I, Rich Paul, have finally been sentenced after sitting in jail for seven weeks. My sentence is:
One year in jail – With good time and time served I should be out sometime around December 18th
Three years probation
Various fines about $2500
Is this sentence fair? Of course not. I’ve harmed no one. I provided good product at a fair price to an adult who wanted it. I wish that more people would do that rather than making their living ruining lives to be paid with stolen money.
I can hear the drug warriors thinking, “But weed is a gateway drug.” Oh, really? The government-worshipping drug warriors should be relieved to find out that when the government’s Institute of Medicine studied the gateway effect, they found no causal relationship between the use of cannabis and the use of harder drugs like alcohol, cocaine, and heroin. Moreover, researcher and addiction specialist Todd H. Mikuriya, in his study entitled “Cannabis as a Substitute for Alcohol : A Harm Reduction Approach”, found that alcoholics who used cannabis were more likely to avoid relapse into the active use of these more dangerous drugs.
The “gateway effect” seems to be pretty well debunked. Spread the word!
I will be appealing my conviction and have already raised over $8,000 towards that end. I hope that you will help by donating here in either bitcoin or dollars.
Rich Paul bravely faced down 100 years in prison to stand up for principle and attempt to hasten the demise of the insane war on drugs. Yesterday, Rich was sentenced to one year in county jail, many more suspended in prison, a three year probation, and fines.
At the sentencing hearing the court heard well-researched and passionate speeches from defense attorney Kim Kossick, Rich’s parents, and Rich himself:
You can see raw video below of Kim and Rich’s parents’ speeches as well as a ridiculous beginning portion where judge John C. Kissinger enters the court and immediately threatens the audience regarding cameras. (more…)
Rich Paul has become a martyr for the legal marijuana movement, risking a life in prison rather than accept that something he loves should be a crime.
As Harry Cheadle of Vice reported earlier, the New Hampshire libertarian was arrested on four charges of selling marijuana and one of selling LSD last year. Paul refused to bargain with the FBI or accept a plea bargain — even when offered a deal with no jail time — and when his trial came Paul tried in vain to convince the jury not to convict him.
At his sentencing on Friday, Paul faces a maximum of 100 years in prison, even if he is likely to get far less.
While his story has been held up as a paragon of ludicrous drug laws, the 40-year-old claims that he’s really being targeted because of his membership in a libertarian political group.
Harry Cheadle over at Vice.com wrote up a follow-up article on Rich Paul and his struggles with prohibition laws:
Last month I wrote about Rich Paul, a pro-marijuana activist in Keene, New Hampshire, who was facing 81 years in prison for selling marijuana. Rich had refused plea-bargain deals (including one that would have let him walk away with no jail time) because he wanted to stand up for his principles—weed is basically harmless and you should be allowed to smoke it and sell it to your friends. “Somebody had to stand up and say that this is wrong, and I thought I might well be that guy,” Rich emailed me. “I took the risk and now we’ll find out whether I bet my life well.”
Two days after he wrote that, the jury found Rich guilty, sending him to prison for a long, long time for a nonviolent crime.*
That’s not so strange, because Rich essentially admitted that he sold a whole bunch of weed to an FBI informant. His defense didn’t rely on convincing anyone he wasn’t breaking the law—he wanted to convince the jury that the law itself was wrong. In other words, he was leaning on the principle of jury nullification, which is the idea that juries can vote to acquit people who have clearly broken the law if they think that the law shouldn’t exist in the first place.
“I wasn’t shocked,” Rich admitted to me in a video recorded from jail. “Jury nullification is a long shot.” Even so, he’s planning on appealing to the New Hampshire Supreme Court on the grounds that the judge misled the jury on what nullification is.
Please come support Rich Paul as he faces up to 81 years in prison for selling cannabis. You can join him on June 7th at 1:30pm at Cheshire “Superior” Court in Keene. Here’s a facebook event.
This letter arrived from Rich Paul today, and as much as it breaks my heart to read it and type it for him, it breaks him free to have a voice from the cage. Rich has been incarcerated since April 18th, 2013 waiting for sentencing on Friday June 7th, 2013.
“After my late girlfriend, Julie, died of cancer in 2002, I slipped into a deep depression. It worsened when the startup company I had spent 5 years building failed. By 2008, it had ended my career. I was no longer able to focus on my work; for a computer programmer like me, being unable to focus meant being unable to work. I also lost my ability to socialize. I had not dated since Julie’s death, and having moved, failed to make new friends. I wanted to die, but could not commit suicide, knowing how it would hurt my family. (more…)
I, Rich Paul, have finally been sentenced after sitting in jail for seven weeks. My sentence is:
Please come support Rich Paul as he faces up to 81 years in prison for selling cannabis. You can join him on June 7th at 1:30pm at Cheshire “Superior” Court in Keene. 
