JCT: Yesterday I explained that the prohibition law has been
dead since Aug. 1 2001 even though no one noticed or argued
it except me and my medpot guerrilla lawyers, Parker,
Paquette, Dupuis, and finally, Brian McAllister in Windsor
and then before judges in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

With all these judges saying that the prohibition of
marijuana was unconstitutional, I had to take a gamble to
prove it before the government could bring in new
legislation to recriminalize it.

Of course, we've all been waiting on the decision of Justice
Rogin on the Crown's appeal of the McAllister win in Windsor
but with the judge taking his sweet time to come to a
conclusion, I considered that it was a stall until the new
law could come in and then, whether yes, or no, with new
laws, our win would be worthless.

Since Justice Minister Cauchon had announced he was going to
be presenting the new prohibitions to Parliament today,
Thursday, I had to make my move while the law was still
dead. So I rounded up 7 pounds, over 3 KGs, of marijuana
from the Canadian Marijuana Growers Association to ensure
that if they did dare charge me, I would be getting a
Superior Court process whose decision would be binding on
all other judges in Ontario. The draw-back is the life
sentence.

In the morning, I faxed a press release to a group of Crown
Attorneys announcing that I would be at the entrance of the
House of Commons on Parliament Hill for the opening of
Question Period smoking a joint and daring the government to
bust me based on their dead law.

Of course, I was worried about getting stopped before
reaching my spot where I expected the reporters to be but
when I arrived on the Hill, I found a half dozen reporters
who had come for the protest.

On the walk from the Centennial Flame up the Hill, I lit up
my joint and had a few puffs while they took pictures.
That's the picture you see of me on page 2 of today's
Toronto Star and Quebec's Le Soleil.

I then moseyed over to the bus stop outside the West Door of
the House of Commons where I had protested against interest
rates in the early 1980s every Thursday for 5 years and as
members arrived, I heckled stentorially "Do not Re-
criminalise Marijuana. The law is dead, do not recriminalize
it." I explained, loudly, shoutingly to the House, that the
government had failed to comply with the Parker Court ruling
and the law had died.

Then I started pulling out my 7 pounds of marijuana from my
duffel bag explaining that they were for the inspection of
the House members, the Prime Minister, the Supreme Court of
Canada, the Justice Minister, the Superior Court of Ontario
and the Ottawa police and the seventh I was keeping for now.
Notice the words "for inspection" that will be critical when
the issue of trafficking is discussed.

Then I packed them back but for the one I was going to leave
for the House and went to the front door of the House and
tried to get in to leave it "for their inspection" but the
security would have nothing of it. I asked if I could leave
it for the Speaker of the House but they said no. I asked
how I could leave it and they just shrugged.

So I put the pound down in the entryway and said I hoped
some MP would be daring enough to pick it up and bring it in
"for their inspection." As I then started to leave to go
over to the Prime Minister's Office in the East Wing,
security asked me not to move as they had called the RCMP. W

While I continued to explain my arguments for being there
with the pot, an old political opponent, now a Liberal MP
from Ottawa East, Eugene Bellemarre, got off the bus and was
entering. When he saw me, he came over to shake my hand. I
told him that he should not recriminalize marijuana because
it had died. And I'd be in big trouble if I was wrong. He
was a bit shocked at what I was doing and stuck around to
watch the conclusion.
Finally, the RCMP officers arrived and informed me that I
was under arrest for possession with the intent to traffic,
what I'd expected. The moment you are caught with more than
3Kg, it is assumed. But this time, even more cameras had
come out from Parliament to get the story. You can see the
picture of me getting arrested in today's Globe & Mail.

I was put in a cruiser and even more reporters started to
show up and try to shout questions through the glass but
couldn't be heard. I could only keep mouthing "medpot dot
net." And then I was driven away. Before exiting the
grounds, the lady officer read me my rights and then we
followed the lead car as I was driven to the RCMP detachment
at McArthur Rd. and the Vanier Parkway.

What's interesting is that right beside it is Louis'
Restaurant that won the "Best Pizza in Ottawa" award a few
years back whose owner, Mo, is a poker buddy. So I told the
officers that if they called Louis' Pizza and said they had
John Turmel in custody, Louis'd probably send over a couple
of pizzas for us. They didn't in case he was an accomplice
who might try to break me out. Too bad, they missed some
great pizza, the all-time best.

So they searched me, interviewed me, photographed and
fingerprinted me and ten did their reports, . I did have my
last joint hidden among some tissues and managed to keep it
but I had no way to light it. They don't allow smoking
anymore so who needs a light?

It's always reassuring to run into the older guys I'd known
when I was picketing Parliament in the early years since
most RCMP do get a stint there. The senior officer was no
exception so he had a great time telling the younger guy
about the candidate for Ottawa mayor busted for the biggest
gaming house raid in Canadian history in their car.

