High Time We Rethink Old Weed Convictions

The door, I mean, we have clients who are serving life without the possibility of roles for selling twenty dollars worth of week. That's correct. This call will be recorded and subject to monitoring at any time. You may begin speaking now. The Golf ass Force, you came to my house and read in my house, and I taught me I was being charged with conspiracy to distribute are one

of the department. They didn't find any guns, they didn't find any drugs, they didn't find any money, but feelbout ristany and they told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute twenty two hundred pounds tomorrow one with a maximum census of life and this is solely based on somebody else, just what they saying. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table on the climbing sound. Hey, this is Clayton English. This is Greg Glad and this is the war on drug Greg?

What's going on? How much clay now are you doing? I'm good man. We got a little bit of a special episode today, right, a little bit longer than the others. U two interviews Natalie Pappion with the Last Prisoner Project and uh Edwin Rubis who's incarcerated right now where it telldega okay Teldegan Alabama at a federal penitentiary right out there. Yeah, and I can't wait for people to hear it because

it's comment was it was a riot. It made me feel a lot of different feelings, anger, upset, and you know, he really kind of just put you in his shoes. And I don't think we think about it. This is the first interview that we've had where we talked to somebody that currently yeah, in prison and living with it. Yeah, and you know a lot of the things that you told me as we've started this podcast, I just saw

first hand in this interview, right, how we criminalize addiction. Yea, how people get wrapped up in this, How you get the trial, going to trial, exercising your constitutional rights, going to trial, How that damages you, the crazy sentences, the problems in prison, how you get back. I mean it really like start to finish, like shows every little problem that you have in the system. And it's it's so

much bigger than anything you could imagine. Like once you once I found out that the people that really need to be locked up can give up lesser people and get less time. That's feels like the complete opposite of what our legal system is designed to do. Right, But and Actuality is perfectly designed to do just that exactly

because again it's not about the drugs, right Yeah. And and Edwin's case got on our radar from you know, the Last Prisoner Project when we were talking to them and Natalie papillon Um who works over there, and you know, it's an organization that does, you know, trying to help individuals that are currently incarcerated from arijuana fences to be able to get released and you know successful inner society.

You see what you see, what she's fighting for isn't just something on paper or just this it's real people getting affected by these things. Yeah, and the people that's designed, like the cartel is not scared. Are the people in charge or not scared? I actually, you know they enjoy this,

They like it. Yeah, because there needs to be a scalp, right, Yeah, like if you got you got these numbers pinted this person who didn't have a fraction of what we had to do with it, and they get to take the Brennan, we get to keep riberating perfect. Everybody wins as far as the corrupt bullish it. Yeah. No one loves mandatory minimums and conspiracy charges more than El Chopo and all these guys. I mean, who who loves prohibition more than alcol Yeah? So I'm really excited for you all to

listen to this. We have an amazing conversation with Natalie, and then we speak with Edwin and m Yeah. Let's I think bready get into it. Yeah. Absolutely, Natalie. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. I'm excited about this. Thanks for having me. Man, We're so excited to have you here doing the lord's work. Yeah, you're doing what needs to be done. I mean, I think there's so many people that have been thrown away in the system for such a small infraction, and infraction that in most

places as legal are close to legal. Now, so can you start us off with just the scale of the problem and the injustice when it comes to marijuana arrest and who would affect Yeah, I think let's start from this misconception that now that many states have either liberalized their cannabis laws or outright legalized, they don't use cannabis, No one's being arrested, no one's being incarcerated for possession or distribution, and everyone who was formally incarcerated has been

sort of let free the prison gates have opened. That is definitely not true. But we have done a lot of internal research at Last Prisoner Project and we can say with you know, pretty confidently that at any point in time, they're over forty thousand people incarcerated for cannabis in this country, which is you know, a ton of people, especially when you consider the fact that twenty states have legalized for adult use, and you know, doesn't more have

decriminalize the plan. So we're seeing an injustice and a hypocrisy where many people are minting millions of dollars off of selling cannabis in their states. You know, they're buying pot stocks while others are being sentenced to not just you know, a few days, weeks, months in prison for even something as simple as marijuana possession. I mean, we have clients who are serving life without the possibility of parole for selling twenty dollars worth of weed. That's crazy.

