & behold, I was the next item. Yes, indeed, I was in solitary reading about me being put in solitary. A nice little moment that put a smile on me in that grueling 21-day punishment (June 4 to 24). In fact, today is a special day because I got my phone access restored! Along with being put in solitary for 21 days, I lost all email, phone, and commissary privileges – in fact, all privileges. You can’t even get a visitor or a phone call to your lawyer while you are in solitary. You get indifference and 24 hour lock-up. Thank goodness I had a radio and earphones to make it bearable, but barely so (listening to music and radio ads takes up some time, but I had 24 hours of isolation every day to get through). But after 52 days without phone privileges, my phone access is on again, starting today. I called Jodie right away and woke her up! You get 300 minutes each month maximum. Calling a Vancouver number is 35 cents a minute. Normally that’s 10 minutes a day, but the days when Jodie visits (8 times a month), I don’t call her, so its just about 15 minutes each of the other 22 days a month. Today is an exception, as it’s the day after our anniversary and I haven’t used the phone for 52 days, so I’m excited. I’m going to splurge and call her for 15 minutes tonight!

 

Along with my newspapers and magazine subscriptions, I get letters from supporters. When Jodie’s evocative blogs spoke about my struggles dealing with solitary confinement, I received up to 30 letters a day, peaking on June 28 (I got out by then) at 45 letters that one day. Now it’s about 7 letters a day. But I wrote back to each and every serious thought-out letter of support. In the last 30 days I have written 165 thorough handwritten substantive letters to correspondents, and I still have about 85 to catch up on. A University class of 40 students has even written me 40 individual letters with each having attached a photograph of themselves to it, sent from the Critical Thinking project at Sannasastra University in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia. I’m trying to get to one student every day and explain to them what I am doing here, why my cause is just, and what I believe. They all write in charming English, as my language is their second language, after Khmer.

Send Marc a letter! Get the address at www.CannabisCulture.com/SendMarcMail

I write 5-7 letters daily and sent out. Then I have books to read. I have enough books so I don’t require any more for now! I’m at page 300 of Christopher Hitchens’ Memoir “Hitch-22”, a very erudite and delightful book from the contrarian current events commentator, formerly of England, now an American based in Washington DC. It’s very good and charmingly written. I’m halfway through “The Armageddon Factor” by Marci McDonald. This is a book about the Christian fundamentalists and their very successful attempt to co-opt and takeover the Conservative Party of Canada. Even Stephen Harper, Canada’s bloodless and ice-cold Prime Minister –whose 2009 press secretary Kory Teneycke implied he hoped I got raped in the showers while in prison in the USA – is claimed to be "born-again". If you are known by the company you keep, the Prime Minister and the former press secretary are opportunistic sanctimonious religious scumbags of the worst sort. I know Christopher Hitchens (also author of “God Is Not Great”, which I also have here and must start soon) would approve of that assessment. Speaking of our Prime Minister, how come his wife has an affair with an RCMP officer assigned to her security detail, and no one in the press reports it? If the Prime Minister is getting "high with a little helps from his friends" like cocaine party-boy Rahim Jaffer, and the 37-years-married Minister of the Public Safety Vic Toews impregnated his 18-year old assistant, and Mrs. Harper is boinking an RCMP officer and not living with her husband, what is all this talk of Conservative party family values? Go figure!

 

I’m also reading “To Kill A Mockingbird”, and although it’s nicely written, it’s slow to get going. I still don’t know what it’s about yet, after 50 pages, other than people of Alabama in the ‘30s were poor and often ignorant, but sometimes not. So far, no conflicts have been introduced, and having long ago seen the movie with Gregory Peck, I know that eventually some innocent person gets accused of something heinous at some point. Boo Radley has to figure in with the heinous crime because these kids stalk him for the first 50 pages. Still to read is Robert Crumb’s “Illustrated Book of Genesis”, Alan Moore’s “Swamp Thing” and Top 10 graphic novels, along with “Tom Gordon Volume 2”. I am at page 300 of Taylor Branch’s excellent history of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the struggle for civil rights from 1954-1968; the first volume, at 1,000 pages, called “Parting The Waves”. So I am in the midst of 4 books with many others in the on-deck circle.

