Search Results: prison/ (7)

Thai Stick.


“Although my long hair is gone now and my views are more conservative than they once were, there is a part of my past I will not sweep under the rug and disavow. I am old enough and honest enough to remember the Thai sticks that flooded my beachside town each summer–a surfer’s equivalent of the Beaujolais nouveau.
During the 1970s, Thai stick marijuana–so-called because the buds were tightly wrapped around hemp or bamboo sticks before being packed into watertight bundles for the long trans-Pacific trip–was one of the most valuable commodities in the world. At $2,000 per pound, a single load of Thai could and did make many a smuggler a small fortune. To us pot-smoking teenaged surfers, these scammers–the people who fetched these loads from afar–were heroic Robin Hood characters who trafficked only in pot and surfed more world-class waves than anyone else.”
Do yourself a favor, read the rest of Peter Maguire’s amazing tale over at the OC Weekly.

Berkeley Patients Group, the largest medical marijuana dispensary in Berkeley, California, was sued by the federal government on Friday in an attempt to shut down the cornerstone collective and seize the property, according to a press release delivered today by Americans for Safe Access.
The feds accuse Berkeley Patients Group of breaking federal law by selling herb. And in a move that has been used with undeniable effect up and down the state of California, they’ve targeted BPG’s landlord and threatened her with asset and property seizure if she does not immediately evict her tenants.

Photo: Meredith J. Graham
Deputy District Attorney Jeff Greeson holds up a jar of marijuana obtained from defendant Joel Castle’s hotel room ore than a year ago. Castle, left, was ultimately found guilty of possession and sale of marijuana. He chose nine months in prison rather than three years’ probation.

​A California medical marijuana patient said he prefers being behind bars to being told he can’t use cannabis. Joel Castle is going to prison for nine months rather than spending the next three years on probation, because a condition of the probation a judge offered him was that he quit smoking pot.

Castle, the former Chico Cannabis Club operator who was found guilty last month of two felonies associated with a guitar-for-pot trade in January 2010, was sentenced earlier this month, reports Meredith J. Graham at the Chico News Review.
Judge Robert Glusman at first offered Castle three years’ probation. But the medical marijuana patient refused, and was sentenced instead to two years, eight months in state prison.
“It was the first time I really spoke my mind to that judge,” Castle said. Castle ended up being ejected from the courtroom during his sentencing, never a good sign.

Photo: Lash & Associates Publishing

​A Pennsylvania legislator intends to introduce a bill which would double penalties for first-time marijuana possession in the Keystone State.

Rep. Dick Hess, a Republican, wants to double penalties for first-time possession convictions for all Schedule I and Schedule II drugs, reports Derek Rosenzweig at Philly NORML. Marijuana is classed as a Schedule I drug, so the penalty for first-time pot possession would at one fell swoop go up from one year in jail and a $5,000 fine to two years and $10,000. For subsequent convictions it rises to three years and $25,000.
This backwards bill would also increase penalties for possession, distribution and manufacturing of “drug paraphernalia,” whatever the hell that is, to two years and $5,000 for the first offense. A second offense brings three years and $10,000 in fines.

Photo: WKRC-TV
Richard Heritz, 85, is accused of taking marijuana to his grandson in the Warren County Correctional Institute on Ohio.

​An 85-year-old grandfather faces seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine for allegedly bringing marijuana into the Warren County Correctional Institute in Ohio.

Richard J. Heritz of West Chester, Ohio, faces a felony charge for trying to bring drugs onto the grounds of the facility and possessing “criminal tools,” reports WKRC Cincinnati.
Officers claimed they got a tip that Heritz would be trying to bring cannabis to his grandson, an inmate at Warren Correctional Institute, during a scheduled visit on Friday.
When Heritz arrived for his visit, troopers confronted him. He voluntarily surrendered one “large package” containing about 22 grams of suspected marijuana, reports WHIOTV.com.
Marijuana is estimated to be worth about $23 a gram in Ohio’s correctional institutions, according to WKRC.

Photo: Beast Elite
Isaac Hilton, 29, will be spending at least 21 months in prison on marijuana and gun charges.

​Former NFL player Isaac HIlton has been sentenced to at least 21 months in prison on marijuana and gun charges in Pennsylvania, reports Michael David Smith at NBC Sports.

Police raided Hilton’s apartment in March 2009, where they said they found 70 bags of marijuana and a 12-gauge Mossburg shotgun.
Police claimed Hilton sold marijuana to a confidential informant from his apartment in January 2009. 
Hilton was prohibited from possessing a firearm because of an armed robbery conviction in South Carolina,according to police.
A seventh-round draft pick of the New York Giants in 2004, Hilton also played briefly for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Carolina Panthers. He also played for the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts.
Last year, he played in the Arena Football League, according to J.M. Gatskie at Football News Now.