Bear witness with me please to the end of what has been nothing less than a slow and torturous cannabis prohibition persecution, sorry, prosecution of a most decent fellow named Bernie Ellis. On his bucolic and much-loved Tennessee farm Mr. Ellis we arrested and prosecuted for growing a small amount of cannabis, much of it shared with nearby sick, dying and sense-threatened medical patients–including some of Mr. Ellis’ closest neighbors.
For this ‘crime’ against the state he was sent to prison, lived in halfway houses, suffered through probation and dozens of drug tests, and, if that was not enough, the government wanted even more flesh in the form of Ellis’ beloved farm. As if arrest, prison, probation and drug test were not enough, the government also wanted Ellis property.
Eight years after Ellis’ arrest, the final chapter on the incident appears to have been written last week at an auction house sixty miles from the scene of the ‘crime’.
The question for many is, was the crime cultivating medical cannabis or the government ‘stealing’ Mr. Ellis’ property? In their misdirected war against cannabis consumers, every year in America tens of billions of dollars in cash and other valuable assets (i.e., land) are seized by states and the federal government.
Rather than twist the beautiful and freedom-giving US Constitution into a pretzel when trying to seize a citizen’s land for an act most citizens don’t consider a crime, let alone a major crime, state and federal government should employ a constitutional-friendly, non-adversarial, logical and decidedly low tech way to cease the legal sophistry of so-called ‘civil’ forfeiture for cannabis-related ‘crimes’: tax stamps (the same way far more deadly and addictive products like tobacco and booze are legally controlled).
To medical cannabis activists: This is a long note I sent out this morning to the 500+ people who have followed my eight year battle with federal weasels for the crime of growing cannabis and giving it away to four terminally ill neighbors. I hope that this story illustrates once again the importance of your work and the necessity for strong and persistent voices for science, common sense and compassion. Keep up your good work and I will try to do the same.
Bernie Ellis, MA, MPH——
Good (really) early morning, all y’all. It is just past 4:20 am Friday morning in my Tennessee deep hollow home as I start this message, though I have already been up an hour. I’ve already had my quart of coffee, my quiet time on the porch with my two dogs and the young brown bats that play tag above my head on my front porch, before the sun gets up. I have soaked in the claw-foot tub, and dressed for the day, in shorts, work-boots and (for the moment) my favorite t-shirt from 10,000 Waves out west in the other Santa Fe (NM), on the high road up their mountain.
Most of the pieces I share with all y’all about my life and my views, both considerably colored by my eight year dance with federal weasels over my federal medical marijuana case, have been written quickly, as soon as the incident or the urge allows. This one, for several reasons I am well aware of, has taken longer to start. What follows is (and will be) my memory of witnessing our government sell part of my farm for the crime of growing pot … and giving it away to four dying neighbors.
I could have written this down Wednesday evening, but instead I sat around a friend’s kitchen table, with his wife and his kids, to let the day out somewhere I would not be alone (and where I would certainly be understood). These folks have been my friends for 30+ years and they are the most complete married couple I know. They were the right place to start this process Wednesday evening.
I also could have written this any time yesterday – Thursday. Instead, I took advantage of our recent three inch rain to pull more pliant weeds in my late summer Garden all day, to begin the process of building my bookend compost piles, to the north and south of my raised-bed rows, with the offal, the refuse, the wild growth (what little of it) still inhabits my 40+ year organic bread-basket that breaths just beyond my front-porch — my Garden. She kept me busy and distracted almost all day (with the help of some donated sour diesel from a Nashville friend that provided more reflective fuel for my internal fire). The more time I spent with Her,the more it was clear that She had been neglected by me in the past minutes and seconds, as my hip and the impending loss of my land intervened. Yesterday, I began to make amends to Her and we worked together for hours, Her donating the random weeds that had sprouted in Her presence and me accepting them as a deposit on next year’s abundance.
So, after two days of cogitating, here goes. On Wednesday, I drove 60 miles – one way – to witness our government sell some of my land at what should have been the final chapter in my fight to save my farm. The thing is, in saving most of my farm, I have learned just how far my country – or the fundamental, freedom-loving foundation of it – has been lost in our war on (some) drugs. So read and weep (or get mad as hell) and let me hear from you. All y’all — my flesh-and-blood and virtual friends, my fellow warriors for science, common sense and compassion, my fellow protectors and benefactors of the Goddess (and the rest of you too.)
Here goes ….
—–It was early when I got up Wednesday, but not too early. The forced sale of my 25 acres (as a plea bargain to save the remaining 147 acres) was not happening until 1:45 pm and it was just now 5:30 am. But the joys of living in my country include ritual, both of necessity and of intention, and my rituals spread out in front of me to fill the hours before my trip north began. No rain yet (three weeks dry here, in almost constant 110 degree heat index, brutal), so I spent an hour hosing cold spring water onto the two late summer Garden rows – the ones with alternating sweet corn and cantaloupes, with one section of sunflowers and another of late yellow crook-neck squash. Soaking them down as much as possible, them and my out-of-place baby watermelons, beginning to look like they just might feed me (and others) yet. Time to (not) kill, time to breathe.
Getting centered is always good, and it was good on Wednesday. In truth, I had been preparing for this day for eight years but, since the government had sprung the sale out of the blue last month, it was still something I was not really prepared for. (As my late (psychiatrist) daddy used to say, “the healing of a fractured relationship does not begin with the separation, but the divorce.”) At that moment, though, the 25 acres was not still mine (having signed it over to the weasels in December), but it was not yet someone else’s. That was coming now, though, like a freight train.
One good thing about recovering from my hip surgery is that I have become more intentional with my time away from the farm. So today, knowing that I would have to drive north of Nashville to lose my land, I made a list of everything that needed doing in Nashville. Delivering a big sack of sweet basil to a new friend to feed her sons, returning books and movies (“Apocalypse Now”) to an older friend, making copies at Kinko’s and eating green curry at the International Market. There was more (other) stuff to do, and so I left the land by mid-morning.
The drive to Nashville always provides two choices – follow the Natchez Trace on its secluded gentle roller-coaster ride along the “Path of Peace” or take Old Hillsboro road. The second choice allows me to drive a little bit faster, and to stop in Leiper’s Fork, which I did for gas. Another hour or so in and around Nashville completing the chores and there was nothing left to do but show up to the sale. For all that I had done to distract myself, I was still the third one there.
It remains weird that the feds had chosen not to sell my land actually – you know – on the land. Maybe they knew that their extortion of me still rubbed my neighbors, as well as the local media and medical marijuana activists in lots of places, the wrong way and that some of them might show up to shine a “shame on you” light on their activities. Certainly the fact that my neighbors had spent weeks tearing down the gaudy yellow “auction” signs the feds had paid to litter around our back roads, depositing them at the head of my driveway each morning, might have given them a clue. So, for whatever reason, the feds bundled my land with four other sales and conducted the auction as far from my farm as they could get. I am sure they will claim efficiency as their motive – I will always and forever claim it was chicken-shit.
When I arrived at the tidy brick house near an industrial park in Whites Creek, the auctioneers had just started unloading their papers and other equipment. There were a few folks there, including one (a new neighbor I had just met in the weeks leading up to the sale) who had told me he would bid. Then I noticed another neighbor, a carpenter who had built the sun-porch on my home, who was there with another friend of his in hopes of getting the land too. There were at least three other groups of folks, a young man with a “Co-op” hat and his dad, two husky country-looking boys probably in their 40s and an withered old man standing next to a G. Gordon Liddy look-alike. All those folks had made the drive to bid on my land, and they made up two-thirds of the crowd.
In addition to taking bids there, these very efficient auctioneers (who had told me they do a “lot of this” for the government, so they knew their deal) were equipped to accept on-line and phone bids. But they were there to move fast, and then to move on.
Two of the five pieces sold before mine, both nice homes in nice neighborhoods in Clarksville and Nashville. The second one, an almost 3,000 square foot home that looked very substantial and well-maintained in the photos at the auction, went for less than $20,000 – in less than two minutes. Everyone there looked as amazed as me. I would know in a minute just what my land would bring.
—–But, first, as background (and to introduce a little suspense), let me remind all y’all that my surrendering this 25 acres was to prevent a “summary judgment” decision by my federal judge to give the feds my entire 172 acre farm or to place a permanent $250,000 lien on my property to satisfy our government’s view of justice in my case. Justice that, in their opinion, had not yet been satisfied by my $60,000 in legal bills $500,000 in lost salary, eighteen months in a federal Bureau of Prisons halfway house and three years ever since unemployed.
For the crime of growing seven pounds of pot and giving it away to four terminally ill neighbors, a crime that I never denied I committed from the moment that two helicopters and ten four-wheelers descended on my farm. One big lesson here – if you cooperate with the feds, they will want to know just how much bull-shit you can take. (Obviously I can take a lot)
Our final plea agreement, in which I surrendered the 25 acres, saved the rest of my farm and saved me from having to live under the burden of a $quarter-million$ lien for the rest of my life. The feds agreed to take whatever they could get for the 25 acres, in return for which they agreed to get out of my life. (More on that later.)