 

This keeps me busy all day until we are locked in our cells at 9:40 pm. From that time on my cellie and I have some serious discussions about life, our wives, our dreams (of getting the hell out of here), our families, and our thoughts, and I often write letters and he reads. At 11 pm, he has usually fallen sound asleep and I read one of my books with a little battery-powered book light bought from the commissary.

 

Occasionally I play dominoes with my friend Robert, a 62-year-old African-American Vietnam veteran. I am also part way through writing a biography of Robert’s time in Vietnam and his youth from age 14-18 in West Philadelphia. I have taken many notes about his year in Nha-Trang in South Vietnam and his teenage years from 14-18 leading up to it. He lived a few blocks from where American Bandstand was broadcast, and even went there and danced. The Philly group The Delfonics used to practice on the streets of West Philly when Robert was 15, 16, 17, just before he shipped out in 1967, the same year The Delfonics got big on the R&B charts. The Delfonics were used extensively in the Quentin Tarantino film soundtrack for Jackie Brown. I’m hoping to get seriously to work on his story this week; all my background interviews and research are done. I have drawn a detailed map of his immediate neighbourhood he grew up in with every store, newsstand, pool hall, EL Train station, and building represented. I want to see if I can bring his childhood ghetto to life in my writing, and convey the drama and chaos and fear in a young 18-year-old soldier in the throes of the Vietnam War. This era of 1966 West Philadelphia is also the setting for a four-season-run half-hour NBC drama series, now re-run in syndication, called American Dreams. (2002-2005)

 

Typically though, I don’t take much time for amusements, I never watch TV and since out of solitary, don’t listen to the radio, although there is an excellent World News Report station here, 91.7 FM, that features hour long blocks of programming from CBC Canada, BBC, Radio Australia, National Public Radio (NPR), Radio Russia and other world radio services. The last time I listened to CBC was two weeks ago to hear anthropologist Wade Davis deliver his one-hour 2009 Massey Lecture called “The Wayfinders: What Ancient Wisdom Holds For Modern Society.” Davis is brilliant, and while he spoke, I said to myself, “I’ve heard this before,” and indeed I had – both Wade Davis and I spoke at IDEA CITY in Toronto in 2003, and he was a featured speaker a few hours after I was. That day his speech was the same subject, but only 20 minutes long, so by 2009 he had fleshed it out to an hour for the Massey Lectures. It was a nice moment when I realized I was granted similar status as the great Wade Davis for one afternoon in 2003, as well as the many great individuals who attend IDEA CITY every year. Davis originally hails from Vancouver, and may still call it home, but teaches at Harvard.

 

So my day stretches from 5:45 am to 1 am when I turn off my book light, and by then my eyes are weary and I’m exhausted, so I fall easily to sleep.

 

 

 

Wayne Phillips, Kamloops Daily News

 

Regarding Cheech and Chong, Just Say So Long ( We Say editorial, The Daily News, July 20 ).

 

And turning Marc Emery over to the Americans was a great display of national sovereignty, right? "Bitchfest," indeed!

 

What gives them the right, the editorial asks! Probably the same right that allowed the editorial staff to comment on Cheech and Chong’s candour.

 

While Cheech and Chong might be challenged on where exactly Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s head is lodged, it is safe to say that Cheech and Chong’s analogy was apt and, of course the criticism is just; not only is it justified, it’s long overdue. Moreover, it is absurd to think otherwise ( unless, of course, the editorial staff is of the ilk that expects running into a brick wall head first yet one more time will accomplish anything different this time around. )

 

I, myself, would venture to say that Obama is the more likely candidate. Moreover, the office ( of prime minister ) itself is brought into disrepute not only by Stephen Harper but rather the antics of the Conservative Party in general. It is not a question of liking or disliking Stephen Harper, it is more the case of not liking what he is doing to Canada, specifically in the area of drug policy.

