Oklahoma Attempts to Extradite Medical Grower
July 7th, 2009 by Russ
Oklahoma officials are set to extradite a California prisoner who has already served his allotted sentence for growing marijuana plants over a decade ago. Will Foster, arrested in 1998 for growing marijuana in his home, was originally sentenced to an unfathomable 93-year sentence in an Oklahoma State Court.
After the Oklahoma Supreme Court found that the unfathomable sentence was also unconstitutional (it represented cruel and highly unusual punishment), it reduced his sentence to 20 years which Foster served. Upon earning his parole, Foster was allowed to relocate to California.
And so Will Foster met with his parole officer, and demonstrated that he was living the life of the law-abiding, and even started a new family with girlfriend Susie Mueller and her three daughters. But Oklahoma apparently was not satisfied with his California-approved parole term, and attempted to extradite him.
Even after having the new warrant dismissed by filing a writ of habeus corpus, Oklahoma persisted and successfully lobbied the Governator to sign an extradition order to send Foster back to Oklahoma.
And so Oklahoma officials are spending millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars because it feels that a man with a garden in his home needs to be punished more severely than he already has.
If ever the American populace decides to adopt a measure of compassion and rationality and put an end to the political and legal morass known as the War on Drugs, the entire state of Oklahoma may just spontaneously combust. It’s difficult to envision a role for Oklahoma that isn’t the one of mustache-twirling villain, ruining lives and displacing families with its draconian legal code and archaic notions of justice.
Will Foster still has some time before the extradition order is carried out. For information on how to participate in the campaign for his release, you can find useful contact info on Ed Rosenthal’s blog.
Horizon Shows Desperate Times for Prince of Pot
June 5th, 2009 by RickAs usual, before the Prince of Pot begins talking, we see him toking — yet this time it seems as if he’s more mentally exhausted than ever. His slouched body language and empty stare into the camera tell us that this man has a lot on his mind these days, issues that have been haunting him since the DEA made him their personal pet project by declaring him one of the top 50 drug traffickers of the world.
Emery and his wife Jodie, deliver the sad news that Cannabis Culture magazine has ceased print publication. The main reasons were the cost (every issue lost $40,000), finding printers and the fact that the articles within the magazine would already be covered by various sources online by the time the magazine was released.
Despite the end of the print form of the Cannabis Culture magazine, they are redirecting their energy into concentrating on their online website Cannabis Culture, and having different people in the scene participating. If interested in the remainder stock of back issues of Cannabis Culture magazine, they are being sold in a bundle package (60 issues) for $100. All of the back issues are also in the archives of their website.
Despite the city of Vancouver’s attempt to shut down his storefront businesses or at least wrapping it up with bureaucratic red tape, Emery still seems to be in somewhat good spirits. He’s willing to basque in the spotlight for his supporters — that is until the dark cloud of the U.S. federal government moves in.
There was somewhat good news on the case against Emery’s friends and employees, Michelle Rainey and Gregory Keith Williams who plead guilty to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana (a charge stemming back to the days when Emery’s seed bank was in operation,) are to be sentenced to two years of probation in July.
As for Emery, his lawyer basically told him he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell in not being expedited to the United States. Once here in the states, he will be stuck here by a sneaky stipulation that will force him to pay whatever fine he is subjected to before he can even think about serving x-amount of time in Canada. He plans to plead guilty to one count of marijuana distribution, which doesn’t have a minimum sentencing or fines. The feds want to give Emery five to eight years and Emery plans to receive less.
Like a true master of the matrix, Emery plans on using his cultural influence and his supporters to pimp the system, particularly when it comes to social networking. His idea is to have people contact the federal judge in an effort to give testimonials or essays on why they should be lenient with sentencing. Unfortunately for Emery, if the government has made this much of an effort to convict him, then they plan to make him an example that the drug war is still on. If that’s the case, I’m sure that they will cover their bases and assign a judge to the case that may not be able to be influenced by any outside sources or parties.