Whenever I tell people, they assume I'm making things up or being hyperbolic, but I was. Unfortunately, it's true. And how does that happen? You know? This one man, I'm thinking about mister Kevin Allen. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole because he was considered under Louisiana state law habitual Now that seems really scary and okay, habitual offender like terrorizing our communities whatnot? He had, you know, for previous arrest and they were all for drug possession,

all non violent. So we have these incredibly draconian laws on the books. We have judges and energy social system that doesn't isn't empowered to look at the full facts of the case. You know, they have to look at mandatory minimums, they have to look at habitual offender laws, and that leaves you in a situation where we have people serving life for twenty dollars with a week. Yeah, it's crazy, and like marijuana kind of just feels like

it gets like thrown onto the rug. But it is one of the biggest drivers of not only just you know, criminal justice contacts through arrest, but also incarceration. Yeah, you touched on a really great point. So throughout sort of the recent history in the US, marijuana law enforcement has ebbed and flows, but the nineteen nineties and you know, at the very beginning of the nineties, we start to

see a huge ramping up of marijuana related arrests. So you know, illustrate that in nineteen ninety one there were eighty eight thousand marijuana arrests across the country. In two thousand two, we're seeing seven hundred thirty thousand marijuana arrest So why did that happen? One is sort of the

cratering of crime rates post the nineteen eighties. And you know what police have to do with those bloated budgets and how they have to utilize them, and how they're incentivized to utilize them, and they do that by doing the easiest thing they can do is start picking people up on the street for weed. Right. We also have this mythology start in the nineteen nineties around the youthful

sort of marijuana menace. Right, So we have this idea that predominantly young black men may have either been in car already, are already in cars rated for crack, or you know, are not using crack or distributing crack as much as they might have been in the nineteen eighties, and they're instead turning to marijuana. Is not just contained to the inner cities, they're sort of predilection and for

marijuana use is actually spreading into the suburbs. And I'm going to be totally blunt, no pun intended, you know, infecting white suburban youth. And this is a crisis, and we need to protect the children. And in order to protect the children, we need to basically stop stop frisk and throw every young black man who might have a dime bag on them into prison. Yeah. So you touch on something, and it's something that I've worked with quite

a bit. You know, as states have attempted to either decriminalize or legalize marijuana, you know, you sometimes get sometimes almost every time, push back from law enforcement. And what I've noticed is like it's not necessarily the prohibition of the drug itself. It's what comes around with it and some of the collateral issues. So it's like, well, now we're going to lose this thing that we have in

our back pocket if we smell marijuana? Are you or we can do a stop and frisk on you and have a dime bag if it's legal those go away. Can you kind of touch on like some of the other collateral aspects of like what no on legalization looks like in those states and how that allows for government control over individuals through that and what they're losing from

a legalization standpoint the government. So you mentioned one thing about the odor of marijuana, So that's obviously been the case, that's been the basis for so many pretextual stops across the country. When it becomes legalized, and if it's legalized in the right way, police use that sort of investigative tool. I don't have a lot of empathy for law enforcement departments who say they basically need to skirt the Constitution

in order to do their job. If I'm being totally candid, I think if you can't do your job and protect public safety without stopping a bunch of people for smoking weed, then you're probably in the wrong line of work, and oftentimes this stuff can turn deadly. I don't know if you remember the story of Philando Castile, but the cop who sort of approached him said he smelled marijuana, and he said that smell made him fear for his life. Now, this is a cop, you know, a young cop in Minnesota.

