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Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 1:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
Charles Lynch and Eddy Lepp pose near the road to prison (from FriendsofCCL.com)
Sometimes I feel like I’m suffering from outrage fatigue. Day after day after day, I interview the Charles Lynches, Eddy Lepps, Corina Amatos, Eugene Davidoviches, the decent, beautiful, and courageous fellow citizens, brothers and sisters of this movement who are the front-line casualties of this war on marijuana. To a person, each one I’ve talked to, and met in person like Eddy, are the kind of people you’d want babysitting your kids, inviting you to a neighborhood BBQ, or smoking a bowl with (and have.)
This picture just made me cry. There’s Charles, on the left, yet to go to prison, standing with Eddy, right, on his way to serving 10 years in prison as a man in his later 50s. All for being gardeners.
And yet there is that mischievous smile on Eddy’s face and determined look on Charles’ that give me hope.
We don’t face the lynchings that African-Americans faced. We don’t face the bashings that gay and lesbian Americans face. Our oppression is more sanitary, codified into laws that don’t directly consider us 3/5ths human or “sodomites“, but indirectly demean and imprison a set of American free-thinkers who dare to challenge the orthodoxy of synthesizing nature into a nice little pill so middlemen can get rich. People who make the sensible and rational decision to forgo SSRIs, NSAIDs, opiates, and alcohol in favor of the safest therapeutically active substance known to man are dangerous to the ruling elite, not for their actions caused by marijuana, but for the action of thinking outside the box.
The war on marijuana is not about the eradication of a plant species, it’s about the eradication of those who question authority.
Please visit the Friends of Charles Lynch blog and Eddy Lepp’s page and show your support, both in comments and in dollars. We R.E.M.F.’s* in the drug war need to be sure our front line soldiers are cared for.
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 11:25 am | By: Radical Russ
(New Times SLO) Snitches. Rats. Turncoats. Squealers. There’s no shortage of names for people who start their criminal justice career on one side of the law, and then, through a series of self-preserving acts, find themselves working on the opposite side as confidential informants. Police informants get evidence, they help make cases, and they put themselves in danger to do it. Cops and prosecutors call them indispensable.
This is the story of a man who made a short career as a confidential paid informant for the SLO County Sheriff’s Department. Despite the short length of his service, he became a key figure in one of the most notorious recent cases originating in this county, the federal prosecution of medical marijuana dispenser Charles Lynch. His name is Daniel Victor Lee, and over the course of seven months he worked on ten cases, being paid a total of $8,185 for his participation, according to correspondence from the district attorney’s office. Despite following tips that led to three different states, New Times was unable to find him to seek his side of the story. For that matter, court records show a defense attorney who sought to depose him for a case couldn’t locate him either. Nonetheless, court documents collected from several cases tell Lee’s story.
The first case Lee worked on for the sheriff led to a search warrant on a house where less than an ounce of marijuana was recovered. The defendant in that case was put on probation. Lee’s final case was to set up the delivery of 20 pounds of marijuana. One of the defendants in that case killed himself.
Four days after Lee’s last job with the sheriff, SLO County court records show he was arrested for impersonating a police officer. When the courts tried to bring him back to the county as a witness in another case, he was kicked off a commercial airline flight. Who is this guy?
Lee is someone whom Sgt. Rick Neufeld of the SLO County Sheriff’s Department’s Narcotics Task Force would call a mercenary: an informant who works numerous cases, setting up drug deals and getting paid for his work. Court documents include a picture of Lee smiling wide, red hair and light eyes, about 30 years old. He worked on at least two prominent cases locally—both of those involving drug deals arranged by the sheriff’s department as part of their investigation of Charles Lynch, the owner of Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers. He appeared in police reports and the Lynch indictment as a “confidential source.” Those documents provide detailed accounts of his missions, including dates, names of several individuals who would be charged with crimes, and the amounts of contraband involved, but not his name. When his name was released with a list showing the cases he worked for the sheriff, several details and dates matched up. Lee was that ubiquitous confidential informant.
Records don’t say exactly where he got his start as an informant. But Lee’s own criminal history goes back years before he snitched in SLO.