 

There is a comprehensive study that was released April 27, 2010, by the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy ( ICSDP ) entitled Effect of Drug Law Enforcement on Drug-Related Violence: Evidence from a Scientific Review that exposes an extensive correlation between drug-law enforcement efforts and increased drug-related crime, homicide and gun violence. The Executive Summary ( http://www.icsdp.org/ and http://www.icsdp.org/research/publications.aspx ) demonstrates the commonalities between violence and the illicit drug trade in relation to the impacts of drug law enforcement interventions have on drug market violence.

 

So, what’s not to understand?

 

Wayne Phillips,

 

Hamilton, Ont.

By Szandor Blestman, Weekly Blitz

 

When I was growing up, I learned in school that one of the reasons the United States of America was better than the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was because we didn’t hold political prisoners in our jails. That was something the bad, bad communists did. That was something that was done in communist countries to keep dissidents in line and to silence them. Such a thing could never be done in America. I don’t know if this is still taught in the schools, but if it is then I believe our children are being grossly misinformed. The United States of America has become the leading nation when it comes to jailing its citizens, and the vast majority of them have been jailed for non violent crimes. We are, in effect, being jailed by the political class for disobeying rules they have deigned necessary, not for actions that have harmed another human being or his property. Most of those jailed are, in effect, political prisoners.

 

The federal government of the United States of America has declared war on its own civilians and the majority of those spending time in jail are prisoners of that war. They call this war many things, the war on drugs and the war on terror being the most prevalent, but it is really a war fought against people in order to try to keep a concept hidden from the public consciousness. That concept is the concept of freedom, the concept that individuals own their own bodies, their own labor, their own property and best know how to run their own lives.

 

The power elite and their political puppets use such emotionally charged terms as "war" to elicit specific responses from the populace. They want people to believe that anyone with a differing or divergent point of view from that of the establishment is a bad person. They want people to believe that anyone with a difference of opinion is a menace to society and a threat to all that is good and just. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of the people who are spending time in prison are not only ordinary non violent folk who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, they are likely kind, loving individuals with family and friends who care for them and miss them dearly. Many of them were likely hard working, productive members of society until they were caught or reported breaking one of the multitude of "laws" created by control freaks who seem to see us common folk as cash cows meant to be milked for their benefit.

 

This war has spilled across the borders of the United States and is affecting the population worldwide. The DEA seems to think it has the right to enforce the laws of the United States in whatever country it deems necessary. I don’t know that the DEA has the right to do this, but it certainly has the power thanks to your tax dollars. A good example of this is the case of Marc Emery. Mr. Emery is a Canadian. He was simply selling marijuana seeds. This is a practice that is not illegal in Canada. Yet it is illegal in the US, though hardly ever enforced. Mr. Emery was set up by the DEA in a sting operation in which he sold seed across the border. The DEA then used its power as a federal agency of the United States to coerce the federal Canadian government into extraditing Mr. Emery to the United States.

 

Mr. Emery’s business harmed no one. It only maybe hurt the feelings of a few bureaucrats who felt perhaps Mr. Emery’s opinions were becoming too popular. You see, Marc Emery not only sold marijuana seeds, he ran a magazine named Cannabis Culture and used the money to fund marijuana legalization activism worldwide. He believes, as I do, that everyone owns their own bodies and can determine for themselves which substances to use and which to avoid. He would likely still be free if he had just pocketed his profits rather than using them to promote his marijuana legalization efforts. It appears as if Marc Emery was targeted not for his illegal activity, but for his political activism. And they had to use an unethical sting setup to make it look legitimate.