That doesn't really hold water for me. But you know, you can say that because it's illegal, and you know, there have been so many court cases that say it's the basis for protectural stops and people can can get away with approaching people and killing people because of that marijuana impetus. That's just so crazy. Like if you can smell like cocaine, then you are a kingpin, you are boss, you are a scarface. But weed is one of the only things, Like yeah, just a small amount, and like

you said, people have lost their life. Like for him to say he was fearful because of the smell of marijuana, it goes back to kind of the racial tones that it has. You're fearful because they've associated marijuana with black

people to make you fearful. Yeah, it's it's crazy. When you see the numbers as they just kind of stay in these horrible hundreds of thousands of people still getting arrested for marijuana offense's mainly possession only, and still going on in twenty twenty when we're twenty twenty two now, And so I know in some states they'll legalize it, but they don't make provisions to like make for retroactive sentencing for people that are in behind bars, or if

you have a criminal record for something that's legal now, to like seal that or expongic. So, can you talk about some of the complications that we see within the criminal justice system now as we move to legal that are still hindering people that were caught up in it prior to yes, So oftentimes activists or policymakers will put forth a legalization proposal, they'll spend a lot of time thinking about tax rates, a lot of time thinking about like what agency should be sort of the regulatory body

governing cannabis operations, and they rarely ever think about, Okay, what happens to the people who either still incarcerated or the people who were previous incarcerated and have this sort of black mark on their records, And so consumers, the general public think, Okay, it's legal, now, everyone goes free. Whereas if you don't actually write that explicitly and do it in a smart way into the law, people are still remaining in prison. So they are in prison while

they are reading magazines that talk about the latest pot billionaire. Right. Can you imagine what that would feel like? Um? That's you know. I we have constituents who say, I was serving a ten year sentence and I turned on the TV while I was in jail, and I saw, you know, a conversation on the local news station about like pop moms and these like women, um making millions of dollars selling selling weed to like rich Beverly Hills moms. Um. So there are a lot of issues of their criminal

legal system. I think this is the most one of the most obvious examples of just the hypocrisy UM and sort of the two systems of justice. According to like, if you're you're white, wealthy and well connected versus if you're you know, black or brown and low income, you're treated quite differently in a very literal sense with the with the two systems of justice. A lot of times, for a lot of people that I'm around, sometimes it just feels hopeless, Like what can be done? Like I

like to be a solution based person. What needs to be done? What can be done at a state and federal level. What's some things that people should be looking towards, a pushing for in their community to at least try to balance this out. No, I want to be solution oriented as well. I think, you know, this is sort of table stakes. We need to have federal decriminalization and ideally federal legalization both to sort of stop the criminalization

of cannabis that's happening on the federal level. Now we're not seeing huge numbers of people sentenced for marijuana on the federal level, but you know, a thousand a year, So we need to stop that obviously, and that's something we can do just by a simple Act of Congress. But also because federal decriminalization will set a tone, you know, for other states who have yet to decriminalize or legalize.

It will help sort of read, it will help policy make rethink how they're attributing and how they're distributing those you know, burn grants, those federal funds, so we can actually fund police to do work that makes our community

safer as opposed to racking up marijuana arrest. Federal legalization decrimination is also really important because it will lessen a lot of those taxes, a lot of those expenses and capital expenditures happening for state regulated businesses so they can and that's going to incentivize people to move from the black or gray market into the regulated market and all of the good things that come along without you know, that's an increase of public health, public safety. That's something

that's really really important. We don't have like move like people don't make moonshine anymore. Like we don't have a we don't have bootleggers. And I think that's a really great thing. But I don't know if you've been a Tennessee you know, I will say my family is from Tennessee and they have been known to throw a bat,

but they have like we now have like craft moonshiners. Right, the vast majority of alcohol sales are happening in a way where you can where you can sort of track them, where you can make sure that underage folks aren't getting, you know, their hands on anything shouldn't be, where you can make sure that things are tested and regulated, and so for and so on. Just it's a win for everything for everyone, and that only really happens when there's

federal legalization. So you know, it's really hard to get this Congress to agree upon anything, but I will say the vast majority of Americans, Republicans, independence, Democrats, support federal legalization and they support allowing the states to do what they wish when it comes to regulating cannabis commerce within their boundaries. And so we need to put pressure on Congress to sort of heed you be responsive to the people you seek to represent or you're claiming to represent,

and do this. And then in states that have yet to legalize, make sure that you're pressuring your state lawmakers to do that right and not only legalize, but do it in a smart way. Think about the long term implications of the policy, and make sure you're prioritizing those criminal justice reforms. And you know, I focus a lot on the criminal justice aspects of this issue, but they're

also real like medical and public health implications to this. Right. So, because cannabis is a Schedule one drug, which is a whole other story. It's a whole it's a wild story. No one can do any scientists can't do any research, right or less they be arrested. So we don't actually know as much as we should know about this substance that half of American adults will consume in their lifetime. Right, And that's, you know, in a word, a little problematic.

