TRANS-LOVE ENERGIES PRESS STATEMENT
June 21, 2010
Highest greetings from Amsterdam. My name is John Sinclair and I’m a director of the Trans-Love Energies Compassionate Care Center about to open in the Eastern Market in Detroit.
I’ve been a marijuana legalization activist since I founded Detroit LEMAR in January 1965. I served six months in the Detroit House of Correction in 1966 for marijuana possession, and I served 29 months of a 9-1/2-to-10-year sentence between July 1969 and December 1971 for possession of two joints of marijuana—a crime then defined as a Violation of State Narcotics Laws (VSNL)—before I was released from Jackson Prison on December 13, 1971, three days after John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, Phil Ochs, Allen Ginsberg, Bobby Seale and a cast of thousands appeared on my behalf at the John Sinclair Freedom Rally at Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor.
I was held in maximum security prisons in Jackson and Marquette without appeal bond for two and a half years while my legal appeal wound its way through the Michigan court system. In March 1972 the Michigan Supreme Court decided that marijuana is not a narcotic and my conviction was reversed and the marijuana laws were declared unconstitutional. Thus there were no marijuana laws in Michigan for three weeks until the current state legislation punishing marijuana users with a year in prison for possession went into effect.
That was 38 years ago, longer than the lifespan of most marijuana users today. The Michigan State Police, country sheriffs and municipal authorities have ruled our world with their War on Drugs ever since—or at least until the 2008 elections, when 62% of Michigan voters approved medical marijuana use and mandated a system of licensing and regulation for medical marijuana patients that is currently in legal effect throughout the State.
The point of this initiative is that medical marijuana users are no longer criminals subject to the misdirected and often vicious treatment dealt out by the drug police, prosecutors, courts, drug treatment and prison system. Citizens who qualify as medical marijuana users may now be licensed by the State of Michigan, and their suppliers, or “caretakers,” may also be licensed by the State to provide patients legally with a reliable supply of two-and-a-half ounces of marijuana at all times.
Medical marijuana is a good thing, and this is a good law. I have always believed that marijuana is a medicine particularly well suited to the needs of people suffering from the many maladies which afflict our citizens today. I believe, with Dennis Peron, that all marijuana use is medicinal, and the new marijuana laws enable medicinal users to emerge at last from under the cloak of opprobrium thrown over us and become legal, registered, state-approved smokers of the sacred herb that has served us so faithfully through the long and bitter years of the War on Drugs.
We urge all our fellow medicinal marijuana users to consult your doctors, gain certification as medical marijuana patients, register with the State of Michigan and carry your patient cards with you at all times. Caregivers should register with the State along with your patients and transform your legal status from criminal drug dealer to authorized medicine provider.
At the same time, with respect to medical marijuana patients and their caregivers, we must point out to the State, County and municipal police forces throughout the State that the War on Drugs is over, whether you want it or not. Lay down your arms, turn your swords into plowshares and join us in securing a sufficient supply of medicine for our citizens who require marijuana for health.
At this historic juncture we urge the forces of law and order to accept in good faith the will of the voters, the changes in established law, and the altered legal status of registered medical marijuana patients and their caregivers. You are no longer authorized to arrest these people and treat them like criminals. The game is up! The War is over, and we urge the law enforcement community to recognize and respect the rights and the dignity of these citizens now and at all times in the future.
The threatened and actual police raids on compassionate care centers and other gathering places for medical marijuana patients and their caregivers are reprehensible and must be stopped at once. Law enforcement means enforcing the laws on the books, and the books have now been rewritten by the citizens of the State of Michigan. Read them, and weep. The War on medicinal marijuana users is over. Stop the raids!
—John Sinclair
Amsterdam
June 21, 2010
well said John!
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