It is a long detailed story that you should click the link and read. It shows the insanity of a criminal justice system that relies on criminals to lock uplaw-abiding citizens like Charles Lynch. There are few forms of human life I despise more than a snitch. Where I come from, there are popular t-shirts: “Snitches get Stitches” and “Snitches: A Dying Breed”. I don’t advocate violence against snitches, though; I advocate changing drug laws so there is no drug sentence to hang over a potential snitch’s head and no drug case police need a snitch to help prosecute.
I like police, I really do. I wish I could feel safer calling them when bad things happen, but I can’t because they might find some weed on me. Drug cases are by and large the only cases, outside mafia / organized crime, where police need criminals to be informants. Because when it comes to real crime – murder, rape, robbery, arson – law abiding citizens are more than happy to inform the police.
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Loretta Nall with an interesting tale of President Obama’s college friend, Rep. Artur Davis of Alabama, asking people online during his gubernatorial campaign about which policies they’d like to see enacted, much like Obama’s “Open for Questions“.
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Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 11:56 am | By: Radical Russ
(LA Times) The owner of a Morro Bay pot dispensary who emerged as a key figure in the national debate over medical marijuana was sentenced to one year and one day in prison today by a federal judge in Los Angeles.
Charles Lynch, 47, dressed in a dark suit, sat with his hands clasped and stared straight ahead as the sentence was imposed by U.S. District Court Judge George H. Wu. Lynch declined the opportunity to address the court moments earlier. His mother, seated in the courtroom gallery nearby, fought back tears as Wu said he saw no way around imposing a sentence of at least one year.
Lynch’s case made headlines nationwide and came to symbolize the tension between conflicting state and federal marijuana laws. Cultivating, using and selling doctor-recommended marijuana is allowed under some circumstances in California and about a dozen other states, but such activities are banned entirely under federal law.
Lynch was prosecuted for illegally distributing marijuana from his Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers facility, despite having the blessing of Morro Bay’s mayor, city attorney and other civic leaders.
Judge Wu seems like he didn’t want to sentence Lynch but his hands were tied by Joe Biden’s mandatory minimum sentencing laws.
(Update [from Reason.com]): Reason.tv’s Ted Balaker, on the scene at the Lynch sentencing, reports that Charlie Lynch has been sentenced to three one-year sentences that will run concurrently, plus one day in jaul.
Lynch is free pending appeal and his lawyers, says Balaker, seem extremely happy and relieved with the sentence and are convinced they will knock it down much lower and that Lynch will not be in prison anytime soon.
What a travesty of justice. Charles Lynch couldn’t have been more (California) law-abiding. He had the blessing of his city council, he was scrupulously following state medical marijuana laws. The feds, of course, won’t allow you to mention those facts at federal trial, because there is no such thing as medical marijuana dispensaries under federal laws, only drug dealers.
Then they try to paint Lynch as some sort of kingpin because he carried a lot of cash, which isn’t surprising — who wants to create a paper trail of check stubs or credit card receipts when buying cannabis at the federally-illegal dispensary? They also tried to paint Lynch as some sort of predator because he helped patients under the age of eighteen who happened to have severe medical conditions, a doctor’s recommendation, and their parents’ blessing, and in fact could not even enter the dispensary without their parents. Finally, they tried to tar the whole medical marijuana movement by saying Lynch was serving people who weren’t visibly sick (just what does an HIV+ person look like? or someone with irritable bowel? or a migraine sufferer? or someone with asthma or epilepsy? Can you spot them by looks alone?)
President Obama, this isn’t funny anymore. Good people like Charles Lynch and Eddy Lepp will be incarcerated while the greedy thieves who wrecked Wall Street will enjoy their taxpayer-funded bonuses. Providers of medicine to the truly sick will languish in prison cells while the ministers of torture from the previous administration will go on six-figure speaking tours. Citizens scrupulously obeying state law and paying taxes will be jailed by the feds while our states desperately seek ways to raise revenue and cut costs. This is insanity.
Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 8:20 am | By: Radical Russ
Rep. Barney Frank is going to be introducing his Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act of 2009 sometime today, just waiting for the bill number and the co-sponsors.
Medical marijuana provider Charles Lynch is set to be sentenced at 9:30am PT today.
Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 6:20 pm | By: Dudemaster
Hot off the press! The production by reason.tv, “A Way Out, Lynch Sentencing Update”, provides new interviews with Charlie and illustrates the frustration between everyone involved in the trial and the federal government.