You know, some Israel is doing a lot of interesting research, there's some European countries who are doing interesting research. But there's obviously some medical efficacy to cannabis consumption, but we're not able to maximize that. Or because we're the schedule

one designation means no one can do research. Yeah, cocaine a schedule too drug, right, marijuana, Schedule one you can do more selfly cocaine and yeah, And that's crazy because the weed that they do test is that same weed that's been growing at the University of Old miss Yin and we've had so many leaps and bounds with what weed is capable of doing. Now, I've seen that in Mississippi week, I've had it. It is. It does not

look pretty compared to what's out there now. And there's yeah, so we don't even know what benefits there could be. And they're still finding more molecules indo connabinoid system all this stuff I'm learning, So yeah, benefits potential harms. Like right now we're operating in this space of no knowledge um, and that's that's going to have negative effects for everyone. That's what's up. So go to last Nu's project or get active, like you said, called your local on the state,

and everybody got to push for the field everyone. I mean, this should be sort of Americans don't agree on anything. They do agree on legal weed. Let's make it happen, right. Yes, they need to know, they need to know. Thank you, Thank you so much. This is such an important topic and I'm really grateful that you're spending time on it. It's something that a lot of people do not know about and that's a shame. We got a couple of

bills to pay, but we'll be right back. Money money, money. Hi. I'm Jason Flam CEO and founder of Lava for Good podcasts, Home to Bone Valley, Wrongful Conviction, The War on Drugs, and many other great podcasts. Today we're asking you, our listeners, to take part in the survey. Your feedback is going to help inform how we make podcasts in the future. You're complete and candidate answers will help us continue to bring you more insightful and inspiring stories about important topics

that impact us all. So please go to Lava for Good dot com slash survey and participate today. Thank you for your support. The War on Drugs podcast is sponsored by Stand Together. Stand Together is a philanthropic community that partners with America's boldest change makers to tackle the root causes of our country's biggest problems. Like many others who experienced addiction, Scott Strode was using drugs and alcohol to

numb the pain. For him, it was childhood trauma. In his early twenties, Scott was invited into a boxing gym by a friend and that's where he discovered the healing power of sport and community. In two thousand and six, Scott founded The Phoenix, a free, sober, active community that uses the transformative power of sport to help people treat and heal from addiction. Scott Strode is one of many entrepreneurs partnering with Stand Together to drive solutions and education, healthcare, poverty,

and criminal justice. To learn more of visits stand together dot org. Just waiting on this call from Edwin rubis Yeah get to hear his story, which is one of the casualties of the drug war. Yeah. So, um, for those of you don't know, Edwin Rubis um is you know, right now in federal prison for allegedly trafficking marijuana from the border to Houston on conspiracy. No drugs were ever found at his home, it was just people that were arrested said that he had been transporting drugs from Okay, Okay.

This call is from a federal prison. You will not be charged for this call. This call is from This call will be recorded and subject to monitoring at any time. To accept this call, press five to block this call in all future calls. Press seven to reject this call. Hang up now. You may begin speaking now. Hello, Hello, Hi Edwin, how are you doing it? Well? How are you? How are you doing? Man, I'm doing I'm doing okay

despite the circumstances. Yes, right right, This is Clayton English and Greg glaud And you know, thank you for calling into the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, yes, no problem. Yes, I want to thank you all for the opportunity to be able to speak a new platform. Yeah, absolutely, And I know we we're short on time too, so we'll get into it. So you know why don't we just start from kind of the beginning, Um, you know how this all occurred and transpired, you know, going a little

beforehand and what the things that you're going through. Um, so just kind of tell your story and then we

can get in everything else. Okay, Well, basically, h the golf pass force came to my house and read in my house and told me I was being charged with conspiracy to distribute to marijuana and right, and they found nothing at your house, right, Yeah, I mean when they came to my house, when they came to my house, and basically it was early in the morning, and they came and me on the floor, ransacked the house from to bottom. My son was traumatized by the halivn. Of course,

my pregnant wife was confused and just sat there. They didn't know what was going on, and I didn't know what was going on at first until I was they explained to me with the reason why, you know, what's happening.