At the time of our plea agreement, the feds’ appraiser had estimated that the 25 acres was worth between $170,000 – $220,000, and that appraisal (I am sure) is what turned the tide toward a final resolution last December. Now back to the sale.
—–
The bidding on my land opened with an on-line bid — of $30,000. (My guess is that this bid came from Arizona, where two other new friends who had already bought 15 acres from me that fronted the 25 acres (for $125,000, two years ago) were trying to protect their rears – and mine.) People whistled in the crowd, and a few jumped in with slightly higher bids. But there was to be no feeding frenzy here today. The bidding quickly stalled, the unseen internet bidders fell silent, and the land was sold ….. for $35,000. To the G. Gordon Liddy look-alike – the only person at the auction who looked out-of-place for my bucolic ‘hood.
No matter. After shaking hands with the folks there I knew (as well as to the country folks I did not), I went over and shook G. Gordon’s hand, told him who I was and said I would be happy to answer his questions. The first thing that was obvious was that he had never even bothered to look at my land beforehand. He asked how much road frontage came with the land (my answer: “None”). He asked how big the pond was on the land. (My answer” “What pond?”) He asked about the driveway. (My answer: there is an unimproved easement, back to the start of the land, but that will require building a 300 yard+ driveway that doesn’t now exist.) With each of my answers, G. Gordon’s mustache drooped a bit more.
I saved the best news for him to experience in the flesh. I neglected to tell G. Gordon that his new land in the country was bordered by the no-longer-young man from whom I bought the land a decade ago (to keep my then-young neighbor from losing the land to an alcohol and cocaine-fueled bankruptcy) and that neighbor had just moved two dilapidated trailers into his side field to join the dozen rusting cars and trucks up on bricko–blocks already scattered all along my (former) land’s western view. Everyone else who bid on my land on Wednesday knew about that scenery. G. Gordon did not.
I can’t wait to see his face.
So that was it, folks. Seven years of heart-ache ended in three minutes of cold-cash bids. I was glad (I suppose) that it was over. And I was very glad that my land brought so little to the feds. In fact, I drove home hoping that the last prosecutor I dealt with (dense between the ears, deficient in the heart) would choke on the news of the pitiful return the land brought. Choke on it … and die.
I have learned and (and re-learned, one day at a time) that keeping an attitude of gratitude is the best way to face everything and recover. So it was on Wednesday. But two things kept eating me, and I suspect they always will. Unbeknownst to me and to my neighbors who bid on the land, they were instructed before the sale that the US Marshalls had imposed another restriction on the sale of my land that would prohibit anyone that day (including, especially, me) from bidding on the land with the intention of selling it or otherwise returning it to me. They repeated that extra-judicial restriction (which none of us, including my judge, knew about or acquiesced to) several times before the sale. Mind you, no one was there to buy the land for me, and I hardly have a pot to piss in these days, much less more money to throw down a fetid federal rat-hole. But just the thought of that final example of arrogant federal flatulence posing for law-and-order reminded me of it all.
And some of that “all” was what the 25 acres meant to me. Even though it was not part of my original farm, it was land that I learned to cut and haul hay on (when I helped my young neighbor’s daddy, Sharkey Shouse, put up hay for his jacks and jennies). It was land that I had fenced, not once but twice. It was land I had kept clean, before it was my land and after. It was land from which I had cut firewood, and witnessed the wonder of an ice-storm’s aftermath, coating the tall grass and every hanging tree twig and branch with ice that sparkled like a billion little prismic rainbows. That was what that 25 acres meant to me.
What it was to the feds was one more chance to drown the American dream in the drug war’s civil asset forfeiture bath-tub, one more chance to demonstrate that growing pot is the crime that keeps on punishing – more than murder, more than rape, more than election fraud or fouling our seas. More than almost anything.
That is where I want to leave all y’all this morning. But – to be clear – I am not leaving you at the end of this story. I am leaving you in the middle of this struggle. No one else (or precious few) should have to go through what my last eight years have been. Our failed war on drugs – and the steroided, well-armed, civil liberties-trampling “drug worriers” that it has unleashed like so many rabid flying monkeys on us – has got to stop. And it has to stop soon.
I helped elect President Obama (almost all of us did) for many reasons, including his pledge to allow cannabis/marijuana to be returned to the medical pharmacopoeia. I celebrated when AG Holder announced last October that the feds would no longer go after participants in lawfully-established state medical marijuana programs. I have been encouraged by the number of states (14 now and DC) who have re-established medical marijuana programs and the several dozen (including Tennessee) who are not far behind. Indeed, there is much to be grateful for.
At the same time, I had to drive 120 miles round-trip on Wednesday for the privilege of witnessing the sale of land that was (and will always be) a piece of my heart. And, three times in the three weeks before that sale, I have experienced my farm being buzzed, low and loud, by the farces of evil – low enough to rattle my windows and blow down my late summer sweet corn – ostensibly looking for pot that only a fool or an insane person (or someone broke and in pain) would plant. Though I have been some of the above, I have not (yet) been all three.
My only recourse for these illegal low-level fly-overs has been to drop my shorts and invite the pilot to fly up my ass. After that temporary relief, my other response has been — and always will be — to keep working to overturn the laws that keep these worthless and irrelevant cowardly cowboys in the air. That will be my life’s work. I hope it is yours too.
From the banks of my creek, just south of my Garden, on what’s left of my farm.
Peace out. Y’all come.
————–
” ..Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand ….” William Butler Yeats
When America finally figures out just how much damage the prohibition has wreaked on our nation,being a former
drug warrior will be the same thing as being an escaped Nazi after WWII.
Mr. Ellis, my heart breaks for you and your ordeal.Keep the faith and long may your flag fly high.
Is Mr. Butler on Facebook ? I would like to support him and friend request him if possible.
Not enough of us are willing to let our FLAG FLY HIGH. Far too many of you are afraid. Far too may of you are afraid of loosing your job. Far too many of you have fallen to the constant government pounding, and are conditioned to think you should be ashamed of having made the safer choice. If you continue to hide in the cannabis closet, you are impotent, inefective, invisible, and useless. You think you are safe, well you are not, and never will be untill you open the door, and step out into the light of day.
Sickening abuse of government power.
Dude… a ‘Bare witness’ is a naked person. To ‘Bear witness’ is to give testimony. Stop making stoners look even more stuipd… please.
If Bernie Ellis could get a little publicity, people could donate to a fund and buy the property, then give it right back to Mr. Ellis. This would basically tell the government to leave him alone.
Sir I am ashamed of what these monsters have done to you. No man or woman should be subject to crap like that. I hope that my generation will change things around this country and little by little we will. What most dont realise is that the young in this country are almost all against the evil that resides in our “government”. One day we will change things and bring to justice those that today impose their totalitarian views on the masses. Mr. Ellis your loss will not be in vain as long as I live. I salute you!
You Sir, are a Hero.
My heart goes out to you, Mr.Ellis. that is a lot to bare for one person your positive attitude is up lifting.You will remain in my thoughts and prayers.If there is one thing I am leaving here with today is your statement ….”keeping an attitude of gratitude is the best way to face everything and recover.” spoken like a true fighter.Keep up the good fight! but mostly keep us informed on how your doing !!!!GOD BLESS YOU MR. BERNIE ELLIS, MAY GOD WALK WITH YOU THROUGH YOUR TIMES OF NEED
It’s a tragedy that all the injustices Mr. Ellis has been forced to endure are imposed upon him legally as a punishment for the “crime” of growing medical marijuana. The real crime here is the seizure of this man’s land in order to make an example as part of an unjust, failed war on (some) drugs.
I’m so sorry this has happened to you, especially here in America where the propaganda says it is the home of the free. I’m sure you don’t feel very “free”. I too would like to friend you on facebook if you have an account.
Peace
Michelle Plaven Thomas
Mr. Butler, I am very encouraged by your courage and good spirits. I don’t know how I would’ve handled all that without buying a shotgun. The last time our country stood up for anything was in the sixties and we all know how that turned out; Kent State.
But we all must take an ACTIVE stance on this. For this to be done to our own citizens is not just unfortunate, it is un-justifiable, and borders on evil. If we all start posting this information, spreading it around, in general become rabble rousers, maybe we could SHAME them enough to start doing the right thing. I am just beside myself over this issue and I believe EVERYONE should be as disgusted AND advocate change.
Mr. Butler, I am truley sorry for your plight and so appreciate you coming forward and sharing. I only wish there was someway I could offer some help.
BTW, have you (I’m sure you have) considered writing a book? You are a good communicator.
I am sorry you had to go through such dramatics. However, I feel your pain. I was arrested and tried for a class A felony, as I am positive you were too, for growing 18 females. While I didn’t have to spend nearly as much time in jail or nearly as much in fines, the principals are still there. I had several thousand dollars in fines, spent 1.5 months in jail, 2 months on house arrest, numerous UA’s, and 3 years probation. I can’t get a place to live in hardly or a job because of my background. This bullshit needs to stop. It is a fruitless battle and it is only causing damage and pain. It ruins peoples lives for what? Nothing.