 

The same is true of tax protestors. People fighting the unethical, unconstitutional income tax have been forced into prison despite the obvious unpopularity of this theft. Even though the vast majority of the populace seems to be brainwashed into thinking the federal income tax is legitimate, the arguments against it are intriguing and compelling on both legal and moral grounds. Ed and Elaine Brown were two such protestors who wished to make such arguments during their trail. The federal judge presiding over their trail denied them the opportunity to make over thirty such arguments in their defense. As a result, they realized the court system was rigged in favor of the state and refused to take part in it any longer.

 

Ed, a contractor, and Elaine, a dentist, gathered together such a following that the Feds determined that the only way to get to them would be to unethically infiltrate their supporters. It appears as if the Feds are worried about their image and don’t want to be thought of by the general public as the violent agency they are. They want people to forget such incidents as Waco and Ruby Ridge, but a leopard cannot change its spots. Ed and Elaine Brown were productive members of society until the Feds put them in unproductive prison cells.

 

People such as Ed and Elaine Brown and Wesley Snipes aren’t in jail because they didn’t pay their taxes, they’re in jail because they refused to obey. They refused to knuckle under to the coercion and threats of the federal government and decided to exercise their rights. They refused to cower in fear before the political gang that runs this nation and decided to show them for what they are, a violent gang of thugs who believe they own us and a portion of our labor. These are arguments the authoritarian power mongers don’t want to hear because they’re true, and the truth is sometimes hard to face. They would rather do harm to those who have never harmed another than face the reality that they are greedy failures in a coercive monopoly funded by theft and unable to compete in a legitimate marketplace.

 

What happens when the practices used by the policing agencies are used against them? Barry Cooper is a good example to look at. A former narcotics officer, he created a sting operation to catch the police breaking the law and disobeying the constitution. His police training served him well as he had learned to setup drug dealers. He filmed the police breaking their own laws and streamed it to the web in such a way so that their guilt could not be denied. This angered the cops. As a result, Barry Cooper and his family have been harassed by authorities ever since. Candi, his wife, lost custody of her eight year old son. They have both been arrested and charged with filing a false police report. They await trial on said charges. It seems what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander. It seems that the police can setup and harass ordinary folk to catch them breaking laws, but when ordinary folk do the same to the police, the ordinary folk better watch out.

 

The system is plagued with unfairness. It is set up so that those with authority aren’t burdened with any personal responsibility for their decisions. They are not held accountable for their actions even when such actions harm others or are financially unsound. It takes those who rail against it and make honest, sensible arguments and silences them by removing them to cold prison cells. We might not have the cruel and unforgiving gulags the Russians had under communist rule in the last century, but we have prisons populated with political prisoners who don’t even know they are political prisoners. Our government has interrupted and ruined the lives of millions for its political power, expediency and agenda.

 

The war against the people needs to end. The federal government needs to step aside. The common folk need to reestablish their lust for freedom. The bureaucrats need to start respecting the rights of the individual once again. The federal government needs to be recognized for the monstrous mechanism of tyranny it has become. Hopefully, the cogs inside that mechanism will start refusing to allow it to run smoothly. We should be allowed to spend our money as we see fit, to smoke what we want to smoke, to say what we wish to say, and to live our lives as we wish to live them without fear of government intrusion and imprisonment. The disobedience of a few have shown us the ugly truth. The disobedience of many will help set us free.

 

I’ve been keeping myself very busy since being let out of solitary confinement on June 24th. I have many books, magazine and newspaper subscriptions, and letters to keep me occupied, so the days sometimes fly by as I read and write back to people.

 

Inmates here who have family come visit from out-of-state are allowed to apply for extended visits, of 3 to 5 hours (visits are normally 2 hours long). It took a while for me to get a response from my application to have Jodie get extended visits, since she comes from out-of-country, but I finally got a response on July 14th; I can have an extended 5-hour visit with Jodie one day every month, but only if I don’t have any other visits for the rest of the month. Well, I’ll certainly take two two-hour visits every week instead of one 5-hour visit a month!

