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Read a page out of Rycke's recipe book!
Report The Cookie Monster Goes to Jail by Rycke Brown If you can't beat 'em, starve
yourself.
The last time I was convicted of a crime, I served a
three-year sentence. I'm not really concerned about being convicted this time,
because I have a way to avoid prison: while in captivity, I will not eat.
| | Rycke
Brown is a natural gardener in Grants Pass, Ore.
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I realize I could be forced to accept a feeding tube, but I think that's
unlikely. Hospital upkeep is expensive. The county can't afford it, and neither
the state nor the feds are eager to take a fasting prisoner. They won't want the
expense, and they won't want the publicity. I also realize I could be
allowed to die. This is also unlikely — very bad publicity. No sheriff will
want to head into an election accused of starving a poor widow gardener like me,
all because she gave away a few pot cookies! * * *
Every Sunday for the past two years, I spent two hours at the intersection of 6th
and G Streets in beautiful Grants Pass, Ore., holding a protest sign, dancing to
70's rock music, and handing out leaflets. The police left me alone, I became
quite popular, and I had lots of fun. Occasionally, I gave away cookies made with
pot butter. Most of these were given to protest helpers or medical marijuana
patients. My protest helpers are usually young adults, and word spreads
fast among the young. One recent Sunday, four young women walked up and
exclaimed, "The cookie lady!" and asked for cookies. I asked them if they wanted
oatmeal-sesame chocolate chip cookies (which contain no marijuana) or the pot
gingersnaps. They wanted the pot cookies. They said they smoked pot daily, so I
gave them one cookie apiece. Apparently, all four women were later
urine-tested at the Gospel Rescue Mission, and claimed they didn't know what was
in the cookies I gave them. One of the women was pregnant, and one was only 15
years old. (I try to avoid giving cookies to minors, but 15 sometimes looks like
21.) I'd been set up — not by my opponents or by the authorities, but by
fellow drug users. The following Sunday was Easter. There was a warm
spring rain falling, and a police car half a block away whose occupants were
obviously watching me. I gave a couple of cookies to two young men. One of them
had tried them before, and he warned the other that one was enough. They sat on
the porch of the nearby community center, ate their cookies, and watched me
dance. A lady came up and told me she doesn't smoke marijuana, but admires
what I'm doing. She asked if I had anything she could sign, and I gave her a
"Legalize Freedom of Medicine" leaflet and a copy of my petition to make all
elections in Oregon non-partisan. She asked if I'd given cookies to the young men
on the porch, and if she could have one as well. She chose the pot ginger-snaps,
and I advised her to eat no more than half a cookie. About five minutes
later, a couple of Grants Pass' finest informed me that I'd just given a cookie
to an undercover officer, and they arrested me. I spent the next 26 hours in
jail. While I was in custody, the police searched my house and took urine
samples from my daughter and a gardening apprentice, both of whom were there at
the time. They didn't get much more than the urine — just a few seeds and
some paraphernalia. Their search was desultory, for two reasons.
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into an election accused of starving a poor widow gardener.
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First, they thought they already had me on possession, distributing to a
minor, and four counts of causing to ingest without knowledge or consent.
Anything that would add significantly to these charges would be fairly obvious
and easy to detect. A search for minute traces of anything would be a waste of
their time, and they probably wanted to get home to their Easter dinners.
Second, there's what I think of as the "activist factor." Cops are more likely to
oppress people who don't know their rights: the poor and the ignorant. People who
protest on street corners, or even sport radical bumper stickers, are apt to know
their rights and will sue to prove it. When it becomes necessary to arrest known
activists, policemen treat them with respect if they show the same. (When I was
busted in Arizona, the police were extraordinarily polite and careful with my
family and belongings. They let me take my kids to a friend's house, and they
left my guns, after unloading them.) My brother put up $1500 to bail me
out before I could be conditionally released. My initial appearance had been
continued to the next day, as I had no lawyer and refused a court-appointed one.
It's better to bail out, as there are no requirements except showing up in court,
whereas conditional release includes restrictions like not using illegal
substances or alcohol. In court the next day, the judge warned that
self-representation would put me at a disadvantage. I said I understood, but that
accepting a lawyer appointed by the state would put me at an even greater
disadvantage. After the hearing, I went down to Neil Morey's law office.