Get a f*cking clue Sam, you are destroying peoples lives.
Nixon, Bush jr ,Bush sr, Clinton and Obama all a guilty of Crimes against humanity and should be prosecuted. Because with a stroke of a pen they could have and could end the “War on Drugs”, aka the war on the people,
buy presidential order just as it was created. Sense this is not going to happen. We must stack the juries with informed juries knowing that they have the power to rule against bad and unjust laws.
“When America finally figures out just how much damage the prohibition has wreaked on our nation, being a former
drug warrior will be the same thing as being an escaped Nazi after WWII.”
^ TRUTH
There is that proverbial carrot on that string held out in front of the animal to make it run ever so much faster to get it. The government dangles freedoms and liberties that we should have in front of us, but still police arrest pot users no matter how much of an activist the are. The louder voices can speak all day of legalization, but what help does the average smoker get from any of this all? I think that there should be a better regulated action service of lawyers, independant media, expert testimony in cases, training courses about all the aspects of the plant including it’s uses and myths exposed, and there should be explained to people that just because they don’t smoke pot or do any drug… it is important to learn about botany and all aspects the aspects of cannibus sativa. I quit smoking pot before I moved to Michigan in October in 2008. I was so relieved and relaxed, and though I miss the euphoria – I still quit and have kept clean. I just made a safe break. I still feel that I had the right to use pot for the 16-17 years that I smoked it, and I think the same for everyone else. I was peaceful about it all, and I hurt no one. I would not smoke it if it were legal, but it should be available at the store rolled like a cigarette, with different filters (hemp?), and packaged for sale to adults of legal voting age. It was always wrong to use prohibition. I wonder what the law man does with all of the tons and tons of buds that they seize? Do the screws get loose and buck wild? If the burn it to get rid of it, that would have been a waste of time. People pay to do that every day. rotflmao!
Mr. Ellis,
I am also from Tennessee and heard of the horror you went through! It is VERY frustrating to live in a country whose priorities are so disgustingly backwards, I could spontaneously combust! Had you been a repeated pedophile or murderer your land or ass would have not nearly been in as much trouble. But you were growing plants that this country considers worst than murder?
Just on T.V. this morning they were saying how are schools are so strapped for cash that the parents are going to have to supply even more items for the kids than they can probably afford! I have never heard of a cop getting hired and have to supply his own weaponry! We wont even give our kids what they need!
All you can do (like you said) is be grateful and count your blessings! One blessing is an awesome thing!
We too have been down the road layed by the law, its a filthy road to travel!
Aye, this drug war has turned the protectors of the peace (police/FEDs) into enemies of the public.
As far as I’m concerned, the lawmakers and politicians that are behind this are just as bad as the nazis or the taliban! They should all be ashamed and, if they had any honor, do the honorable thing! I don’t expect that though… They are lying greedy cowards! I hope that they got what they deserve some day soon.
This shit’s gotta stop! Greedy bastards. They ought to give it all back, and make good on it again. Legalize and undo the many injustices. Have it so people can file to get either their property back or restitution when this part of the law is redesigned to do away with asset forfeiture for cannabis delicts. People on the left are for legalization, and people on the far right are, judging by their primaries, open to a 2nd Amendment solution for what they want. Everybody just needs to mellow out.
saaad story ,feel for ur troubles, best wishes.
I to am in a simular situation.One thing is for sure I will be punished more so than 80% of the crimes out there.For a plant that could change so much of the way of life as we know it.
If only so few in control would just get listen to the People,the reports,and see what they are doing with “POT” and Industrialized hemp.
the fuel it could create -“WOW”I thought we were about freedom in the USA.–(loseing them more and more)
Then life could be closer to …..NORML
peace new freind I will kept your invatation close.
74D serving an iraq tour-my heart goes out to Mr. butler bro only if george washington and benjamin franklin could of saw this they would have not let this happen
california is our chance vote for prop 19 end this meanliness war on marijuana
coke, herion can go to hell you only need herb
We’ve all heard the saying (many times over, I’m sure)..” Ignorance of the law is no excuse” in regards to the American public…why then is ignorance of the U.S. Constitution…ignorance of the science …ignorance of what we KNOW is true and right and fair
…why is this ignorance, which is practiced on a daily basis by our government, allowed?
I thought once you were out of high school, you didn’t have to deal with bullies anymore? Turns out the bullies are bigger after high school and they can send you to prison “just because”…
My heart goes out to you Bernie… peace…
………..and Feinstein & Meg Whitman is saying no against legalization which is fueling these mass killings. A no vote this November will continue this senseless violence ;
Aug. 15 , 2010
Ciudad Juarez, 20 people were killed in several incidents in the city. The incidents included two separate triple homicides. Several of the bodies discovered in the city were bound with tape and showed signs of torture. Over the weekend, 51 people were killed. Monday’s killings bring the 2010 death toll in Ciudad Juarez to approximately 1,884.
In Oaxaca, gunmen killed eight members of a hunting party near Mexico’s Gulf Coast. The exact motive for the killings is unclear. In Monterrey and in Reynosa, armed men threw hand grenades at the local offices of Televisa.
Tuesday, August 17
In a video made public on Tuesday, an alleged member of the Juarez Cartel claimed that the cartel is hiring attractive young women to serve as assassins. The suspect, Rogelio Amaya, claims that around roughly 30 women between the ages of 18 and 30 have been recruited and trained to carry out hits, which many of them have. Rogelio Amaya is thought to be a member of La Linea, the enforcement arm of the Juarez Cartel.
In Culiacan, four prison inmates were murdered and were discovered in a dumpster. All four had their throats slit. Three of the four men had been arrested earlier this month following a firefight with police. Violence between rival drug trafficking gangs is common in Mexican prisons.
…….and here in America thanks to people like Feinstein forfeitures & murders continues .
(08-22) 17:01 PDT Santa Rosa, Calif.
Authorities are trying to determine what’s causing an increase in violence that has left five suspects dead during raids of marijuana gardens across Northern California during the past several weeks.
Most recently, one suspect was fatally shot in a gunbattle Wednesday when more than 60 law enforcement officers raided a marijuana garden in a remote area of Mendocino County.
Drug agents have been raiding marijuana grows across the region for years, but the raids this summer have turned increasingly violent.
Mr. Butler sounds like an incredibly wise and intelligent person. This story was heart-wrenching….I would love to sit down and have a chat with this man
I have never cried and been so enraged all at the same time. To know that this is really, really happening to people such as Mr. Ellis, makes me want to throw up and punch someone in the face. I’m not violent but that is as close as I can get to explaining the rage I feel at this moment. To be kind, empathetic, caring and loving toward others that need help then arrested, prosecuted, dragged through the courts and then your land seize is mind-boggling. The law is enforced across the board, and not on a case by case basis. This action is criminal. They continue to refuse to accept the science and the many benefits of cannabis. Yes they must destroy the drug cartels on the borders and in the US. And it’s not that they can’t, they won’t. They fear their history have of being in bed with these cartels for so long time is incriminating evidence they don’t want revealed to the American public or the world for that matter. This goes far back to the The Medellin Cartel, Oliver North and Manuel Noriega in the ’80s.
Will they ever leave the cannabis user and those who grow for their own consumption alone? I hope so.
Whether you like it or not Mr. Ellis, you’re a hero.
Marijuana prohibition is evil.
Christians against Marijuana prohibition Says on :
August 23rd, 2010 These are the Giant corporations / Pharma & Alcohol
Like cages full of birds, their houses are full of deceit; they have become rich and powerful and have grown fat and sleek. Their evil deeds have no limit; they do not plead the case of the fatherless to win it, they do not defend the rights of the poor.
Attributed to:
God, Jeremiah
Commentary:
They have filled up prisons past unconstitutional levels with jailings, and shackled millions more under probationary conditions.
They steal belongings via (un)civil asset forfeiture laws.
Mr. Ellis is a hero and a trooper on the front line in the war on American people.
This is a travesty of Mr. Ellis’ civil rights, doling out “cruel-and-unusual” punishment for a “non”-crime. I mean, WHO did the government think his pot growing was VICTIMIZING? He wasn’t hanging outside schools, or in public venues, so I ask again, “Who’s the ‘victim’ here, and just HOW were they “victimized”?
After billions of taxpayer dollars spent on prohibition, with thousands of ruined lives, an escalating spiral of violence from the drug cartels, proportionately the LARGEST prison population on the planet, WHY do we continue this “war”? These pot prohibition laws were created with a specific “goal” in mind: Reduce America’s pot use.
Then I would say prohibition has failed miserably. What do we have to show for almost 35 years of this exorbitantly expensive, ultimately, inneffective, “deterrent”?
A person in this country is arrested EVERY 37 SECONDS for a marijuana “crime,” with 84% of those arrests for MERE POSSESSION, not dealing, growing, or transporting it.
I’m lucky to live in California, where I’m confident we’ll pass Prop 19, and legalize pot for adult use, once-and-for-all. If we don’t succeed this November, it will STILL happen here, eventually. I and my old man currently both have medical pot scrips, are allowed to grow our own “medicine,” and have been advocating legalization since we 1st started smoking pot, almost 45 years ago.
