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Hemp Headlines

1. Billings, Montana votes for 6 month moratorium on dispensaries following two firebombings of dispensaries
2. Owners lawyering up for Los Angeles pending close of over 400 dispensaries
3. White House changes rhetoric in the War on Drugs, makes concessions for heroin and cocaine, but moving forward with same old law enforcement against cannabis.

Daily Toker Tunes

Brought to you by Sahra Kant Photography

• Electric Tuesday: Sly Joe – “High”

California Marijuana Report with Eric Brenner

• Interview with Charles Lynch, federally convicted medical marijuana dispensary owner from Morro Bay, CA.

Radical Rant

• PETA, Fox’s Judge Napolitano, and Columbia Police respond to SWAT Dog Killing

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Hemp Headlines

1. Conservatives for Legalization
2. Idaho law: driving under the influence of marijuana isn’t illegal!
3. Willamette Week’s cover story on legalization
4. Eddy Lepp & Charles Lynch: Federal Felons or Freedom Fighters?

Southern California Scene with Tere Joyce

• Lanny Swerdlow, San Bernadino activist (see http://marijuananews.org and listen on http://kcaaradio.com Mondays at 6pm.)

Daily Toker Tunes by Marijuana Music Awards . com

• 2009 AMMA Best Blues Song – ‘Seems Like the Blues’ by Various Lazy

Cannabis Conversations

• Bruce Mirken from Marijuana Policy Project with breaking news on their new ad in California.

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.

*Ask a vet.

(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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Hemp Headlines

1. Mother Jones explains how the Drug Czar is mandates to lie about marijuana
2. Rachel Hoffman’s Law goes into effect tomorrow in Florida
3. Cannabis has not shown “any evidence of increasing schizophrenia” in the UK
4. Two San Antonio women die from Fentanyl patches

California Marijuana Report with Eric Brenner

• Convicted dispensary owner Charles Lynch

Daily Toker Tunes by Marijuana Music Awards . com

• 2009 AMMA Best Country Song – ‘Chickasaw County’ by Jimmy Aldridge

Government at Work

• 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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Hemp Headlines

1. Charles Lynch sentenced to 366 days in prison for growing legal medical marijuana in California
2. Rep. Barney Frank to introduce Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act of 2009
3. Oaksterdam’s Richard Lee backs TaxCannabis2010.org to legalize marijuana by initiative
4. 6 UK Cops Accused of Waterboarding Pot Suspects

Daily Toker Tunes by Marijuana Music Awards . com

• Best Blues – ‘Toke of Rhythm’ by Walter Herleman and Howlin Dogma

Special: Aspen Legal Seminar 2009

• Prop 215 co-author and NORML Board Member Attorney Bill Panzer on dispensaries and the law and cross-examining police “expert” witnessess

(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.

FREE CHARLES LYNCH! FREE EDDY LEPP!

Medical marijuana provider Charles Lynch is set to be sentenced at 9:30am PT today.

Full stories later as details are available.

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.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2009-04-24.mp3)

Hemp Headlines

1. Judge Wu: “If I could find a way out [of sentencing Charles Lynch to a 5-year minimum], I would”
2. New Hampshire Senate to vote on Medical Marijuana
3. Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA): Pot Legalization Could Be Part Of Criminal Justice Overhaul
4. Reality Catcher: Victory In Kitsap! Lessons And Moments From The Bruce Olson Medical Marijuana Trial

Cultivator’s Corner with High Times’ Sr. Cultivation Editor Danny Danko

• 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?

Daily Toker Tunes by Marijuana Music Awards

• It’s a Rap on Friday – ‘LockBox’ by Breathe Life

Cannabis Conversations

• 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.