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.
Derrick J Freeman’s Peace News Now broadcast for Monday, May 27 covered the mostly victorious trial result of Vernon Hershberger, an Amish farmer accused of unlawful distribution of raw cow milk in Wisconsin. The trial lasted a full week, and ended with not guilty findings on three of the four charges against Vernon. Also covered in PNN’s episode #122 is Medea Benjamin’s successful interruption of an Obama event to speak out against the terrorism of drone warfare.
Clayton Holton is at every cannabis hearing at the state house that he can physically bring himself to, which is no easy task. Clayton has muscular dystrophy and lost his ability to walk at age 13. He enters the hearing rooms in his motorized wheelchair and every time tells the politicians the same story. For a decade he has been doing this and this year it finally looked like headway was being made. However, the NH Senate gutted critical provisions that will likely mean imminent death for Clayton. He doesn’t have much longer left. He needs your help by signing this petition asking governor Maggie Hassan to get a clue and let patients grow their own cannabis and have an affirmative medical defense – both things stripped from the bill at the request of the morally-vacant NH law enforcement establishment.
Here’s the petition, and here are Clayton’s own words on why you should sign it:
Because my weight is down to 63 pounds, and there are many other patients like me who can’t afford to wait.
As a 28-year-old battling muscular dystrophy, I’ve been fighting for my life since I lost my ability to walk at age 13.
I know from personal experience that medical marijuana works for me, having spent a summer in California several years ago. In the months that I was able to use it legally, I gained more than 10 pounds and was able to stop taking prescription pain medicines altogether. There is no cure for my condition, but medical marijuana relieves my pain and stimulates my appetite, dramatically improving my quality of life when I’m able to use it. (more…)
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.
The Concord Patch has the story about the weak medical cannabis bill that has passed the NH Senate. The bill is very restrictive and in no way, “live free or die”. But, I guess it’s a baby step in the right direction. Ugh, politics sucks.
Medical marijuana is a step closer to reality for people suffering from serious diseases and health problems in New Hampshire. The state Senate voted 18-6 on Thursday to pass a medical marijuana bill.
The bill is an amended version of the House-passed bill. If the House doesn’t concur with the changes, leadership in each chamber will pick members to sit on a committee of conference to iron out differences in the legislation. (more…)
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…)
Harry Cheadle over at Vice.com wrote up a follow-up article on Rich Paul and his struggles with prohibition laws: 
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. 