The government’s original persecution-and-prosecution of Mr. Ellis was flat-out WRONG. And their treatment of him has gotten progressively worse, with NO semblance of Constitutional law or his basic “rights” being protected.
BTW, how much has it cost the taxpayers to prosecute and adjudicate this “criminal”? Such a waste of resources that could have been spent much more efficaciously, on “real” crime, like murder, and rape.
We stand behind you Mr. Ellis, while we continue to work for marijuana’s “freedom,” and ours.
Stay High and Peace!
Mr. Ellis,
It is cruel what they have done to you and they must be stopped. I support you. Prohibition does not work. If you could postpone it for a couple of years, you might get to keep it.
Tennessee Cops are Cruel and power hungry ass holes! Keep on Tokin!
You can bet that if every pastor included this story in his/hers message this Sunday, a large majority of the nation would let our so-called representatives know that enough is enough. Or, if the major news outlets would present this story to the public on the nightly new, this crap would come to an end. But I’m not going to hold my breath that either will happen, because neither of these groups will pull there heads out of the sand long enough to admit that there really are such things as BAD LAWS.
I once new a man who grew cannabis in soil he hauled away from my compost pile that I spent 10 years building up from owning a landscaping business. It was mostly grass clippings and leaves boken down over the years. Not only did he grow some awesome veggies he gave to the intire neighbor-hood, He also cared for his elderly Aunt and two other old folks. They just sat around in wheel chairs watching the idiot box all day. That was before my friend started making cannabis tea and giving it to these old folks every day. After about six weeks he told me that he went home to find them all up walking around after enjoying a great smelling meal they had fixed together and talking up a storm. Mr.Ellis, may the Lord bless you for your kindness.
MR. Ellis you are a true american. It’s time all of us true americans find a way of controling the government and the big corporations which in my opinion are one in the same.
The United States Government is evil. So are the hypocritical christian people of the Uninted States that support prohibition. We stand for NOTHING, in this country any more. Definitely not freedom or liberty. If we did, this would have never happened to this man. We are a pathetic example if this is recognized around the world as freedom and liberty. Its no wonder the US Government worry about wikileaks spreading the truth.. Somebody else or another country will have to tell us what the truth really is,the US government is no longer capable of the truth…They have become our enemy.
My middle name was spelled wrong by me before. I have had years and years of pot in my lungs. I was not one to buy more than a half oz., ever. I would just get a “quarter bag” or a “dime bag” or as low as a “nickle” or a “nick”. I used other drugs with differing results, to say the least. Pot was my favorite because even in my smoking infacy, I felt good and pain subsided. I learnd later about mind expansion. I prefered using the plant’s psychotropic aspects to medicate as an aspiring Buddhist, I got artistic and wrote poems, I experienced the astral planes and did magic as well. All my friends smoked, and everyone in my city that was my age or so smoked as well. I never shot up drugs intra-veiniously, I neved smoked crack, I never did ice, I will never do LSD, I would basicly prefer the comination of beer, pot, and cigarettes to stabalize the rampant amount of pot in my system. There is NO reason that cannibus sativa should be illegal. It is basicaly an all around plant for medicine, relaxation, meditation, sedation, celebration, food, peaceful jesturing, finding about who you are and what you are, shamanism, and can be used to help in marital affairs to strengthen the bond between couples. It is a way of soul searching, cosmic and vital throughout the existance of time. Man might not have been the first to enjoy the burning plants. Imagine the growth of the last step before us, and how the population developed due to all of the plants on the ERarth at that time. It would be very interesting to see if pot had an intimate and decisive effect on our very lives today through the nature of it’s botanical use through out evolution as far back as the pot grew on our planet. If anyone is looking for a botany doctoral thesis, then consider what effect cannibus sativa had on the evolotion of mankind, esp. the multiple effects of the plant on brain functioning I hope I got the Latin name for pot right. My Aunt in heaven was a Latin and Greek major at The University of Michigan and was an avid reader like none I had ever seen.
Rug, your post #17 is inaccurate. A few months ago, I thought the same until I was correct by NORML. The President can not change the laws, only Congress can.
I never thought marijuana prohibition would still be here, 38 years after I started writing letters to my congressmen and every President since Nixon.
After prohibition ends, everyone who had their property unjustly taken should file for recouse. Everyone who was punished for growing a plant should also be compensated. If the Japanese Americans can be compensated for unjust interment during WWII, so can you. Lets not forget that almost 22 years ago, FRANCIS L. YOUNG, DEA Administrative Law Judge, ruled that Marijuana should be a schedule 2 drug and all this is BS by our government. John Lenon said it best: Power to the People!.
Many here seem uninformed of who and what the government and the constitutions are. Please google Dr. Dale Livingston, constitution as to what is going on at the moment, see http://curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=1675654
[wait for Dr Dale to come on..]
Mr Ellis…all of you!….please come to redemption by method yahoo group [RedemptionByMethod@yahoogroups.com] and post your story, ask questions as to how to get your property bsck you’ll be surprised as to what is going on.
Love you man and feel the atrocities imposed upon you. Some folks are absolutely shameless.
I wonder if there was ever any pot discovered in famous burial sites unearthed by archiologists that was never reported. There might have been some burried with the Egyptians, and since the plant is so very old, I would hazard a guess that there is artifact after artifact that either contained pot, was filled with tons of resin from smoking pot, or was other wise involved with the next world that had something to do with pot. No one should not be allowed to smoke pot, unless they are fully grown and of mental maturity as adults by medical standards and not according to age (18 or 21), though that will likely be the system used that regulates purchase and use. I am justifiably outraged that the easiest issue in the world to make the world safer, saner, healthier, and happier gets people in elected office to turn such a cold shoulder. Their voters smoke it, they just don’t all march out in public across the country with a lit joint in their hand, all around the country, to make a stand. Wow… that just might work… It won’t work in sparse rural areas. It would in the cities, but don’t peg me as hero or villan. I am just one guy typing in the dark. I don’t even smoke anymore. What would people call such a march? “We Toke, The System’s Broke, I Will Not Wear A Yoke That Makes Me Croak!” ©jswilson That is my idea. The laws have been to invasive and it is is no longer “We The People” anymore, unless we show them that we can think and march smartly, unlike the G20 mess. We must use our minds and free our rights. Some one pick a day, do it internationaly. I put the copywrite on my wording just to save time and energy later on. Let me know how you feel about this, and no I am not advocating revolution or any of that sort of thing at all. I just thought up some words and typed them up. Oi!
More people are finding the truth all the time. The Jack booted thugs drugged up on excitement walk through citizens rights like a hot knife through butter. Running beautiful people through a web of deceit that makes the carpet beggars look like choir boys. Some day they will have to crawl back into the hell hole that they came from. They are more out numbered every day. What can the citizens do. Some can not stand up. Some are broken. One thing for sure it was not the cannabis that hurt them. As Jack Herer or Caption Ed would say “The only person to die because of pot was shot by a cop.” The people united can never be divided. As only a corrupted government would try to do. No money for medical or dental care. No money for schools. No money for the poor and starving. But it seems they always find money for their banks, war machines[Harvesting organs to sell to their rich friends], war mongering ways of breaking up families here and abroad. Every one from the very young to the very old that has needlessly been endangered in the so called drug war. Most were shot after police broke into the wrong house dressed to kill old people, pets, children and yes even infants and . So far the new boss looks just like the old boss. Ask Mark Emery who is in jail for selling the one part of the cannabis that the government refused to make illegal the seed. How else could song birds sing they said. The people united can never be defeated. Thank you for being you. If something does not kill you it makes you stronger. Funny I thought this was America. Not AmeriKKK. May the cannabis people rise like the Christians, and Jews to some day not have some ass hole controlling their lives. Just let us not ever treat any one as bad as we are presently treated. The truth is on our side. I also look forward the day it will set us free. Keep telling the truth. Peace, pot, anti swat. -David-
Actually, Theo, all it would take is to reschedule Cannabis, and that can be done in the Executive Branch. Congress need not even get involved (we all know they can’t do diddly-squat and will simply refer everything to committee where it will never see the light of day again).
Another fine example of government waste!!!
Aine is right. I am angry. Since this whole thing started with FDR years before Pearl Harbor, I say bring back the Mercury Dime. Remove all prohibitionist names from every public building, airport, bridge, ect. Hoover Dam stays (he only worsen The Great Depression), JFK Airport rename back to Idlewild. We should rename all our landfills after prohibitionist politician as a warning to all future politicians that our Constitution and “We The People” matter.
