The only marijuana magazine bringing you the stories of other pot smokers and smugglers.

Quick Hits (page 3)

Ashcroft runs roughshod over Oregon's voters again

By: Leland R. Berger

Although "if you're gonna steal, steal big" may be the guiding mantra for some, in the U.S. Justice Department's war on medical marijuana patients, size doesn't matter.

Even though the U.S. attorney for Oregon generally doesn't prosecute cultivation cases involving fewer than 1,000 plants, the government successfully stole a patient's 2.5 grams of medical marijuana from the Portland Police Bureau, in broad daylight.

Why should the government care about whether Portland police have such a paltry quantity of marijuana? Don't the police keep all controlled substances they seize? What was so special about this case?

What was special was that Portland police, over their objections, had been ordered to return this marijuana to the heart patient from whom they had taken it a month after Oregon's Medical Marijuana Act took effect in 1999. Multnomah County Circuit Judge Robert Redding's order followed the act: Once a determination is made by the district attorney or a judge that the marijuana was in possession of a patient covered under the act, as was the case here, the seized drug must be returned.

The city attorney obtained special funding from the City Council to appeal Redding's decision, but the Oregon Court of Appeals upheld the judge. Then earlier this month, the Oregon Supreme Court informed the city that it wouldn't review the Appeals Court's decision.

That should have been that.

Like the cavalry riding over the hill, however, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration obtained a seizure warrant from a federal magistrate for the marijuana. The government's theory was that it is contraband and subject to forfeiture. Furthermore, since it is contraband, the medical marijuana patient could not assert any property interest in the drug.

Well, of course it's contraband, under federal law. Portland police took it into their custody three years ago because officers thought it was contraband under state law, too.

But, as Redding ruled, state law requires it to be returned upon a finding that the medical marijuana patient is entitled to it.

Does federal law prohibit Oregon law enforcement from returning medical marijuana to patients?

As Court of Appeals Judge Jack Landau wrote in the court's decision, federal law actually exempts state law enforcement from federal prosecution for violations of the Federal Controlled Substances Act, when state law enforcement is acting pursuant to state law.

So, if the Portland Police Bureau's "possession with intent to deliver" 2.5 grams of medical marijuana to a registered medical marijuana patient is exempt from federal prosecution, why would the U.S. attorney conspire with the DEA to have the government seize the medical marijuana from the Portland Police Bureau?

Like a 400-pound gorilla, the federal government acts this way because it can. As with the Justice Department's failed attempt to interfere with our assisted suicide law, this is simply another salvo in the ongoing battle between the federal government and Oregonians over who gets to decide private medical decisions made between patients and physicians. As with death with dignity, Oregonians are also entitled to life with dignity.

And, someone needs to remind John Ashcroft that stealing is wrong, even when authorized by a federal magistrate. Leland R. Berger, a Portland attorney, was active in the campaign to allow medical marijuana use in Oregon.

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Growin' Our Own (page 3)

4th of July marijuana smuggler back into the United States Police State

By: Sky Six

Hi, on the 4th of July, I flew a stripped down Cessna 185 "Skywagon" from California down to a dirt landing stip outside of Culiacan, Mexico where the weed was loaded and then flew back into the United States. The operation was secured by a Mexican who set up the entire trip, fuel stops, and paid off the Mexican officials. There were hundreds and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these smuggling runs which for the most part were successful. If you got caught on the Mexican side your captors were to call a phone number and then you got released with your plane still loaded with marijuana. The planes came from mechanics, farmers, businessmen, plane dealers or were just stolen. Sometimes a plane taken in for repairs would be unknowingly taken for a smugglers jaunt. When returned all planes had the hour gauge rolled back so it looked like they were never flown anywhere. The plane owner never had a clue that his plane had been used to fly in a load of grass.

