Canadian man in jail in U.S. for selling mj seeds put in solitary
http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2013/06/07/marc-emery-is-in-solitary-confinement/Marc Emery, the self-styled "Prince of Pot," is serving time in a prison in Mississippi for selling marijuana seeds to Americans. He was sentenced to 5 years and currently has more than a year to serve on his sentence before he can return to Canada.
Marc writes a blog from prison, and in March he was able to get permission from the warden to have some photos taken of his band practicing in the music room.
“Now the prison has him in solitary confinement to investigate the photos of his band that the prison itself approved!” said Jodie Emery, Marc’s wife. Jodie lives in Vancouver and visits Marc every two weeks. “The investigation is to see if Marc had a cellphone to take the band photos. But the warden, guards, music and recreation administrators, they all know that Marc got official permission for those photos. Yet now they have put him, and his bandmates, into solitary while they ‘investigate’? These investigations can take weeks!”
Conditions in solitary confinement are not pleasant. Prisoners are kept inside their cell for 23 hours a day.
This is the drug war in action. A Canadian man is confined to a cell for 23 hours a day for selling seeds to an American. Obviously he is a threat to national security and such actions warrant imprisonment 'cause we're all about the freedoms in this nation.
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yes, prison for 5 years for seeds is a fucking country club situation. your attitude sucks and makes DU suck, do you know that? the automatic assumption that he deserves what he is getting and that the small privileges he was granted were some kind of easy living is sickening.
yeah, this criminal should just pull himself up by his bootstraps and take responsibility for selling seeds and getting put in solitary for a photo.
Look, I don't know how hard it is to parse out the logic here, but here are a few truths:
1. Most people, myself included, are in favor of MJ legalization.
2. This guy broke the existing law and got caught. Woe is him. His own so-called liberal (but not really) country didn't give him any cover, they extradited him to face the music.
3. As sentences go, his could have been worse. People go up the river for decades for weed, especially distribution for resale, and it could be argued that seeds = farming.
4. It's not a question of "Waaah waaah, you say he deserves what he is getting....waaah waaah, you are EEEEVIL" it's a question of the fact that the guy found himself in jail four fucking years ago. Not last week, not last month, not last year. He knew the rules of the prison, he's had four long years to get the bubble on that--one big rule is NO CELL PHONES. Shit, fools who watch LOCKUP on basic cable know this.
5. He felt the rules didn't apply to him, probably because the prison is more like an authoritarian dorm than an actual prison. He's had time to learn to play guitar, so he isn't spending all his time toting that barge or lifting that bale, now, is he? He sneaked in a cell phone somehow--his wife slipped it to him (perhaps on a conjugal), or he paid a guard to get one for him, he took pics, sent them out....and got caught.
6. Now the warden wants to know who brought that phone in, probably because he doesn't like the idea of his guards selling shit--like cell phones, or drugs, or alcohol--at a huge profit, no doubt, to inmates, and his peeps are going to sweat those guys in the little prison band until they rat fink on the guard or visitor who brought the thing in.
This isn't rocket science and it happens in prisons all over the country, every day of every week. For you to insist that this is about the seed conviction is just absurd. It's about prison management, and the EXACT same thing--a trip to solitary-- would happen to a guy with an illegal cellphone who murdered his father or his business partner, or who embezzled millions, or who was a rapist or child molester. It's about the CELL PHONE, not the SEEDS. But oh, ain't the poor pitiful prisoner DRAMA swell!
For all your anxious talk about attitudes that make DU suck...you should know that hyperbolic bullshit and false or tortured constructs happen to be very high on my list.
indeed.... 
person with the cellphone, but then, their remaining time will be even more miserable. If they did nothing "wrong," they'd point to the person who took the picture--but they aren't doing that, because they fucked up.
It's not about (immature, snarky Cartman voice) authority. It's about stupidity.
If the warden really DID give permission, the thing to do would be to ask the warden or his secretary to take the frigging picture, not take one on a contraband cellphone and squirrel it out as an attachment.
But one or two things is true here-- the warden never gave permission, they had an illegal cellphone, or both. You can stomp your foot and cry about it, but a smart prisoner would not have published a picture that hadn't been vetted by the warden's shop. That's how privileges--like playing in a band instead of sitting in solitary--are retained. It's not rocket science. These guys fucked up.
It's not club med, it's prison. Waaaah...."authori-teh!!!!" That's the basic idea--they want it to suck so you don't want to come back...