Those of you who have seen how mighty and powerful and capable of dealing death on our enemies. Do we see that this warfare in inevitably coming to roost in our own American lives as well as American Sammoa and all of those holdings of the U.S. such as Porto Ricco? Are we to expect to be forever treated as enemies by our own country due to the failing of our elected officials and those whom they appoint in to positions of power? Is there any such thing as representation of the people, fair representation by taxation, and the security and freedoms given to those given to each and every child born in our republic – The United States Of America. Are we no longer bearing children that are entitled to the same legal right afforded to those of us born from the X generation? Our generation had a begining and it extended until the end of 1975. After that are the Y generation. I seems sad that people are bringing into this world children that are consuming the bi-products of 9+ years of warfare polution kicked up in the atmophere, a ton of nuclear material exploded in the world as various countries (like China in Tibet) test nuclear warheads, and the toxins of centuaries of industrial mayhem due to low standards and poor consideration for health of mankind. If Hearst had been less of a pig of a nazi capitalist, the plant and it’s cousin hemp could have saved our Earth from all these years of abuse at the hands of monsterous tyrants and there would have been a far greater world at our feet. End the madness people! It just takes simple agreement to push our evolvement along.
Goverment Wool
There is a
Disinformation discharge
In my brain,
Traveling around inside me.
Are they all
Blind from seeing lies,
That society is
In dismay, as nothing’s free?
When the world’s
Truth is hidden from it
And all it
Sees and hears are lies to me
Does the knowledge
Slip away into disaterous hands
And come back
To haunt mankind in misery?
From where will
We shine our light be there none?
No breath of
Air rushes into our lungs.
No life living
In truth can truly be in peace.
No one can
Ever know if it ever comes.
They are controling
The blind Earth!
When is the rebirth?
©jswilson
Bernie, Allen,
I’m interested in discussing this case with you. I work for a non-profit on civil asset forfeiture reform, and would like to hear more about your experiences. You should read my essay here on the subject: http://forfeiturereform.com/2010/07/29/why-reforming-asset-forfeiture-is-key-to-ending-the-war-on-drugs/
Eapen Thampy
Policy Analyst
Americans for Forfeiture Reform
http://www.forfeiturereform.com
573-673-6951
My heart goes out to you Mr. Ellis. Never forget that you have many, many friends, including myself, that will stand with you until the bitter end. Never stop telling you’re story! People will be made to see reason.
The only peaceful way to drastically fix our prohibition laws is to march on DC, just like MLK did, and have the voices of one million Americans saying “Stop this shit or we’ll fuck you up!” It’s not illegal to flex your inalienable rights.
sir you are more of an american than the president our soldiers supposedly protecting our nation and anyone who isn’t willing to help our cause with bloodshed. YOU ARE MY HERO.
America bickers over a muslim religious center while these types of atrocities go unreported with no national exposure. Our representatives in Washington sit on their hands, do nothing, and the Government continues to run ruff shod over it’s people.
How Sad!
May peace and blessings fulfill the rest of your life good sir.
What an abomination, people’s priorities are so far out of line it is sad. It’s pathetic that this issue is still so controversial and causes such a distraction from real problems.
No more federal funds should be spent to “enforce” drug policies where the government tells individuals which drugs are “okay” (alcohol, tobacco) and which are “not okay” (Cannabis), like a parent would. It’s not the government’s job to be a parent. Prohibition is paternalistic, outdated and ineffective, and creates organized crime.
yeah, were free!
Now they’ve done it! Now they’ve really pissed me off!
If it’s a war they want – it’s a war they will get!
I’ll say no more – except to say – “Bring it on!”
Our founding fathers would be ashamed of what this government had done and is doing!
anther reason why WE the people have to vote these bumbs out off office. it’s b.s. the goverment can’t see the trees through the forest. the goverment could make $, but with the people in there know no way off it happing.
Prohibitionists must be held to full and just account for all their crimes against humanity. Allowing government this much power in violation of God-given, Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and liberties is like allowing pedophiles to run day care centers for children. In both cases, they just can’t seem to control themselves. If I had the money I’d buy the stolen property and return it to its rightful owner. But then, if I had that kind of money, I wouldn’t live in this country. If our founding fathers knew of this kind of government criminal activity, they would likely vomit, then start another revolution.
Does Bernie Ellis look like a criminal to anyone? Why do we allow our government to treat such an honorable man so badly? Is it because we don’t get involved in our government through the ballot box? Get up Stand up for Mr. Ellis and all of the victims of this disgusting policy! VOTE!!!!
THANKS A LOT, REAGAN!!! I wish I realized how much of of a criminal you were while you were still alive but I was only a child and grew up watching Family Ties, and Alex Keaton idolized you and so did I. I even registered as a republican when I turned 18.
Now I’m a Republican because I know both parties are corrupt but I can’t vote in the primaries in PA because you’re limited to your own party.
http://forfeiturereform.com/2010/08/25/california-auditor-civil-forfeiture-reports-now-available/
I’m sick of hearing the lies being told by those who do not want marijuana to be legal. I am equally sick of hearing them repeated by the sheep who believe them.
TV DINNER TIME
The children absorb the changes
In the truth of modern man
The children learn a version
From the preacher on the stand
Reality melts away as it
Is replaced by plastic fools
The children learn to purchase
Such violence from a tool
The programs lock the circuit
What’s real is what’s on sale
The lines are blured by static
The teacher does not fail
Oh they believe the piper
They live to learn the song
As long as he keeps playing
They trust and go along
They learn to hear the message
To them the story’s true
They kneal in wide amazement
The signal misses few
And we just feul the fire
We hype and breath this crap
If blood is in the picture
It ends up in our lap
©jswilson
I notice that these slick teflon politicions skate just so refined and polished on the mind control machine called TV. I will freely admit that I own a modern TV, and I have an older model hooked up only to a VCR as well as the wall to view old tapes. I watch TV on occasion, but I feel like a fool, believing that I am cheating on my own philosophical aproach to politics. This is just like many people and pot, TV shows anything that they believe people will watch and believe about cannibus, drugs, and anything that they can attached their own warped view and political policies upon. The bias keeps their right wing views in monopoly of American media and they can suckle like pigs to the nipple of their mother pig’s nipple that wants everything to be a divided world under their the control of her law.
Bottom line to all of this is that it SAVE LIFES,!!!. When iy comes down to survival instincs we are going to do what ever it takes for self periservation. A lot of us would die a more prolonged painful demise with out the drug. In the name of compassion and humanity ignore the buricradic B.S and keep living. Lifes way to short to let ignorance of a few take away from so,so many. Do what your heart say and not what the man say. Peace,Love and Dove.
Mr. Ellis,
I am a rap/hip-hop artist from South Florida (Canio the Rapper) and I wish to send you my condolences and apologies…
From the time we are old enough to understand the words being spoken to us, we are all told about how great our country is and how much liberty we have here…
In comparison to other countries this is largely true, but the fact remains that we are denied the majority of the freedoms promised to us in our constitution and more of these freedoms are being taken from us on a daily basis much like the taxes taken from a working man’s paycheck to support the men who do not work in this country…
Our country was formed in the belief that all men are created equal… How true can this statement be when the laws governing us vary as greatly from state to state as they do from country to country?
California and 13 other states have lifted their prohibition on medical marijuana, do the other 37 states reside in a different country? Why are they governed by separate laws? Am I LESS American because I live in Florida and NOT California?
I will fight for marijuana in any venue – electronic, written, public and private…
My only regret is that I can not right the injustices forced upon you and every other American who has been affected by our government’s B.S. legal system…
I wish you the best and send you my deepest apologies on behalf of our corrupted legal system… We will fight this and we will win…
I repeat bring it on!
Run them out of office – or – run them of the streets -makes no difference to me. One way or the other –
they’re down the tubes.
I was also arrested for growing , So I know exactly how Bernie feels. A change is on the way , I feel it!! Keep your head up Bernie! Peace and Compassion!
Atrocious . America is commiting genocide against its own people .( Glad i live in California )
Our Government is so worried about Human Rights in other countries, but look what we have in our own backyard. We have the DRUG WAR-MARIJUANA PROHIBITION-SOUTH OF THE BORDER PROBLEMS and they have our TAX DOLLARS supporting the DEA (DEAD END ATROCITIES) in every nook and crannny covered to keep us in fear of the FEDERAL RETRIBUTIONS in violating marijuana laws. EIGHT YEARS OF FEDERAL PERSECUTION, OVER SEVEN POUNDS OF POT. When marijuana is legal, the atrocties will end and no more UNICORNS.
74 CHRISTIANS AGAINST PROHIBITION
Sorry to disappoint you but they do that in California too. The only real way to end the argument is to use cannabis as a sacrament in CDXX Communion. So! if we believe in God and his gift of Sacrament, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 is the best argument to the feds. Prior Competing Governmental Interests is no argument in medicinal use, under the American Policy.
Todays world is lacking two things that were stripped from us [among other things] in the X-decades -“conscience and mercy.” It’s for sure we won’t recover them from evil. It’s only possible to redeem ourselves through good. We can recover from the plague of evil doers by rejecting them – by inflicting indifference on them. As Louie says – “Trow dem bums out!”
This is a gross violation of your 5th amendment rights sir and I hope that someday the CRIMINALS who stole your land from you will be punished.