I was a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants crop duster pilot risking my life flying under and over high voltage power lines, sniffing pesticides when the wind changed, and flying only a few feet over crops. The pay was good, but the life expectancy for a crop dusting pilot was bad. Few lived more than 10 years as some mechanical problem or some inattention caused a fatal end to this career. I had a friend who had just cut his crop duster through some power lines and crashed, ending his career. It was at this friends funeral that I was recruited to take his place flying in loads of marijuana from Mexico. My deceased friend had trusted me enough to tell me about the extra income he was making from smuggling, but I told him I didn't want to get involved and he let it drop. I did like his new house, boat, cars and truck, but I heard about the cops and drug dealers and thought that jail or death from these dealers wasn't worth the risk. A man came up to me at the funeral, took me aside and started telling me my friend had worked for a friend of his and had made a lot of extra cash. He said, "You know what kind of work I'm talking about." I was already thinking that with the death of my friend still doing his legitimate job of crop dusting, maybe he'd still be alive if he had kept to smuggling and retired from crop dusting. His death brought home to me the risk I took for less money in crop dusting. Maybe the risk as a smuggler was worth it. Anyway I told this stranger that I was ready to try it as flying over the border as low as I flew my crop duster would not be difficult. He said he would have somebody contact me.

A Mexican man caught up with me when I was refilling the pesticides on a dirt road at some farm. I thought he was a foreman or wanted me to dust a crop for him. It turned out he was a man sent to give me instructions for my first smuggling run. I kept this quiet from even my wife, as I didn't want her to worry. A few days later I cleared my schedule and I went to a dirt road used as a landing strip. The plane was waiting for me. The passenger seats had been stripped out to make room for the cargo I would pick up in Mexico. There were a few cans of wipe off dragster paint inside the plane. I was told after I got the load northeast of Culiacan and made it to Hermosillo, Mexico, I was to cover the 'N' numbers with the paint so if the plane was spotted flying a few feet off the ground over Arizona nobody could tell what the plane registration number was. My flying and fueling instructions for Mexico were all I was told and the rest of the instructions were to be given to me by some man with a gold tooth outside of Culiacan, Mexico. My truck was driven away to be stored for me until I got back. I didn't even know the names of these guys and I felt stupid trusting them. Anyway they paid me $2,000 advance money for expenses and I took off for Mexico.

The flight plan was a good plan and I was never stretching out the reserve fuel. These planes have a speed of 140 to 150, and hold just over 60 gallons of fuel. My safe range between fueling was an easy 500 miles unloaded which is about 3 hours flying time. The trip one way was about 1,200 miles. The fuel stops on the trip down were all at two small out of the way airports and my excuse of trying out the plane to see if I wanted to buy it was accepted. I got a lot of advice about the plane, mostly positive. The seats were in for upholstery I would always tell people if I was asked. I never filed any flight plan and just flew low over the international border across the Sonoran Desert into Mexico. The fuel stops in Mexico were all part of the operation and I was told to give any cop or Mexican official a $50 bill. I had been given a suitcase full of cash to buy the load of marijuana and I had my advance of $2,000 expense money for fuel and these small bribes.

Arriving outside of Culiacan I sighted the dirt road and landed. Two old rusty pickup trucks and some short red and brown skinned men wearing white straw cowboy hats were waiting for me. All of them had rifles or shotguns. The boss came up to the plane and greeted me with one of his front teeth capped in gold, glistening in the hot sun. He smiled shook my hand and examined the empty plane. "Do you have the cash?" I handed him the suitcase with the load money. He said, "Come on you're probably very hot and tired." I followed him over to a truck where they had an ice chest on the tailgate, and fuel cans and a ladder in the back. A worker opened the ice chest and I took out a Coke. There I was looking at this worker while the boss got inside the other truck and counted the cash. Other workers got the ladder and started refueling the plane. This was a real makeshift operation and I hoped the Mexican fuel wasn't watered down. I just wanted to get back home safe and get the rest of my money. The gold toothed boss told me that I was in luck as a storm was coming in over California which would help conceal my reentry back into the states. I didn't like to fly through storms, but I'd done it. Storms and fog were part of the normal equation for a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants crop duster pilot like me. The plane was fueled and the Ralston Purina cloth sacks full of marijuana bricks were loaded into the plane. I asked the weight of the marijuana load and was told it was about 800 pounds. They draped some plain colored Mexican blankets over the sacks and told me to kill some time for the storm to arrive. They wanted me to fly up to Los Mochis and then across the Gulf of California to a fishing village at Loreto, Baja, California. There I would refuel with their man Lalo. From Loreto I would come back across the Gulf over Guaymas to refuel at Hermosillo back on the Mexican mainland. The boss said, "We zigzag loads into Hermosillo to confuse our Sinaloa source." I said, "I never flew over that much water and I don't like it." "Believe me it is much safer flying this way. Sometimes we have 5 or 6 planes a day refueling at the Hermosillo Airport," was his answer. I knew this was a big operation, an 'Air Force of smugglers' bringing in marijuana to the U.S. I checked my charts and figured out it would be about 300 miles to Loreto, and about that same distance back to Hermosillo. This was a lot of extra flying to wait for this storm to come in. I was told that Loreto was a small fishing village and that if I were asked, I had come from a Baja fishing trip. I was to meet this man, Lalo, who had a farm tractor with a fuel tank on a trailer at the landing stip in Loreto. Lalo would give me my final flying and refueling instructions. I was to catch some sleep at Lalo's. Sleep was the only thing that sounded good to me.