His bread-and-butter is DUI, but he specializes in marijuana cases. As I walked
through his door, he said, "I was hoping you'd call me." Just what I needed to
hear. I'd done self-representation before; I really didn't want to do it again.
It would take a lot of time and study and I'd likely end up convicted again. For
his part, he'd seen me protesting every Sunday and had considered giving me his
card, figuring I'd need it sooner or later. I told him that this was a
political prosecution, and that I'd have to fight it by telling the press at
every opportunity that everyone who got a pot cookie was told there was pot in
it. I would be admitting to a non-rights-violating offense in order to fight the
rights-violation charges of causing to ingest. In the end, whatever they
convicted me of, I would accept no more punishment than a month or so of fasting
while they held me. I would not pay fines or accept probation. He agreed!
He understood! But then, that's why he was hoping I'd call him. He likes to do
trials, and he rarely gets to. And all publicity is good publicity for a
lawyer. The cookie angle has been a great publicity boost. My protest and
arrest has made the Northwest AP News, and area TV and radio news broadcasts.
Early stories emphasized the 15-year-old and the pregnant woman. Channel 10
interviewed me for a follow-up story which got across the point that everyone who
took a cookie knew what was in it. The Daily Courier did an in-depth interview
that ran under the headline "Protester Insists Pot is Religious-Freedom Issue."
The article, which quoted liberally from my leaflet, was fair and favorable,
although it presented my protest as mainly about pot.
| I'd been set up —
not by my opponents or by the authorities, but by fellow drug users.
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This is how we can win the drug war, and end other governmental violations of
our rights — by fighting charges in court instead of taking plea bargains,
and by refusing to eat jail food if convicted. The latter provides the confidence
to do the former. Fasting isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card. I've never
heard of any violent criminals trying it — they might be allowed to die.
Most people wouldn't particularly care. They already resent providing health care
to prisoners when many free men can't afford it. But the costs of keeping violent
criminals healthy mean that prisoners convicted of relatively minor crimes tend
to be released if they have serious health-care costs. If you don't eat while in
captivity, you won't stay in prison. The punishment they threaten you with
becomes irrelevant. You can fight your case with good heart and make the state
prove every element of every charge. Today, 99% of defendants accept plea
bargains instead of going to trial. If even 10% of defendants exercised their
right to trial by jury, the judicial system would grind to a halt. Prosecutors
would have to stick to prosecuting real criminals. Laws would have to
change. There is a slim chance I might die, but I would prefer that to
years in prison. I love the life I live now, in my house, my garden, and my
customers' gardens. I love the life I live with my lover, my daughters, my
parents, and my friends, in a town I chose over many others in which I've lived.
If I eat in jail and thereby go to prison, I would be trading that life for a
life surrounded by concrete and barbed wire, living with company I don't choose,
eating institutional food, and following an institutional schedule. The
charge of distributing to minor carries a sentence of up to 20 years, but even
one year would destroy my life. By the time I got out, my customers and my house
would be lost, and my friends and family would be gone or changed. If I save my
life by eating, I have lost it. If I lose my life by fasting, I have saved
it. That, my friends, is the good news, not the bad. It is a choice any
one of us could face: there are so many laws and so many ways to run afoul of
them. We can free our country without having to convince anyone who isn't already
on our side. We can defeat overwhelming force by peaceful resistance, simply by
fighting to the finish in court and not eating their food. All who do so will
live free. If enough do so, everyone will live free.
* * * The Sunday protest goes on, amplified. The arrest
kept me off the street for one hour of a very rainy day. I have pledges from
daughters and friends that they will be out there if I'm taken off the street
again. My lawyer says that his lawyer friends are having conniptions at the sight
of me back on the street and talking to the press. I'm handing out twice as many
leaflets as I did before my arrest. More people are stopping to talk and help,
and there's even a little more opposition. My business goes on as normal.
Customers may support me, disagree with me, or not care, but reasonable people
don't let politics come before business. My bumper stickers weed out most of the
unreasonable people before they can hire me. Court dates occasionally cut
into my work schedule. The stretch between dates can be anywhere from weeks to
months. The next one is supposedly to take a plea and set trial. The DA has
offered to drop the two remaining "causing to ingest" counts in exchange for
pleading guilty to the charges of distributing to a minor and felony possession.
Not happening. No matter what the outcome of the trial is, my life will go
on.
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