The more they put armed guards on the street, the more they take our civil liberties away, the more the violate the rights we have in all juriadictions, the more they lessen and remove our dignity through torture, the more they take from us by way of illegal search and seizure, the more they arrest in violation of legal statutes, the more they illegaly forse their way into people’s homes to seize their weapons, the more they behave in dis-accord with legal actions under the World Court’s statutes and violate international crimes caused by our government and others including our detrimining our very rights under Constitutional LAW… the danger is rising into a complete class war. Either the ones that are in positions of power will have ther marching ordered wariors in America in direct combat with the poppulation that will be fighting a guerilla war using the tactics that beat the English so long ago with citizens like me (waiting for the evil bloodshed to just stop. I may be an activist, but I stay out of the line of fire because of the danger, I also refuse to break the law because it would do me no good and keep me from my computer and rational life in general. I tend to disagree with much of the law.I remeber the phrase well…”I don’t sh*t where I eat”… I am to high profile and also doing it for personal reasons. I know that if I was running for the president in the next election, I would seriously push to make pot legal before the election. The Democrats have serious problems fight now. I bet if the Republicans dug deep enough,they would see 8 years of presidential success, and tons of positions from coast to coast in all elections. What does this mean for Democrats? The Grand Old Party will see that All Mighty Dollar and realize it is a huge market that the can cash in on and that meand more power after all. The Law of Supply and Demand rings a few bells doesn’t it? The say the gangs and all other criminals want it to remain criminal to make money. They are rich enough to open a hash bar or maybe a store front with all sorts of “head shop” merchanice. Legitimate is usualy better because crime can only serve a man for so long. I heard that song from D12 that states: most platers are not trying to get imto the streets, they are trying to get out. Pardon any misquoted words or quotes in this reply. I am sure that the gentle man that was pinched by the screws was treated unfairly. It seems to grow, ha ha grow, atention and if a person is so up tight, thet relax and feel better. Just look at the leaf and the buds, as well as the rest of the plant. The leaves invite you in… the plant draws people in, and does most of the work. If your a lawyer, psycologist, botonist, what ever your specialty is, come together and study the plant as it is – the way it is affective in a myriad of ways.
Sorry about the typos… I am tired. The pot plant can win the 2012 election by being pushed forward by the Republicans. If they make it legal before the election, and they surely see the obviously astronomical financial windfall they could cash in on, their presidential canidate will win the election twice in a row. Then they will also see tons of GOP wins around the country. I know the formula works.
If those bastards had landed on my property it would have been “Game-on ! shootout till the bitter end ! Remember , this is fr*in war. Fuck the feds !
[Editor’s note: And you’d be dead and gone, another unknown and uncelebrated death in the war on some drugs…unlike Mr. Ellis, who, is still alive and will taste genuine freedom someday soon.
Getting in gunfights with the feds is pure bravado and folly…
Victory in ending cannabis prohibition will never and should not happen at the end of a gun barrel. It happens in the hearts and minds of citizens who ‘Just Say Now! and hold accountable the politicos who hire and are responsible for the Cannabis Cowboys who persecute the Bernie Ellis-types and violate the spirit of the Constitution.]
The Dawn Of My Vivid Dream
Steal for me
Take what has been missing
And replace it in my world
Bring back any riches
And return my silken girl
Steal back from the bandits
The life and freedom of fate
Please bring back
The dawn of my vivid dream
Release the grass and sky
The freedom to move and
The freedom to be
Steal back the naked sun
Which brings the temple of one
May I be supplied with what
Nature should release
That is all I need
The wind and the sweet Earth
Please steal back a truth for me
Let the nourishment be light
Let me sleep under the stars
Steal back what has been
Missing for so long
Bring rapture to my lips
Why must a man such as I
Go without such truth
Where is the bounty hidden
Must I steal it for myself
The real in the soil
Has been raped and discarded
Steal back for me
What my hands must feel
Put it in my world
The wind at my back
©jswilson
Pot fills the void that no other plant is capable of. It is from this planet, I believe that we are all from this planet. Even those that believe that they have some special right to hurt, cage, and destroy human life, mind control the population, monitor the world and keep every little bit of information about people because they want to control and destroy mankind. They can target people with sound waves to pierce thier ears, they can torture me more or less than they do to me every day. They do it to me every day every second. It is a form of illegal attack, they did similar things to me as a kid when I wouldn’t obey the teachers and staf and say the pledge of alligence. They pretty much have me figured out, or at least they push me into a mind set to attack. They torture me using Psy.Ops. or something else, when all I want to do is be is a peaceful Buddhist. Who ever is doing this, and for what ever reason they decided I am owned by them – I don’t care! I can’t even seem to read a book. I am not their slave, and I am not a criminal or a threat. You see, they attack me for their homo-erotic reasons and just decided to start in on me based on something or some thing else unimportant that they thought mattered… no mater how misleading and untrue it seemed. I want to be a good Buddhist and if I am allowed to become a monk, I would like to become one knowing what I know now. I am likely to ill to become one though. Peace and serenity are not only capable forever as solitary missions in my life. I live alone and stay home all of the time, but at least I have a cat. I see my family and an occasional friend.
After A While
Whispers of pretty red story
Brutal bloody and gory
Everybody thought it was glory
Listen for hours
Stories blooming like flowers
On caskets of sorrows
But I wasn’t there
And it’s because
After a while
No body was
©jswilson
The war for Terrorism – The war for Drugs, The ones under fire often end up being in the big cities the first poem was about war in the battle fields over seas, and the second one was written by me as a child visiting Detroit.
Maynard from Tool said something near this: “It is not a war on drugs, it is a war on our civil liberties. Just remember that.”
Pain And Agony
I look out my window
And see the pain and despair
I look for the man with the answers
And I see that there’s nobody there
After all the pain and the dying
I realize that nobody cares
I see the tears and the blood mix
On our city streets
I hear the sobs of the of the crying
That pain and agony meet
I see the smoke of the gunfire
Rise in the summer’s heat
I watch the destitute
As they stumble into this war
The man who kills to use again
Is out to settle the score
The child who cries her self to sleep
Sits on the porch to play
Because this war consumes us all
She just might die today
That crippled man stands by the wall
Begging for your pay
He uses it to but the wine
That will drown his pain away
I see the tears and the blood mix
On our city streets
I here the sobs of the crying
Rise in the summer’s heat
Now the time has come for me
To deal with the souls we have lost
If we ignore the the fate of our streets
Our society will pay the cost
The plight of man is a vengenful
And crushes pawns in the game
The darkness clouds the setting sun
As the weak are engulfed in flame
©jswilson
Well Mr editor I’d rather be w/my maker then under the thumb of this imperial federal government,that declared war on her own people, that abuses her people, steels their land, for what ? so they can come back @ him even harder the next time around for seeking a natural remedy for whatever ails him . No thank you, this ain’t living to me ! they ain’t listening ! They started this war not me ! Are they playing fair ? are they playing honestly ? Did they not draw arms first? I stand by my comment ! Give me liberty or give me death ! Some things Are worth fighting for ! Sammy taught me that ! Some times if you are backed up in a corner you just gotta fight your way out or get beaten to a bloody pulp! The constitution says I have a right to bear arms even against a tyrannical overreaching out of control government ! Besides w/o my medicine I would not have a life @ all !
[Editor’s note: OK…good luck with that suicide-by-cop, pointless self-martyrdom. The real heroes of cannabis law reform are the peacemakers, who live to see the freedom they fight for too–just not with guaranteed self-defeatism, as well as handing law enforcement the propaganda victory and yielding the undeniable high moral ground held by peaceful cannabis activists and consumers.]
No suicide by cop sir, I,m a law biding citizen,….so far !….. I love life , But I don,t negotiate with terrorists ! What they did to this gentleman is criminal ! would you negotiate and play nice with someone braking down your door ? Prohibition is a crime against humanity in my humble opinion ! and to think that my own government would fly choppers on to a mans property and literally ruin his life over this herb makes me ill ! so I’ll keep getting signatures on the local reform petition , I’ll keep banging my head against the wall when I see em enact counter laws to reform, I’ll keep sucking it up when they lie out there ass and maybe in about a thousand years or so maybe shit will be right ! I’ll be quiet when they steel elections ! And I’ll be quiet when they thwart the will of the people ! I’ll be a good and peaceful sheeple from now on ! Thanks fer gettin my mind right !
[Editor’s note: Tough guys often die ugly in the pursuit of nothing…whereas the peacemakers struggle mightily to achieve for not only themselves, but for all of us around them. Freedom is best enjoyed alive.]
I am at a loss to understand how asset forfeiture laws, and especially civil asset forfeiture laws, are anything other than legalized (and armed) robbery by the State. How can a vehicle, a home, a business property, or a bank account in and of themselves commit a crime, let alone be seized under civil (administrative) jurisdiction rather than under court order.
These assets are seized under a construct completely alien to USA jurisprudence of either “guilty until proven innocent” or even worse “innocent until investigated” — no court required, no trial by a jury of peers, nothing. Large corporations are now, by Supreme Court edict, presumed to be “persons” when it comes to individual rights such as speech, while small companies and individuals are now stripped of property rights and subject to administrative asset forfeiture. There is a system of government, not representative democracy, that this most closely resembles, National Socialism or Fascism.