I left land at Los Mochis and got out over the Gulf of California. I looked out over the vast water, seeing white caps, and fishing boats, heading on a trip I didn't like, smelling my load of marijuana. I hadn't ever smoked marijuana and for a guy like me, who risked his life every time he got into a plane, I was really scared flying over this much water.

I finally found Lalo's without too much trouble, and put the plane down. The Mexican fuel from Culiacan had been good and I had no sputters over the Gulf, thank God. Lalo took me in and his wife fed me with fresh homemade tortillas, fish, rice and beans. I slept for a few hours while Lalo fueled up the plane. After more instructions from Lalo, including what a good load of bricks I had, I took off in the dark flying back across the Gulf headed for the Hermosillo Airport. I saw lights from fishing boats and homes on the coastline as I traversed back across the Gulf.

Apparently the gold tooth boss had some guys working graveyard shift at the Hermosillo Airport, as when my plane landed I was greeted by uniformed guards, who directed the fueling. I was too tired to worry anymore. They never looked at anything as I gave them the dragster paint and a $50 bill. I knew they smelled the load of marijuana but it was ignored. I went into the airport building, got some coffee, stretched my legs, paid the fuel bill, and was back in the air in 20 minutes. It was getting daylight now as I approached the Arizona border. My next fuel stop was in California, near the Salton Sea and I knew this would be stretching the plane's range, due to fuel used in taking off, hauling this load and going through the thunder storm. When I flew to within 40 miles of the border with lightning and pouring rain I flew low over a small Mexican town to fake a landing. If I was being monitored by radar, it would look like a normal landing and afterwards I kept below 200 feet, finally dropping to a few feet over the ground when I flew over the international line in southwestern Arizona near California and back into the states.

I noticed that most of the dragster paint had been washed off by the rain, and the 'N' registration number was showing. There was nothing I could do but keep flying. I had to stay below radar detection on this unregistered, illegal international flight or suspicions would be aroused. There are plenty of private landing strips on farms and it would not be unusual when I regained normal altitude over California. I landed at a farm near Salton Sea where I was again quickly re-fueled and back in the air.

Finally tired to the max, I arrived back at the farm where I started. Including my expense money, I had worked two days straight for $6,000 cash. I had made about 2 month's pay in 2 days. I was paid the balance of my cash while the sacks full of about 400 marijuana bricks were unloaded from the plane and into a van. I told the Mexican stranger that I had too many problems, flew too many miles and wasn't interested in doing this again. He said, "No problem." My truck arrived and I left to go home to sleep. While this was a successful trip it stressed me out too much and I knew I wouldn't be doing this again anytime soon. $10,000 cash would have enticed me, but not the $6,000 that I made. A straight overland flight from Culiacan to Hermosilla would have made this trip less risky. I don't like flying over that much water.

