Reaction on Legal Marijuana in Colorado from a Federal Prisoner

On New Year’s Day, I walked into the TV room to find inmates watching the news about the first recreational marijuana sales in Colorado.

My friends were all laughing at me and wanted to know what I was still doing in here. For a moment I wanted to cry, but then I realized what a huge victory it really was for us all and how very proud my old partner Jack Herer was sitting up in the clouds enjoying the sacred planet with the Little Bitty Pretty One [my late wife Linda].

Could the world be changing? Could I have been right all along? It looks like just maybe I was and the world is changing, and for the better I do believe. With the news coverage of what is going on in Colorado, many must be scratching their heads and thinking about this thing seriously.

I have been thinking about what my life would be now if I wasn’t so far ahead of the times. Would I and so many other tortured souls be sitting in Federal prison for trying to help the sick and dying?

I was recently asked if I was optimistic. About what, the future? Of course I am, but then I always have been. Sadly, that is a large part of why I am in here. We believed that the world was ready for change, for what could be the biggest economic and social changes since the Gold Rush, the Transcontinental Railroad, the First and Second World War and the Beatles.

I have spoken since to many people in here, both inmates and staff, and with only one or two exceptions they all agree whole-heartedly that we are now past the tipping point because Colorado and Washington are showing it can be done and that states can profit from it. The federal government will have to change their policy, I just hope and pray that as they do they free the medical marijuana POWs and send us back to where we belong, with our families.