And they didn't find any guns, they didn't find any drugs, they didn't find any money, but they still arrested me, and they still took me down to the Federal building you know, um downtown Houston, and they told me the charges, and they took me to court and I was arraigned, and then they told me that I was being charged for conspiracy to distribute twenty two hundred pounds on marijuana with a maximum sentence of life. And I couldn't really believe,

you know, what I was being charged with. And I said, you know, I was shocked, and I asked, I said, well, where does this derived from, you know? And basically they told me that people, this call is from a federal prison at the Drug Enforcement Agency, and that they were co operating with the government, that were cooperating with the government, and given him my name, and we're saying that I was involved with them, you know, for selling marijuana. And

this is solely based on somebody else, just what they say. Yeah,

And basically the conspiracy laws worked out a way. I had to learn that the heartwaight, of course, And after so many years have been in prison, I've come to understand that if there's an agreement between two people that basically say or agree that someone else has been a participant in an illegal painter or or illegal transaction of drugs, then that person can be arrested basically with the same charges that those two are a green that you had something to do with. Yeah, and they can do that

without any drugs on the table. That, yes, they can do that. And I'm a prime example of And at that time I didn't really know anyone. I had lost contact with the people that I had been telling drugs, and so he was very difficult for me to say, Okay, well this Joe blow here, you know he's selling drugs or you know this is a guy John. You know, he's also saying I couldn't say that. I mean, there was no way that I could have given him any

type of information even if I wanted to. So I ended up happening is in my ignorance, you know, I decided to go to trials, and that was the worst decision that I could have made in my life. You know, I didn't know what the ramifications were going to be. My attorney basically didn't present any type of witnesses on the witness stand. He told me not to testify. There wasn't any evidence that shown, you know, to try to demonstrate my innocence. Yeah, no physical evidence. Nothing was found.

I mean, yes, nothing was found. No, of course not if anything would have been found, then I guess again, you have to understand that I was ignorant to the law. I was twenty eight, twenty years old, and I mean there was no way I couldn't. I mean, I don't know how to um basically believe that they could have find me guilty of it. Could have said okay, well we're going to convict you based on over the mouth,

and I didn't understand that. But again I had to learn that the hardware, and I have learned that the hardware. But most people think of the judicial system, if they don't have any evidence, what are they going to hold against me? And you know, you were just operating under the assumption that I think most people have, you know, most Americans have, and so really your only way out of the situation was for you to give somebody else up and continue this psychic wow exactly. And I couldn't,

I mean even if I wanted to. I mean again, the people, the leaders of the conspiracy, the leaders in my case, I wasn't a leader, the leaders in my case. Basically I had been arrested and other among others, and that this call is from a federal prison operating and trying, you know, to try to get their centers reduce. So here I come. You know, I'm arrested. I'm not a leader of the conspiracy of the or the case, and

you know, and I'm trying to prove my innocence. So the government uses all the testimony from them to basically label me as the guy that was in charge when I wasn't. And they know that. And even in my case, if you read the transcripts of my situation, I mean, on my case in my trial, you're gonna basically easily come to understand it. That's the case. You know that

I wasn't a leader. And it was kind of ironic now is that the leaders of the organization, or the leaders of the or my case in my case, have been released, every single one of them. The actual people that were doing this whole thing, making the connections, making the deals, doing whatever else intimidating you, are able to walk free because they have, you know, higher paid attorneys.