On April 23, 2009 a federal judge postponed the sentencing of Charlie Lynch, the man at the center of the nation’s debate over medical marijuana. Lynch operated a medical marijuana dispensary that was completely legal under California law.
His business was raided by federal agents in 2007 and last year he was found guilty in federal court of distributing marijuana.
The judge signaled that, if possible, he wanted to find a way to avoid the five-year mandatory minimum sentence proscribed by law.
“To be blunt, if I could find a way out, I would,” said U.S. District Judge George H. Wu.
At the hearing, Wu heard from several character witnesses, including Owen Beck, a former patient of Lynch. Beck’s parents obtained medical marijuana when he was battling bone cancer at age 17. During the trial, Beck briefly took the stand, but his testimony was cut short by Wu. Steve Beck, Owen’s father, told Wu that “Lynch did not make much money off of us,” noting that Lynch provided them with medical marijuana “for free or at a very deep discount.” Steve Beck questioned “how the incarceration of Charlie Lynch would benefit society.”
Also among the character witnesses were Tom Lynch, brother of Charlie, and officials from Morro Bay, California, where Lynch’s dispensary was located.
The courtroom was filled to capacity, and toward the end of the hearing roughly 90 percent of those in attendance stood up in a silent sign of support for Lynch. They remained standing for approximately 15 minutes.
Wu scheduled the next and final hearing for June 11.
In this reason.tv video update, we hear from Morro Bay Mayor Janice Peters, Morro Bay City Attorney Robert Schultz, Tom Lynch, Lynch defense attorney Reuven Cohen, and Charlie Lynch.
Approximately 4 minutes. Produced by Ted Balaker; shot by Paul Detrick.
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Should one play music for their plants and if so, what kind? Reggae, salsa, classic rock. . .?
What is the optimum humidity in a grow room and suggestions for low humidity conditions?
Two Grow cabinets in a dark room. Both made from rubbermade like plastic cabinets. When the lights are on in a cabinet, the cabinet tends to glow, even through the mylar lining. If the gardener has one cabinet set for 6/18 light and the other for 12/12, will there be a problem that one cabinet “glows in the dark” in the same room when the other cabinet has started its dark cycle?
Jonathan Duddy, a 23-year-old man, narced out by a friend on Easter Sunday, re-tells his terrifying ordeal with the police breaking into his home over a little bit of marijuana.
Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 7:20 am | By: Radical Russ
(Los Angeles Times) The sentencing of a man who has become a key figure in the national debate over medical marijuana was postponed Thursday, with a federal judge saying he was inclined to impose a more lenient sentence than the five years required by federal sentencing guidelines, but questioning whether he had the authority to do so.
“If I could find a way out, I would,” U.S. District Judge George H. Wu said. He gave lawyers in the case until June 2 to file briefs regarding the impending sentence of Charles Lynch.
Lynch, 47, ran a medical marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay on the Central Coast in 2006 and 2007. Despite having the blessing of the city’s mayor and other public officials, he was charged with violating federal drug laws for distributing marijuana and was convicted by a federal court jury in Los Angeles last year.
Cultivating, using and selling doctor-recommended medical marijuana is allowed under some circumstances in California and a dozen other states, but federal law bans the drug altogether.
Though Lynch was not charged with violating state law, prosecutors contend that he broke the law because he was not truly a “primary caregiver” entitled to dispense marijuana to patients and that he profited from the operation of his business.
Much of the discussion Thursday dealt with whether Wu was required to sentence Lynch to a mandatory minimum of five years or whether the defendant was entitled to a lesser sentence under a so-called safety valve.
The next hearing in the case, which the judge said would be the last, is scheduled for June 11.
So the federal prosecutors contend Lynch was violating state law regarding the patient/caregiver relationship, yet since federal law doesn’t recognize state medical marijuana laws, Lynch isn’t allowed to mention state law in his defense. Got it? When it comes to federally prosecuting Lynch, his violation of state law is admissable, but when it comes to federally defending Lynch, his adherence to state law is inadmissable.
President Obama, when you promised “What I’m not going to be doing is using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue”, isn’t the Charles Lynch case exactly what you had in mind? Attorney General Holder, when you promised “Our focus will be on people, organizations that are growing, cultivating substantial amounts of marijuana and doing so in a way that’s inconsistent with federal and state law”, how do you justify prosecuting Charles Lynch?