I finally tried smoking marijuana, as the Mexican stranger gave me 1 brick as a bonus. I still do smoke on occasion. I did my part as a smuggler and paid my dues. Now I'm a 65 year old man and I'll tell you one thing. The thing I want you to know is that if the B.S. laws prohibiting marijuana were changed nobody would waste their time taking risks flying in marijuana the way I did. Marijuana would be freely grown and there would be no profits made by the Mexicans, smugglers and drug dealers. If marijuana was separated from other drugs like cocaine and heroin there would be no black market association for marijuana smokers to come in contact with those other damaging hard drugs. However it would cut down on the government's excuses to interfere in our lives. Also the money the government confiscates from druggies, and the fines the courts impose would be lost revenue to the government. So don't think for a moment that this smuggling system or laws against marijuana will ever change. Only when the government changes its attitude that we are not the enemy, will the marijuana drug laws change. Until then the United States Police State, what I call the USPS and someday martial law, will continue. We will all be constantly searched and soon we will have to get a license to just flush a toilet. The USPS will regulate us and fine us until death. There's no turning back from this authoritarian state and no hope for changing the laws without changing the government's attitude. Politicians won't turn us back towards freedom.

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Pipeline (page 3)

Medical Marijuana Users Take Refuge in Canada

By: Thomas D. Elias

American medical marijuana activists have been heading to Canada in the past year, joining a fast-growing expatriate community reminiscent of the draft dodgers of the 1960s and '70s.

Most of the medipot users have come since July 30, when Canada instituted new regulations that allow users of medipot to grow and smoke a specified amount of marijuana after they demonstrate a medical necessity and get permits from local authorities. The amount each is allowed to use varies from case to case.

Canadian authorities say they are unsure exactly how many new immigrants from America are medipot refugees. "They don't usually list that on our paperwork as their reason for coming here," says An- gela Battiston of the Canadian immigration service.

But so-called "compassion clubs" of pot users say the number of medipot refugees probably is in the hundreds.

"We have several here and we're just a small town," said an officer of the Sunshine Coast Compassion Club, located in Sechelt, British Columbia, a town of 18,000 reachable only by a one-hour ferry from Vancouver.

Some of the activists as well as their Canadian supporters have compared the immigrants to the young Americans who fled to Canada during the Vietnam War seeking refuge from a draft law they opposed.

"Canada has a history of protecting people from their own governments," said Renee Boje, a medical marijuana user fighting extradition from British Columbia to California on drug charges.

"We're really not like draft dodgers fleeing the Vietnam War," says Steve Kubby, the 1998 Libertarian Party candidate for governor of California. "For many of us, this is a matter of life and death."

Kubby, who moved to Sechelt last winter, was acquitted last year of marijuana possession and possession-for-sale charges after a highly publicized trial in Auburn, Calif. But he was nevertheless convicted on one misdemeanor count of possessing a hallucino- genic mushroom and sentenced to 120 days in jail.

Kubby moved to Sechelt a few months after having partial success using California's 1996 Proposition 215 as a defense, even though a series of attorneys general and the U.S. Supreme Court have held that federal narcotics laws override the ballot initiative, which allows use of marijuana for medical reasons with a physician's approval.

At his trial, Kubby produced testimony from a University of Southern California doctor who said steady pot smoking is the only reason he is alive 25 years after being diagnosed with a rare form of adrenal cancer.

He fled to Canada after learning he would not be allowed to use marijuana in jail. "The 120 days amounts to a death sentence," he said.

Kubby is one of three medipot refugees from California arrested by Canadian immigration officers this spring. Kubby won his immigration case.

Others are now threatened with deportation include Steve Tuck, 35, with six felony pot charges against him in Humboldt County, Calif., and Ken Hayes, wanted on federal charges of growing pot for sale through a medical marijuana users club in San Francisco.

Using Proposition 215 as a defense, Hayes was acquitted in 1999 on previous charges of possessing 899 pot plants he said he was growing for use by the same medipot club. Tuck also maintains he was growing marijuana to control pain and muscle spasms arising from a spinal injury.

Tuck and Hayes contend their immigration woes are a form of continuing harassment by California and U.S. authorities.

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