 

One day, the C.O. (correctional officer) on our range was sarcastic about all my mail. I came to his office in the middle of the range and asked him a question, and he said "You’ve got no time for that, you’d better get to all your mail and deal with that." He had to make four trips delivering it all to my cell: first the batch of newspapers, then the magazines, then two trips with ExpressPost envelopes and then regular letter mail. He later came to my cell and said, "Emery, do I look like your mailman? Do I? Tell all your people they can only send you letters on Saturdays." I said, "Yes, sir". There was a long pause, then he said, "Emery, I’m messin’ with ya’!" Well, they certainly can "mess with" inmates, because we’re under their authority in here.

 

I was showing an artistic inmate some of the photos of Jodie and I together for him to draw. He decided to draw a picture of us smiling at the camera in the sunlight at a rocky beach in Vancouver, with the caption "Fun in the sun at Acadia Beach". In the final drawing the inmate did, I look way too young; he took my age lines out, but I actually like how I look at 51 years old in that photo (it’s from last year; I’m 52 now). The C.O. who joked he was messing with me over being "my mailman" saw the drawing and asked me, "Is Acadia Beach a nude beach?" I explained about Wreck & Acadia being the two clothing optional beaches in Vancouver, one immensely popular (Wreck) and the other very small and private. He said he went to a nude beach in Spain, which he very much liked. So, conversations with a C.O. can range quite widely here.

 

Jodie’s wonderful love for me and activism has opened up my supporter base of family folks, children, grandparents, especially mothers – a great many letters to me are from women, mostly mothers with children, who admire me and Jodie and find common ground with us. That’s very good to read! Only a minority of letters are from "stoners". I have 8 pictures of families with kids, so people obviously feel I am a representative for their children, to bring about a world of peace and liberty so they can grow up in safety and freedom. It’s darn flattering people think of me as their representative for their rights and the good cause, so I really appreciate that, possibly more than any other accolade.

 

On June 20th, the Sunday edition of the Calgary Herald ran a full-sized FREE MARC logo on the front page of section 3, with the article from the LA Times taking up a whole page inside. It was incredible! Wowzer! That blew my mind. The inmates loved it here; they started a "Free Marc and his friends!" chant, and I had to shoosh them! I’m so pleased with the clipping I received of it. That’s prime media space we could never afford to purchase.

 

These two guys in Newfoundland, Colin and his dad Terry, have printed up 5" x 8" maxi-cards with the FREE MARC logo on one side and GOOGLE MARC EMERY on the other side. Colin said that hearing I was in solitary made him angry, so he printed up 1,000 cards that he puts in "price holders" on the shelves of supermarkets and stores. He made 250 fridge magnets of the FREE MARC logo, 1,000 giant postcards that he puts in peoples mailboxes as he walks down various streets in St. John’s (I spoke there at Bannerman Park on my Farewell Tour with Jodie last year), and 6 giant outdoor FREE MARC EMERY and GOOGLE MARC EMERY outdoor banners. They put the Free Marc fridge magnets on restaurant fridges and even made giant magnet images (12" wide!) for the sides of cars and fast food restaurant drive-thru signs. They’re quite excited to help out, and wow, that is some serious Newfie activism going on!

 

On July 1st, we got locked down and had a surprise inspection of everyone’s cell (which has happened a few times since). The whole morning was taken up with that, a lot of C.O.’s going from cell to cell and looking through everything, while we were all in the gym area waiting for them to finish. Any rule you broke you were reprimanded or lost something; I was told my cell was very good (clean, no contraband), so nothing happened to me.

 

It was really hot in the prison in early July, but they fixed the air conditioning so now it’s not nearly so overwhelming. With no fresh air and limited air circulation, it’s good to have the AC on when the summer heat hits. They also fixed the ice machine, so I can cool down the water I drink. I never have soda pop or any juices, because everything except water makes you thirstier!