They understand what's going on, and they had information to flip on people that were actually less culpable in this whole thing. I mean, yes, because of the reason that I couldn't cooperate with them and I couldn't flip you know, all the you know, I couldn't flip in his nature on other people. And that's one of the main reasons why,

you know, I received such a harsh sentence. You know, I proceeded to trial, and you know, they gave me every single type of enhancements that they could have gave me. They game me abstructional justice, they gave me leadership role, they gave me a gun that they didn't exist because I was never found with any type of weapons, but people testified and they said, oh, yes, yeah, he had he had a gun sometimes. Yeah, and that's and they'll

use all of that information to basically enhance your sentence. Yeah, it's incredible. You know. By now I have already done, you know, over twenty four years and two months to the day, I have been imprisoned, you know, serving this non violent cannabis off you know, for this non violent cannabis offense. And I still have ten years left to go.

But it doesn't defeat me, you know, because for the simple fact is you know, yes, I mean when I first came into a prison, I was extremely depressed, and I was distraught, and I still struggling with drug addiction. And you know, the demons that I was dealing out in the streets. I was still dealing with them in prison,

and to the point that it became very unbearable. You know, there was a time, you know, the first year and a half two years was extremely difficult that I even tried to commit suicide, you know, I try to take my own life. I couldn't face the fact that I was looking, you know, to my release date that was going to be thirty five years later. I mean, my mother was suffering, you know, and my children, my ex wife were left out on the street. I mean it

was horrible. I mean, and there was nothing I could do about it. I mean, all I could do was called, you know, them on the phone for fifteen minutes, just as I'm doing that, as just as I'm doing that right now, you know, and talk to them. And I didn't really do much for them. Yeah, and this all costs significant money. You know, I work in criminal justice policy, so I'm aware, you know, you know, commissary items. It's

the phone calls, it's the video chats, it's emails. They call them stamps where you have to buy stamps just to send an email. If you want to send an attachment to an email that's another stamp. And so you know, I, you know, we read about how you were trying to you know, you're trying to better yourself in there, and you're trying to go through college courses and all these different things, but you had to essentially choose between you know, eating sometimes um or sending an email or um getting

tuition bits and things like that. Can you talk a little bit about some of those kind of struggles that you've had with that whole area of the prison system. And I'm sorry, I'm just I'm about to play break down crying because you know, it's just it's so hard, you know, at the times that I have found myself going through that in and I had to make a choice, you know, to either you know, purchase some things, or

you know, or purchase my college books. And but again, I haven't given up, you know, I haven't allowed my circumstances to defeat me. M You know, I have tried, you know, through my face and my perseverance to try to make something of myself. You know, despite being behind Edwin is we got people listening here. What is something we can do to help? What is something that people listening at home can do to help in any capacity. The thing that I request for people is to sponsor me.

But our request is for people to raise a race, a voice, to basically to say, enough is enough? Why are you keeping this man behind prison bars? When this man has been truly rehabilitated. This man has accomplished more than anyone could accomplish under those dire conditions. Yes, that's what I want people to basically know. This call is

from a federal prison. I mean, it's unfair. I mean, it's just I mean, people don't really have a clear picture of what a prisoner actually goes through behind the fence,

and you know, we don't. Of course, we have different programs that show up in the violent um you know, notion or angle of what takes place behind prison walls that you know, they never really demonstrate the emotional turmoil, the anguish, and the mental anguish that our prisoner goes through when he's being deprived of having that affection of hugging their loved ones, of having that social connection with

the people that he loves. You know, those are the things that they don't demonstrate, and those are the things that I believe affects a lot of people behind prison walls. You know you have people in here suffering from PTSD. You have people are here taking medication, and you know you have people here breaking down sometimes and going to suicide watch. That happened to me when I first came into prison, and like I said, I wanted to take

my own life. I just couldn't fathom the notion that I was gonna be in prison for forty years and it was just insane. And that's probably compounded by the fact that you're innocent for most of the things, the gun and the hearsay, and they caught you with no evidence, so or you're you're doing you did something that other people are making millions of dollars off of right now.