Shortly after AG Holder made the announcement on Feb. 26, I wrote this:
Here’s my prediction: we will see more medical marijuana dispensary raids and the Obama Administration will claim they have no issue with legitimate medical marijuana providers, but these providers were operating outside California law and these providers were diverting medical marijuana to the black market and these providers were selling to minors and whole raft of excuses where they emphasize that these providers are a reasonable exception to “using Justice Department resources” because they were outside of Prop 215 / SB 420 / Jerry Brown’s Guidelines and therefore, the DEA is not “circumvent[ing] state laws on this issue”.
If the federal government believes that dispensaries are operating outside California law, then they need to refer those cases to California’s attorney general. If California decides these people are violating California law, then California should prosecute them. The promise not to conduct raids unless dispensaries break California law is hollow when the feds get to decide someone broke California law with no trial or evidence before conducting the raid.
RevRayGreen: MASS TWEET THIS -@ChuckGrassley Truth is Chuck you follow Nixon's CSA full of reefer sadness. btw Chuck, Marijuana is not a drug.
RevRayGreen: @ChuckGrassley http://bit.ly/55Ejsi Truth is Chuck you follow Nixon's CSA full of reefer madness. btw Chuck, Marijuana is not a drug.
SneakerPimp: one last thing Puff puff pass to any one who wants it
SneakerPimp: i wanna here about the imminent MiniSpof sounds like time for some
SneakerPimp: im estatic and excited for NSL today.
SneakerPimp: mountain time wake n bake
SneakerPimp: oh yea also wake n bake
SneakerPimp: its central im high as a kite everybody
SneakerPimp: ill grab that WUD
WakeUpDead: @Russ, I dont think that wireless is going to work out for the show, it was choppy and studdered just like last week. Hardline may be the only way. Puff [...]
WakeUpDead: A MINI Spof, Lock up your Weed, in 18 years that is. Really Man congrats! Greatest days of my life when my kids were born, hell yeh, great news [...]
BenJaMin: Late night Stash!!!
SneakerPimp: heres a bong rip for spof
RevRayGreen: errr test over....
RevRayGreen: on hold..
RevRayGreen: @RR I'll try and lob a call to you.....
SneakerPimp: where is the first field of cannabis gonna be?
SneakerPimp: !
Radical Russ: Breaking News: MrSpof's wife's water just broke! A MiniSpof is imminent!
SneakerPimp: oh russ its not my fault that i dont understand choppy word:stoned:
SneakerPimp: @Mrspof congratulations tell us all about it tommrow
Radical Russ: OK, test over. Sorry. Only needed a half hour. Be back tomorrow afternoon.
slash5city: don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west
thaistik: Local Crime Stoppers notice.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Pot shop burglars sought
Crime Stoppers is looking for information on the suspects who police say burglarized a medical marijuana dispensary and stole cash, drugs [...]
Marijuana-Related Health Costs Minimal Compared To Those Of Alcohol, Tobacco; California Medical Association Says Pot Prohibition Is A "Failed Public Health Policy"; Oregon: State NORML Affiliate Opens First 'Cannabis Café'. […]
American Medical Association Calls For Scientific Review Of Marijuana's Prohibitive Status; Dutch Marijuana Use Lower Than European Average, Study Says […]
"Truth In Trials Act" Reintroduced In Congress; Maine: Voters Approve Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Measure; Colorado: Breckenridge Voters Overwhelmingly Decide To End Pot Penalties. […]
Some of the nation’s top athletes discuss why today's pros are turning to cannabis — and away from alcohol and painkillers — off the field, and question why pro sports leagues are continuing to sanction those who do. Moderator: Steve Bloom, Author, Pot Culture; editor, celebstoner.com * Toby Grear, MMA fighter * Sean Neumann, Documentary Filmm […]
Cannabis Law Reform's Missing Link: Law Enforcement Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper; LEAP and NORML Advisory Board; Author of Breaking Rank Putting the Mexican Cartels Out of Business Mexican drug cartels now employ over 100,000 soldiers and are responsible for nearly ten thousand deaths per year. Their largest source of income is marijuana. […]
Stash for Thu, Jul 9, 2009
sounds like time for some 
mountain time wake n bake 
don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west 
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