 

Here is our daily prison routine:

 

5:40 am: Cells unlocked

6:00 am: Breakfast, free range time*

6:45 am – 7:30 am: Lockdown

7:30 am: Cells unlocked, free range time

10:45 am – 11:15 am: Lunch

11:15 am – 11:45 am: Out of bounds**

11:45 am – 12:30 pm: Free range time

12:30 pm – 1:15 pm: Lockdown

1:15 pm – 3:30 pm: Free range time

3:30 pm – 4:30 pm: Lockdown

4:30 pm – 5:00 pm: Dinner

5:00 pm – 5:30 pm: Out of bounds*

5:30 pm – 9:40 pm: Free range time

9:40 pm: Lockdown

 

 

I did my Pre-Sentencing Interview on July 6th. The lady from Court Services came by with my lawyer Troberman, and asked me questions about my past. None of it involved the actual "crime" of selling seeds, it’s just background information like family, addresses where I lived, my siblings, my criminal record, my history of (non-)drug use, my education, my income, etc. Pretty dull stuff really. I thought it was all about what I did and why I did it, but it was so she can prepare a report for the court at my sentencing hearing on September 10th. I can’t imagine it being controversial or even that interesting. It’s boring because I own very little, have massive debts, my family is "ordinary", I haven’t got a big criminal record – there’s nothing very interesting about it on those levels.

 

I wrote a letter to my childhood best friend Roy, but instead of telling him about this place in a straightforward way, I wrote a funny sarcastic review as though it were a bad hotel with the worst shopping and restaurant service. I raved about the "21 day all non-inclusive Special Housing Unit" for a spa, and "the clothing store where you can buy the exact same style as everyone else". After a lot of mockery I ended with, "The motto of New Hampshire is ‘Live Free or Die’. Apparently ‘Live Free or Die’ is on the state license plates. In unsurpassable irony, the license plates are made by prisoners at the state prison in Corcord, New Hampshire. I guess the state motto isn’t worth the license plates they are printed on." Writing about this place in the form of a package-tour holiday from Hell might be a fun idea. Sections like "Vitamin D is over-rated", "Special Housing Units: because you’re Special", "The Sea-Tac Slim-fast diet… as seen on Oprah", "We’re Known by the Company We Keep", "Playful Supervisors Keep the Fun & Games Going 24/7", etc. I think its got endless potential!

 

Jodie wrote in her July 5th blog about our visits on July 2nd and 4th. On the 4th we got to have photos taken together. I bought five photo tickets, so we were able to get five pictures of us in the visiting room, which I’ll send to Jodie once they arrive (it takes 3 weeks, they say). On the 2nd, I had to take a drug "breathalyzer" test before my visit. I got through 52 years of my life to get to my first drug test! It felt kind of accomplished to blow 0.00. It’s strange though, because I’m not sure how it would detect anything, or how any inmates can possibly get drugs – I haven’t seen any here, and it’s maximum security, so I don’t know how anything could get in.

 

I was sent a transcript of Jodie’s speech at the Cannabis Day rally in Vancouver on July 1st. Cannabis Day is our celebration on Canada Day, and it’s been happening since 1996 at the Art Gallery downtown. Between 5,000 and 10,000 people take part, with music and speakers, tents and booths selling pipes, bongs, and every type of cannabis and cannabis-infused product imaginable. It’s always a wonderful time! This was the first major marijuana event in Vancouver that I was not part of, but my wife did an incredible speech in my absence. I wrote to Jodie, "I hope many, people see that barn-burner of a speech on YouTube.com/PotTVNetwork. I hope that is put on CC home page right away. Promote that heavily on Facebook & MySpace. Put ‘Marc Emery says Mrs. Emery is a wonderful speaker, and this is a beautiful, touching, urgent, loving speech to all Canadians and the Canadian Cannabis Culture.’ Way to show me how it’s done, Mrs. Emery. This is a good one, you do 5 minutes better than anyone I know, including me. You are incredible!"

 

Jodie will be speaking at Seattle Hempfest this year on August 21st and 22nd, just as she did last year. It will be interesting for me to be so close to the biggest marijuana and hemp event in the world, but while locked up in prison; I’ve never even been to Seattle Hempfest. Jodie will visit me on Friday the 20th, and again in the morning on Sunday the 22nd, so she’ll be able to tell everyone there that she’s seen me and spoken to me that very weekend!