It's an unjust system, to say the least. Is there any way do you want people to contact you or email or I don't know how ye, any any other ways that yeah, we can go out or anything you'd like to say before we go here? Yes, um, there is there is an email address on my brothers and our ministers and it's called Edwin Rubies at a or L dot com. Okay, okay, yeah, we'll plug that in our podcast link and everything else. We'll we'll put that in there and so people can this call it's from

a federal prison. Really greatly appreciate you're giving me the time to be able to speak with you. No, thank you, It means it means a lot, you know. In one last thing that I would like to say, if you will allow me to, yes, please, that the fact that you know when I communicate with people, when I speak to people over the phone, as I'm speaking to you right now, to me, that is oxygen to my lungs.

That is life given to me because I come to think of it as a way of knowing that there's a world for me out there waiting on me, and that I'm not just here in prison, and that this is my life. Because you have to understand the perception of living behind personal walls for almost twenty five years and not knowing when you're going to be able to

see society again. You know, by the time I get out, I'm going to be sixty three years old if I have to do the remaining of my sentence, and by that time, I would have spent thirty four years prison for a non violent cannabis offense. And to me, that is harsh. I mean, it's inexplicable. So when I speak to people like you, and I speak to other people you know, from society, it gives me hope and that is what keeps me going. It gives me faith to know that one day I would be a to speak

to you personally out there in the streets. Well yeah, when when that happens, I'll be there because I would love to shake your hand and give you a hug for everything you're doing, you know, and hopefully, you know, we can get your home a little bit earlier with all the you know, support that you're getting out here. So yeah, yeah, man, yeah, we see what you're doing. Love what you're doing, and uh, we're gonna do everything we can to get the word out. And thank you.

Is there anything else you would want to tell the people out there listening? All right, I love each one of you. That's all I want to say. I love each one of you. Amen, Thank you, thank you, thank you, Thank you so much. Man, thank you, thank you. We'll be right back with the War on Drugs podcast. Well it's um it's uh man y yeah, that was that was That was That was tough because you hear it, but it's different hearing it from somebody in there being

reminded that they're in there, and then uh yeah. At one point while he was talking, I just I felt, I can I can see myself in that situation, Like nobody would want to do any of those things he's describing for one to two years, let alone twenty four, right, and like the hypocrisy of it all, Like you know, this morning where I'm getting ready to come over here to the studio to record, and we're about to this thing, and you know, I see it's like nine to forty

and I'm like, oh, the market's open for the stock markets, like let's see how much money I've already lost, and cannabis stocks I'm looking at them, and how crazy is that that publicly traded entities, right, profiting off of sales of legal marijuana in this country, in Canada and all over the world. And then there's an individual there that's in federal prison for forty years and not looking at coming home till twenty thirty. Yeah, it's just a lot

it's it's it's a lot um. So that's you know, as we think that we're moving towards a more actual system or legalizing marijuana is going to be you know, everything's all good. There are still thousands of people like Edwin, and cars are at the state and federal level for things that are now completely legal. Right. Um, it's just wrong. And hopefully you know, things can things can change and and folks like him can get home. Yeah, and with people like us and the people listening, maybe we can

you know, change the course. Yeah, I mean again, call your congress people, call the free presidents, call the Department of Justice, like getting up support for this. I'm telling you, it does work, um, and it can help. And so it's just a case that um, you know, really really impact me. I know, I know it's impact both of us just talking to him. So I hope that comes through. Um,

I hope you. I hope this drives you to want to do something more about this and get bills passed, get people like him home, and so you know we can kind of move forward and he can have a positive impact in our lives. I think he'd be a tremendous value to society. Absolutely. Yeah. Make sure you follow the War on Drugs podcast so you don't miss any new episodes or any of our Quick Fix bonus content, and we'll be right back next week with another episode

of War on Drugs. Until then, Thank you so much for listening. Executive producers for War on Drugs are Jason Flum and Kevin Wards. Senior producer is Michael livest Editing by Nick Massetti and Michael Epstein, Associate producer and mix and mastering by Nick Massetti. Additional production by Jeff Clatburn and Anna mecintial. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook at Lava for Good. You can follow Greg on Twitter that's me at Greg Glode and Clayton

on Instagram at Clayton English. The War on Drugs is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts, an association with Signal Company Number One. I'm your host, Greg Glode and I'm your host Clayton English, and thanks for listening to the War on Drugs podcast. M