cannabisnews.com: US Medical-Marijuana Refugee Kicks Back Tough!





US Medical-Marijuana Refugee Kicks Back Tough!
Posted by FoM on August 12, 1999 at 10:28:03 PT
Source: High Times
'Medical Marijuana Versus Democracy' may not be the most happily-worded title ever dreamed up for a 15-minute free Website video, but it's Renee Boje's own wording, and once you see her in it, you'll most certainly grasp what she means.
You might even want to entertain her invitation to swing by Vancouver at the end of October for a gala Healing Herb Festival just before she goes on trial for, in effect, her life.  Boje, facing a minimum of 10 years in the now-infamous American federal prison system for nothing but pot, was recently advised that she appears to fulfill all the United Nations criteria as a human-rights refugee--but will need at least $5,000 just to retain a special immigration litigator to present the claim in Canadian court, and thousands more for the joint extradition and refugee hearings, due to begin November 1. Since she was not fleeing any legal trouble when she entered Canada in 1997--months after federal charges had been vacated against her, for allegedly conspiring with Los Angeles marijuana mavens Todd McCormick and Peter McWilliams to assist some California medical-marijuana patients--her official refugee status might have to be dated from last February, when the US feds had her busted by the RCMP in Vancouver on a re-instated indictment, and filed for her extradition back to the USA. The "Medical Marijuana" video is only the latest of Boje's quite intrepid maneuvers to publicize her case. "I am not going underground or into hiding for the rest of my life," she affirms in her latest Website media offensive.  'Zero Tolerance,' Meet 'Harm Reduction'"I am going to fight this thing to the end. I am not a victim; I will not give these people the satisfaction of terrorizing me. I know that if I lose, I lose big, but if I win everybody wins, especially those like me who are facing potential life in prison for helping sick people get a supply of medicine." In the same spirit, she's offering reproductions of her original artwork for sale in exchange for Defense Fund contributions, including her original floral-dappled "Cannabis Certificates," allegedly good for an eight-zee of B.C. Bud--though only after marijuana has become entirely legal at both ends of the transaction, in both Canada and the United States. That might be some ways off indeed, as the ferocity with which Uncle Sam's intrepid Drug Warriors are pursuing this woman indicates.As previously detailed at length on this site, Rene Boje's highly complicated case comes down to one basic issue: whether she should be facing a mandatory-minimum term in US prison on an alleged marijuana offense which would at most incur a fine and perhaps probation in Canada. In the USA, where challenges to the constitutionality of the marijuana laws have currently reached such "pucker-point" intensity that the feds are spectacularly punishing medical-marijuana patients with all the ferocity of cocaine kingpins and heroin Mafiosi, the stakes are unprecedentedly high this season. In Canada, by contrast, the government has been methodically adopting a European-style "harm reduction" policy toward drug-law enforcement, which entails de-emphasizing individual pot offenses in favor of concentrating police resources on organized crime, institutional corruption, and money-laundering. Also, driven by overwhelming public pressure, the Ottawa government recently fast-tracked a project of intensive medical-marijuana human research trials, with the manifest intention of de-fusing the issue by simply allowing legal access to the drug by patients who can empirically demonstrate that they can benefit from it. Since the government itself is currently in the business of "conspiring" to assist medical-pot patients, as soon as they can locate a dependable source for properly potent cannabis (the US government pot farm at Ole Miss is apparently out of the running already, because of its notoriously deficient weed), it would seem perverse of them to consign Rene Boje to face an exemplary legal crucifixion for allegedly attempting exactly the same thing two years ago in California.Having already, in 1997, spent 72 hours in US federal custody--strip-searched 15 times over that period in the presence of male and female guards who made the experience as purposely degrading as possible--Renee Boje knows what to expect if her November extradition and refugee trials go against her. Her lawyer, John Conroy of Abbotsord, will be introducing reports from the United Nations Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International, documenting what a sump of degradation and abuse US prisons have become, and especially women's prisons. While the US media might ordinarily be expected to black out such uncomplimentary coverage from abroad--reasoning that it's only a marijuana trial, after all--Boje's phenomenally courageous tactic of presenting her situation publicly, as in her 'Medical Marijuana Vs. Democracy' video, has already drawn the attention of mainstream women's-rights advocates in the USA.So on the last weekend in October, anyone with the least interest in the subject, and a long weekend to spare, is likely to want to visit Vancouver for the three-day Healing Herb Festival being organized there to raise funds for Boje's defense. While preparations are still in the initial stages, it might be provident of well-wishers to make their reservations now for this three-day party, as Boje herself explains in a recent communique from exile.Dean Latimer - Special to HT Newshttp://www.hightimes.com/ht/new/9908/rbfreevid.html  A Benefit Concert to Fight for Freedom - August 1, 1999http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread2307.shtml
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