Psychoblues
04-28-2007, 12:30 AM
Life is a hoot, don't you agree?
“Life came unglued for Bernie Ellis on the day drug agents raided his farm like it was the fortified villa of a South American cocaine kingpin. Ellis was bush-hogging around his berry patches when two helicopters swept low over the treetops. Then, rumbling in on four-wheelers, came 10 officers of the Tennessee Marijuana Eradication Task Force. The war on drugs had arrived, literally, in Ellis’ backyard. It was a major operation to strike a righteous blow against the devil weed.
It must have been a real disappointment. Ellis, a public health epidemiologist, readily acknowledged that he was growing a small amount of medical marijuana to cope with a degenerative condition in his hips and spine. He was giving pot away to a few terminally ill people too. There were only a couple dozen plants of any size scattered around his place—enough to produce seven or eight pounds of marijuana worth about $7,000.
But for that crime—growing a little herb to ease his own pain and the agony of a few sick and dying people—Ellis was prosecuted like an ordinary drug pusher. Actually, if he had been one, he probably would have been treated less harshly. He has mounted $70,000 in debt to his lawyers, lost his livelihood and spent the past 18 months living in a Nashville halfway house. Worst of all, he risks losing his beloved Middle Tennessee farm—187 acres of rolling green hills along the Natchez Trace Parkway. Prosecutors are trying to seize the property as a drug-case forfeiture, and Ellis is fighting against the odds to save his home of nearly 40 years.
“If I were a rapist, the government couldn’t take my farm,” Ellis says. “I grew cannabis and provided it free of charge to sick people, so I run the risk of losing everything I own. That just doesn’t compute to me.”
But a strange thing has happened while the government has been trying to make an example out of Ellis. Colleagues, friends and neighbors are rallying around him—along with a whole lot of people who had never heard of him before. The balding, bespectacled 57-year-old with the amiable manner of a favorite uncle has become an improbable cause célèbre."
More: http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Cover_Story/2007/04/26/Marijuana_Martyr/index.shtml
Or, would you rather ignore it and continue on such a hypocritical path as you so far find so miserable and condescending?
“Life came unglued for Bernie Ellis on the day drug agents raided his farm like it was the fortified villa of a South American cocaine kingpin. Ellis was bush-hogging around his berry patches when two helicopters swept low over the treetops. Then, rumbling in on four-wheelers, came 10 officers of the Tennessee Marijuana Eradication Task Force. The war on drugs had arrived, literally, in Ellis’ backyard. It was a major operation to strike a righteous blow against the devil weed.
It must have been a real disappointment. Ellis, a public health epidemiologist, readily acknowledged that he was growing a small amount of medical marijuana to cope with a degenerative condition in his hips and spine. He was giving pot away to a few terminally ill people too. There were only a couple dozen plants of any size scattered around his place—enough to produce seven or eight pounds of marijuana worth about $7,000.
But for that crime—growing a little herb to ease his own pain and the agony of a few sick and dying people—Ellis was prosecuted like an ordinary drug pusher. Actually, if he had been one, he probably would have been treated less harshly. He has mounted $70,000 in debt to his lawyers, lost his livelihood and spent the past 18 months living in a Nashville halfway house. Worst of all, he risks losing his beloved Middle Tennessee farm—187 acres of rolling green hills along the Natchez Trace Parkway. Prosecutors are trying to seize the property as a drug-case forfeiture, and Ellis is fighting against the odds to save his home of nearly 40 years.
“If I were a rapist, the government couldn’t take my farm,” Ellis says. “I grew cannabis and provided it free of charge to sick people, so I run the risk of losing everything I own. That just doesn’t compute to me.”
But a strange thing has happened while the government has been trying to make an example out of Ellis. Colleagues, friends and neighbors are rallying around him—along with a whole lot of people who had never heard of him before. The balding, bespectacled 57-year-old with the amiable manner of a favorite uncle has become an improbable cause célèbre."
More: http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Cover_Story/2007/04/26/Marijuana_Martyr/index.shtml
Or, would you rather ignore it and continue on such a hypocritical path as you so far find so miserable and condescending?