 

Commissary arrives every Wednesday, along with laundry. Every week we get our commissary form to fill out, and I buy stamps, envelopes, writing paper, and any snacks I want to get, like tuna packs and trail mix nuts. I’ve bought a variety of spices, garlic sauce, other sauces, so I’ve been zesting up the food we’re served. I never eat chips or chocolate, because junk food makes me feel uneasy. Mondays are always a good day because mail comes, and a flood of newspapers from the weekend (Jodie has me subscribed to the New York Times, the Seattle Times, and USA Today). I get fantastic reprints from our wonderful friend and activist supporter Chris Goodwin in Toronto. He sends me these amazing dense printouts with hundreds of neat facts and trivia that are like 200 lines of pure information, and several pages of it. I find them mesmerizing. If I were to go on Jeopardy, they’d be just the thing to read in the warm-up room. That’s what they need here: Inmate Jeopardy, and if you win, you get 6 months off your sentence. That’s a bankable idea!

 

I’m reading "Hitch 22" by Christopher Hitchens, after finishing "The Armageddon Factor" about Canada’s evangelical Christian government and how the fanatical religious right has infiltrated our Canadian media and legal system. Hitch-22 is a beautifully written memoir; his charm and wonderful use of the English language is very entertaining, seductive and inspiring. He is so clever and "charming" keeps coming to mind. I’d certainly love to have dinner with the guy, that’s my first and constant impression. You just love every sentence this guy writes. The Armageddon Factor is revealing and informative, but I don’t think we have reason to fear (Jodie is always very anxious and worried about it) – we just have to demonize Prime Minister Harper & His Band of Punishment Freaks appropriately at all opportunities. Harper is cold as ice. He’s a lot like Nixon, a lot of getting back at enemies, revenge and punishment; he has no friends, and power/manipulation is his only lust. His wife isn’t living with him anymore after having an affair with an RCMP officer, because he doesn’t care about sex, love, friends – only power over others. He is full of hate. He has no joy in life other than seeing his enemies flail. Nixon was the exact same. Both have and had contempt for virtually any free thinker. We absolutely must get rid of the Harper Conservative government in Canada.

 

Another book I just received is "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colourblindness". A number of the black inmates want to read it after I’m done. It’s all about how blacks make up a huge proportion of incarcerated drug offenders. Chris Goodwin sent me a lot of poetry from a book of black poets, lots of Tupac, Black Panther stuff, so the African-American guys think I am different, obviously, from the usual white inmate. One fellow is getting me to read his urban autobiographical work of ‘fiction’ he’s writing. More of them are calling me Prince without sarcasm, and one guy put me in his cool rap song. My "cellie" (cell mate) says all his kids and and their friends are super impressed I’m his cell mate; they all know of me, he says. Many inmates have family and friends who are fans of my work and excited to be able to say their friend or husband/boyfriend/brother is imprisoned with me. Even visitors have recognized Jodie and are eager to share their stories about how they know of us.

 

I hope my supporters are continuing their efforts to end prohibition and free all the peaceful, non-violent drug war prisoners. As I have said before, as far back as 2004, "Let my incarceration galvanize you to action". And remember, one person can undo the evil of several thousand people. You should never underestimate your power. Plant the Seeds of Freedom and Overgrow the Government!

 

Here’s a selection of art pieces done in honour of Marc Emery’s lifetime of work for the liberation of the marijuana culture.

 

          

               

 

Here’s over a dozen songs of tribute and celebration written about Marc Emery. Take a listen!