The goose-stepping goons of the modern Gestapo roam our streets at will. Their agents are armed to the teeth, have little hesitation to injure or kill civilians while they maraud against the populace, disguised as our militarized LEOs (SWAT). Their oaths of office, to serve and protect the public, forsworn and forsaken in their quest for the coveted property of others.
The very worse aspects of Prohibition 1.0 against alcohol, public corruption and violence, have become less an aberration and more a Standard Operating Procedure under Prohibition 2.0. The mobsters of the Roaring 1920’s have now become our government, at every level of government. Local and State LEOs, often under asset forfeiture restrictions, routinely involve Federal LEOs like the DEA as cover for exactly how those seized assets are dispersed.
So it is no surprise to see the DEA still involved in local LEO efforts to crush the rising sentiment against Prohibition 2.0, in spite of AG Holder’s “order” to abstain from raiding State-sanctioned Medical Marijuana dispensaries and collectives. Is the DEA a rogue government organization, totally out of control, or is that order to cease MMJ raids merely a thin political cover for the continued “legalized and armed theft” of individuals’ property rights? Evidence would tend to indicate the latter.
There is a lot of work that needs to be done to return this country to that of a nation of laws, restoration of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and the return to the sanctity of individual rights and freedoms. Most, nay nearly all of our incumbent politicians need to be turned out of office, and perhaps into the prisons they themselves would cast the rest of us into. Prohibition 2.0, based upon 70+ years of official lies, propaganda, and rewriting of history, must be repealed as one of the first steps toward a restoration of trusted government, OF, BY, and FOR the People themselves.
Vote. Vote early, and if possible, often. Throw the bums out.
@ David 762 – I think we are all totally disgusted with the way things are and most of us probably agree with you 100%! We should all do our best to spread the truth, and vote the bums out!
Thanks for the shout-out 32. Here’s the link: Wicked Men, Setting Traps, Cages Full, Rich and Powerful, Not Defending Our Rights.
What they did to Mr. Ellis is evil.
False Idols
Screw it all
Screw it all
I just can’t take it
False Idols
Before me
Who’s truths are vacant
No more
No more
I won’t embrace it
Our leaders
These torturers
Make us complacent
Screw it all
(Tear it down)
They will replace it
No charge
Just yet
But bitter after taste
No more
(Tear it down)
Hard wired in sand
©jswilson
I smoked pot from the age of 17 to the age 35 with a window of time before, during, and after I was in the military. I was always to tired to acomplish anything, and I didn’t get involved with mind expansion untill after 1997 or so. I would write poetry though, in my defence. I wrote and went to collage in 1994 and 1995 at the University of Houston. There is nothing I dare complain about, because it was my choice to experiment like they do in Amsterdam, just not with as good of smoke. I stopped smoking before October 17th 2008. I figured it would be a good thing to do, and I finished on a good high, a relieving high. I haven’t touched any drug in all this time. I believe that others have the right to smoke, and that all do. I won’t smoke pot
if it is legalized. I think it should be legalized, and that if the canident for president that gets pot legalized before the election will win the election, and their party will win big for years and years to come. It would make a hero out of that man or woman, and it would end all of the constand turmoil and pain caused over such a wonderful and medicinal plant.
Sugar And Smoke
Sugar and smoke
Can’t help but provoke
Cause the world is a joke
Left over from another time
Hand out and toke
Spent till I broke
In swamp juice I soak
Legend of nature and crime
Beligerant bastard son
There is the sun in the sky
Indignant fabulous one
The answer is one who can fly
Caffine and bread
And the letter which said
I regret that I fled
With the rage of devine
Dye the hair red
That’s what I said
And it keeps me in bed
All this sh*t becomes mine
Beligerant bastard son
There is a sun in the sky
Ignorant anarchist won
The questions end when I die
©jswilson
Punk Rock Anarchism Against Political Crap
Look at the man in the suit and tie on the
Damn idiot box.
See him push his stupid agenda as we
Polish our Docs.
Be he Republican or Democrat or the P.M.R.C. fools,
We won’t care.
Because we all know he is a phoney and as crooked
As anyone out there.
Ruining our lives making all the money and making
No sense.
Selling out American lives and trying to control us
Is dense!
Conservative agenda and media lies make for malice
And profit
For corporations and polluters of the world have
Bought it
I am here to wake up the world before the desolation
Can continue
It’s time for a revival for future rulers, these kids
Live to
We can’t deny punk rock or any movement to fall
Behind at all
It is time to start to change the world if we are to survive
Before it is to late
Everyone deserves rights and deserves freedom from tyrany
Of oppresion
We must be fair and equitable so that the future will
Not be agression
Don’t be afraid or frightened to express differing opinions
My friends
You have free will, you have the choice, you have the right
Untill freedom ends
Why waste time and the future on ignorant politics
That hurts us
And have cost so many lives so far, lead us astray, and
Destroyed us?
The future is ours and is changing before our eyes: World
Leaders failed
To have agendas that help us succede or exist at all and
Left us impailed
©jswilson
To be honest, my Doc Martens split in the back and can’t be worn. I have to buy a new pair after buying mine just over a year ago.
It is weird to me that no one seems to explain how the plant has evolved after careful breeding and no one tells people what signs to watch out for to tell if the pot you buy is laced. I have heared that some dealers will dust the pot they sell with PCP or other addictive drugs to keep people coming back to them. The money is the king to them. They don’t care about the buyers. I also don’t hear, anymore, about how a legal market would be a safer market for consumers buying a regulated amount, consistant and clean of pesticides and tampering like I mentioned. The positive points are not being discussed, and the people are not going to stop using cannibus sativa. Is our government’s leaders decree against legalization a mass of hysterical rhetoric that is sinking like the Titanic? THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON NOT TO ALLOW PEOPLE TO LEGALY USE CANNIBUS SATIVA. NNNOOONNNEEE! I want to see their faltering nonsense to be debated by health officials and proffesionals from the farming industry as well as centers for ethical treatment of patients. Bring in all of the professionals and bring in the Senators and Congressmen. I want to have this come to a decisive blow, in front of the world on every station around the globe, to the state policy of intolerance and fear mongering in The United States of America. The WORLD wants to know why our country systematicly throws it’s own citizens away for wanting a great plant to help them feel better when they are sick and to feel better and relax after a hard week on a Friday evening with the wife in charge to make sure all goes well. WE are those people that do not want to recognize another person’s right to our body and what we put into it. Who agrees that social control, overtly destructive and not ever needed, has fled the coo-coo’s nest and insulted us all with it’s “Legacy of Brutality” as the Misfits remind us. I am me, you are you, and you are no better than me – no matter who said you can impinge on me your force, I said no.
I have read what happened to Mr. Ellis, and I must say that I am not surprised at what he has gone through. I truly wish it wouldn’t happen to anyone, but can only expect that it happens way more than people really know. Once the government gets a stick up their A$$ about someone whom they “think” has done something bad, they do not give up. 8 years is a long time to go after anyone.
That something bad being helping those who would, will, and do suffer from ailments that the “prescribed” drugs just do not have good effects on. Also, these “prescribed” drugs cost way too much and have some possibly severe side effects that the human body shouldn’t have to endure if it doesn’t have to. I’m sure that if all those who oppose the use of medical marijuana were to actually become in need of those “prescription” drugs they say are “good enough” and had the opportunity to use the better alternative (marijuana), they would find that there is a true need for medical marijuana to be available to any and all who can benefit from it. I personally would like to be able to smoke in the privacy of my home or the privacy of a friends home when and if I so choose. I have always known when enough was enough and when to stop so that driving wouldn’t be a problem. Most people who drink can’t say that about their drinking. I have tried just about everything out there that was offered and turned down the things that I knew I shouldn’t. I used to drink, but long ago I decided that drinking wasn’t what I really wanted to do. I preferred smoking to drinking. There were no side effects (hangovers) or just not feeling well. As I got older, I realized that when I was able to smoke I was more likely to sleep better and feel better the next day after having smoked the night before. (I hurt my back on the job and the pain is bearable but much more bearable when I could smoke. I had the “prescribed” muscle relaxers, pain pills, and whatever else I was given to help, but smoking was the best way to relax.
Given that Mr. Ellis was just trying to help others with their ability to manage their illnesses with out having to rely on the “prescribed” medications just goes to show that he was not trying to profit from what he was doing. Unless you think that having friends who appreciate you for the good person that you are is profit. He was doing what any and all people should do, and that is to help where he could.
Our country spends (wastes) so much money on others outside our own country, yet when we have someone like Mr. Ellis trying to help those around him and he is getting treated so badly, what is there to make those who may think they want to help actually help if they can be persecuted and prosecuted for something as simple as a plant that has been proven to be helpful is so many areas of the body and mind and also has been proven to be an integral part of what our bodies may actually need. Canabinoid receptors are proven to be a part of our (human) genetic makeup. All those who tap the Bible and say that marijuana is bad forget that marijuana was created by the Creator. If it is so bad, why did it start out as growing wild and everywhere? The only thing that has been done is it has been better cultivated to produce a better yeild. As has corn and and tomatos and many other commercial consumable products that grow. I guess it is a good thing that we can’t benefit is some similar way from the tomato plant as we can from marijuana. There would be a black market on tomatos and we wouldn’t have so many of the things that are made from them. (There are so many things it has been proven can be beneficial from the hemp and marijuana strains of plants that could be available.)