 

Adam Bowen: "Puffing on a trichome"

 

The Undezireables: "The Ballad of Marc Emery"

 

Family Compact: "Set Marc Free"

 

Nate G: "Marc Emery Tribute Song"

 

Buffy Killer: "Political Prisoner"

 

Dylan McMullin: "Let Marc Emery Free"

 

Jake Thomas: "The Ballad of Marc Emery"

 

Spliff Vampires: "The DEA took Marc Emery Away"

 

WinstonSmith161: "Free Marc Emery 2010"

 

The Ground Luminosity: "Free Marc Emery"

  

Tall Brothers: "Prince of Pot"

 

Empire Assassins: "As long as we’re lovin it"

 

Tim Biemann: "BC Bud Song"

 

Daven Atma: "Zombies on the Freeway"

 

Cursed Byrd: "Bring Back Marc Emery" 

 

John Wanless: "Mister Emery"

 

Jah Roots: "Light up a Spliff"

 

Clem and Clem: "Heaven’s Just a Toke Away" 

 

Genesis Da Ruckus: "Free Marc Emery the Prince of Pot"

 

Bobnoxious: "Won’t go quietly"

 

Stephen John: "Dark Hole"

 

A Name Unheard: "The Kin"

 

Dana Larsen: "In Canada, the Prince of Pot" (a pot poem)

 

Charlotte Thistle: "Dare to Resist"

 

He has lost over 15 pounds since being moved from his regular cell on June 3 after unknowingly breaking a prison rule by recording a telephone message to his supporters.

Emery’s supporters view the punishment as an excuse to silence a successful political activist who has been a thorn in the side of government officials and drug policy makers for years.

On Thursday, June 3, officials at the SeaTac Federal Detention Center in Washington gave Emery an official citation for allowing his wife, BC Green Party Director-at-Large Jodie Emery, to record a message from him over the phone, claiming it broke the prison’s rule forbidding third-party calls. Emery was locked in a Segregated Housing Unit (SHU) and denied access to books, television, the telephone, or contact with his wife and family.

On June 24, an internal "disciplinary hearing" was held for Emery. The Disciplinary Hearing Officer said he realized that Emery didn’t know he was breaking a rule (as it wasn’t explicitly stated in the rule book), but told him he can’t do third-party political lobbying over the phone. Emery has been denied phone access until July 25, but is allowed access to electronic mail and to have visits.

"I’m just so relieved not to be in the torturous SHU unit," Emery wrote in his latest blog post at Cannabis Culture. "That’s plain mind-bending, being in isolation."

Emery’s attorney Rick Troberman says he thought the prison’s reaction was "completely overblown" and "unusual". "There was nothing in the conversation that was derogatory about the Federal Detention Center or his current situation or anything else," he told CC. "Why they’re choosing to make such a big deal of it is, frankly, a mystery to me."

Troberman said prison officials seemed upset that several Emery supporters had staged a small protest "inside the lobby" of the Federal Detention Center and probably wanted to send a message to the activist.

Emery is currently awaiting sentencing after being extradited to the US by the Conservative government of Canada. Emery was raided and arrested by the US DEA and Vancouver police in 2005 for selling marijuana seeds over the Internet and using the money to fund activism.

Many see Emery’s move to solitary and other punishment as way to shut him up, intimidate his supporters, and silence criticism of the government and its policies.

On the day of Emery’s arrest, the US Drug Enforcement Administration admitted their investigation was politically motivated, and that the activist’s arrest and extradition was designed to target the marijuana legalization community that Emery spearheaded for over a decade.

DEA Administrator Karen Tandy’s statement released on July 29, 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 Canda. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on.

Since Emery was extradited, Canadian cannabis activists have staged over twenty Conservative Party Office Occupations, some resulting in arrests and police brutality. Protestors have shown up at the offices of several high-profile Conservative lawmakers including Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson appears to be rattled by the protests, sending RCMP officers to homes of cannabis activists and hiring personal body guards.

Rather than face several charges with mandatory minimums attached, Emery agreed to a 5-year plea deal on one charge. This deal contributed to his two co-accused receiving probation in Canada instead of jail in the US. After sentencing, Emery will apply for transfer to Canada for the remainder of his sentence. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews will decide if Emery will be allowed to come home.

CLICK HERE to find out how to Help Marc Emery