I hope that some day marijuana will be taken off the “it’s bad for you list”. As it is for some people, just getting out of bed becomes bad for them. Eventually we will have people in the political area that are not afraid to agree with the majority of the population and end this war on marijuana, and will abolish the prohibition on marijuana and stop persecuting people who are responsible adults making responsible choices for and about themselves and their loved ones.
Thank you for reading and listening.
Dear Mr editor & Mr Ellis ,This story has opened my eyes ,for most of my adult life I have cultivated cannabis for medicinal use, I’m a naturalist & a vegetarian ,I don’t ingest poison pharma products !In an effort to immune myself from Obama care, I built my grow show from the ground up, brick by brick, part by part ,always needing some part ! I sat on this thing like a mother hen ,babying it, I had fans going w/ the fragrance of fresh herb & before I knew it I had a 5 trillon megawatt per minute GODZILLA that I would have clearly fought & died for to protect ! @ first the good folks @ norml said I would die an unnoticed ,forgotten death over some drugs & I thought you puddin boys from Ca don’t know squat ! But Mj has taught me to be opened minded , & I realized the folks @ norml were right ! I have a little girl I must live for ! so I dismantled my show ,uprooted my plants cleaned out everything cannabis related, discarded everything related to cannabis cultivation ! For the first time in my adult life I have gone one wk w/o my medicine !I have checked myself into rehab on an outpatient basis . I must admit , I would love to burn one ,but I really have a new freedom today knowing that I wont get into any gun battles tonight over some drugs !Being sober is not hard from using MJ ! For what its worth Mr Ellis maybe Your story just helped avert mayhem on Main st U.S.A. Maybe Ill move to CA if you folks get things right ! Stop the persecution ! Free the flowers ! Cause my eyes hurt & I cant sleep & I need my medicine ! God bless the USA !
Please be aware that this story is not completely accurate. The charges against mr. ellis were for over 37 pounds, not the 7 he claims. He took a plea deal, then tried to withdraw it. The conditions of the plea were dependent upon his ability to pay a fine of over $200,000. When he was denied loans from his family, he withdrew his guilty plea and was subjected to the eventual torture that he has had to endure from the government. While the actions of the gov. are horrible, there is much more to this story…
[Editor’s note: Be it 37 or 7 pounds…the govt wasted the taxpayer’s time and money instead of collecting taxes.]
To fact checker: Believe me, there truly IS a great deal more to this story. Since it appears you have read the case file (and I hope our taxpayer money wasn’t used to pay you for your time), the 37 pounds alleged by the government was after they alleged they had found over 120 pounds of pot on my farm. Both of those bogus weights counted the entire plants’ weight (including dirt-covered rootballs) in calculating the weight.
Using the DEA’s own calculations for how much usable pot would be obtained from 37 pounds of dried whole plant material and rootballs, my lawyer told the court that only seven to eight pounds of usable pot would have been obtained. The prosecutors, DEA and Task Force officers did not dispute that statement in court nor anywhere else.
What they did do was consistently lie to the court about what they had found. As another example, they initially reported finding more than twice as many plants as the state lab logged in. They left plants growing on my farm and came back twice to cut through my fences and take more plants without ever notifying me or the court of their actions AND without those extra plants ever making it into evidence. (BTW, the feds consistently blocked any attempt by our side to obtain an independent assessment of the plant count or weight.)
In addition, they confiscated my work computers, saying that they would be returned in three days once they had copied the hard-drives. Instead, they held my computers for over 18 months as leverage in the plea negoiations, effectively preventing me from finishing a number of projects on which I was providing consultant assistance. Without telling me or my attorney, the feds confiscated my last will and testament and did not return my will until a few months ago. I wasn’t even aware that the will was not in my filing cabinet until they returned it.
Throughout the whole process, the feds constantly complained that my plea bargain punishment was not enough. However, they fought tooth-and-nail to prevent me from withdrawing the plea agreement and receiving a jury trial. We even took our request to withdraw my plea to the federal appeals court where the feds successfully prevailed in preventing the case from being heard by a jury. If they were so sure I had not been punished enough and that they would prevail in court, why did they do everything in their power to keep the case from ever being heard by a jury?
This is just a little taste of what passes for ethical criminal justice behavior in this country. So, fact-checker, if you’d like to discuss more details of this case, please do not hesitate to contact me (tracevu@bellsouth.net). But do so on your own time, please. There are serious crimes that you and your ilk should be prosecuting in this country, and growing cannabis for sick and dying people is not one of them.
My thanks to Allen St. Pierre and to NORML for publishing this piece and for all the important work you do. I also want to thank everyone who has commented here, including the one person who commented multiple times and who definitely needs his meds checked.
If we never stop fighting for science, common sense and compassion; we cannot lose.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
Bernie Ellis
“fact checker Says:
September 14th, 2010 at 10:33 am
Please be aware that this story is not completely accurate. The charges against mr. ellis were for over 37 pounds, not the 7 he claims. He took a plea deal, then tried to withdraw it. The conditions of the plea were dependent upon his ability to pay a fine of over $200,000. When he was denied loans from his family, he withdrew his guilty plea and was subjected to the eventual torture that he has had to endure from the government. While the actions of the gov. are horrible, there is much more to this story…
[Editor’s note: Be it 37 or 7 pounds…the govt wasted the taxpayer’s time and money instead of collecting taxes.]”
If “fact checker” actually bothered to check facts, I think that he would find that the original 37 pounds included the whole plant: stalks, leaves, stems, root balls and even the *dirt* in the root balls. It was reduced to 7 pounds because that was the amount of usable cannabis (buds) that was actually on the plants.
“During this period, the weight of the evidence (and not the plant count) became the basis for negotiating the final plea. As a result, Bernie requested that the evidence be re-weighed and he discovered that the more accurate weight was around one-quarter of what had been initially charged. However, even this new weight continued to include the plant root-balls and dirt, stalks and other non-useable portions of the plant that are exempted from the definition of marijuana in the federal Controlled Substances Act. (It has now been determined that the actual weight of useable cannabis that was confiscated from Bernie’s farm was only 5% of what he was initially charged with.) However, that new weight (even though still inflated) would have put Bernie in a sentencing range where home confinement or probation would be possible”
http://www.hempevolution.org/media/tn_indymedia/ti051211.htm
Learn your facts, “fact checker”…
Postscript to “fact checker”:
In the event that you are not a taxpayer-supported federal “drug worrier” but instead are someone who pretends (or poses) as a friend of medical cannabis (or cannabis in general), let me ask you this:
Don’t you think someone who calls themselves “fact checker” would include speaking with the original source of any disputed facts (that would be me) at some point in the “fact-checking” process?
Just askin’.
For the rest of you, this little exchange gives you a flavor for how much time, energy and effort can be wasted by the farces of evil when they get their panties in a wad. Eight years after the fact and I am still at risk of having a beautiful Saturday morning stained by having to dance on-line with these foul-smelling, anonymous fucks. But hey, it can feel worth it at the same time too. And the best way to wad their panties is to speak up.
If we never stop fighting, ….
Bernie
——————————————————————————–
Cannibus and Indica are naned by the wrong propper scientific names. I don’t smoke anything, I quit “pot” in October 2008 before I moved from Texas to my home state of Michigan. I just quit cigarettes as well 4 or 5 days ago. Back to the point, the plant that is called Marijuana is named wrong. William J. Randolf Hearst just wanted to keep Hemp from interfering in his logging industry. The tycoon had Hemp and it’s cousin plant “Marijuana” to seem monsterous and made this country afraid that this plant “Maijuana” was the demon that it wasn’t. This was just bad buisness. Here is the loophole, all laws – bad or good – that use the term “Marijuana” are void and lacking in basic fact and truth. If the latin words for pot were used universily, then it would be understandable what the law is. At this point they are ALL out dated and should be thrown out as the trash they are. To tell the truth, the plant that bears the name of Marijuana is a harsh tobbaco plant that grows in Mexico and has no illegal use. I don’t relish the idea as a person that quit smoking, but it is not a drug compare to your local brand at the store. It will just be hard to find in the U.S. that I know of. All the laws have to use the propper language of law, and if a new law gets made while millions and millions live high everywhere. They would have to change their laws and you are talking about new laws endorsing legalization as a prefered bill. It sure sounds good to me. Remind your lawyer about this. Tehnicalities sink boats, and there are boats all over that are goint to be sunk, I say this in my own opinion. The world wants legalization and they should get it. This might never have been tried before, but all the credit is a little credit if this works. Show all lawyers this, pass it far and wide. Any enterprising lawyer could get this in line in a few days or even in an hour… but after an hour takes a lot of chrisma!