They then drove me down to the Ottawa Police to be kept
overnight until my hearing in the morning. This was the part
I dreaded. The Ottawa Police Station's holding cells have
steel cots, no mattress, no blanket, no pillow. A night on a
steel cot is a nightmare. I had tried to think ahead. I have
a travelling pillow shaped in a horseshoe to go around my
neck on buses and planes and I called it my neck-brace. It
really was going to help my neck stand the strain. They let
me keep it but when I got to the Ottawa cell block, the
young officer who frisked me said I was just trying to bring
in a pillow and took it away from me. Sad that his big
accomplishment for the day was making sure the old guy
didn't have a pillow.

While I was in the first holding cell, I decided I wasn't
going to tempt fate during a second search so I took out my
joint and ate it. It paid off. I had to suffer the indignity
of being strip searched and it would have been found if I
hadn't enjoyed 15 minutes earlier.

People don't realize that 600,000 Canadians have been put
through these kinds of degradation since Jean Chretien and
Pierre Trudeau first promised to legalize marijuana in the
early 1970s and then reneged. I like to see Jean Chretien
have his ass checked because he likes drinking beer. Another
degrading experience is having your cell monitored by camera
which is a real disincentive to having a crap.

And I'd arrived after the dinner period so I got nothing to
eat.

There is nothing more miserable than sleeping on steel. It's
cold so if I took off my jacket to act as a pillow, my back
got chills and if I wore the jacket, then the head had to
stay vertical with no side support. To try to turn on my
side meant that my head would tilt at a large angle and I'd
eventually get a terrible neck crick. Or I'd rest my head on
my arm and wake up later with a numb arm that had to go
through the needles of blood getting back into the arteries.
So it was a pretty miserable 15 hours capped by a breakfast
of two cold, damp toast and a glass of juice.

The occupants of the other cells were mostly loud-mouthed
drunks. Disgusting. And when you think that it's the drunks
in the Liberal Party who are going to make my drug of choice
illegal again, the hypocrisy sickens even more.

Then it was time to be taken down to the courthouse. This
time, rather than just be handcuffed, they put on leg chains
and then manacled me to three other guys. They have these
converted vans with a central partition and then another at
cross angles cutting it into four. They place four prisoners
per "cell" of about a space of 5 feet buy 3 feet, 16 in all.
It must be murderously hot in the summer.

When we reached the Ottawa courthouse, we were all put in a
big holding cell. There were actually 14 of us. One guy
older than me, another my age and the other dozen were all
kids under 30. Almost half of them were there for breaching
their previous probations. One guy for being caught with one
joint!

Remember how the RCMP officers debating me on the CFRA show
kept saying they needed the prohibition to protect the
youth. Well, here were almost all youth who are the end
victims of their game.

They also mentioned that they don't around busting marijuana
smokers but usually, only accompanying another charge. Here
I realized that the marijuana charge led to something else.
By having this lousy law on the books, it gives the police
another reason to be busting the kids on breaches of
probation. Imagine, going back to jail for being caught with
a joint. That's the reality of it that the police try to
white-wash with "it's an accessory charge." Not true. It
generates a lot of the breach charges. One joint can get
some people jailed.

I got to explain to the kids how everyone should have had
their criminal records erased when the unconstitutional law
died on July 31 2001. The Court did say it was
unconstitutional, and no one should be in jail for an
unconstitutional charge, but no one has yet bothered trying
to get them out.

When I explained that I had risked a life-sentence to get a
Superior Court Judge to order they empty the jails, they
became very friendly. One young tough said "you've got
balls." I could only joke "the biggest."

One by one, they were taken up to the courtroom for the
cases to be processed. Those who were being released went
into another holding cell upon return.

After a few hours, I was taken out with two others to go
talk with the duty counsel, a young woman named Morrison.
She explained that the Crown had already indicated that I
was going to be representing myself but informed me that I
was going to be kept in custody until my turn for a bail
hearing. She explained that they worried I might go to it
again.

Bad news. Nothing I can do. If the Crown wants to argue I
should be kept in jail, I have to stay in jail until the
hearing. It's totally at the discretion of the Crown but I
asked her to explain that this was a once-in-a-lifetime test
case, that they didn't chase and catch me, that I had chased
and caught them and it was silly to think I would breach my
probation and be in real trouble if I was released. Since I
now had my test case, I certainly was not going to do it
again.

I guess she must have made a pretty good case because when I
was then brought up into the courtroom, she informed me that
the Crown had agreed to let me be released on my own
recognizance with a few conditions. Phew. That was close. I
might have spent the whole weekend in the pen.


I did think the conditions were a mite unreasonable:
1) no use of substances on the list;
2) no association with anyone who uses marijuana.

1) I would have gladly accepted no use of "illegal
substances," so I could argue cannabis (in smaller
quantities) is not illegal and they would have to prove that
it still is. But with the condition against substances "on
the list" which included marijuana, whether it should be be
there or not, I will have to resist.

2) Considering that almost all my co-applicants use
marijuana, Terry, Marc, Johnny, this is a condition that
will have to be challenged at the next opportunity.

So I agreed to the conditions to make sure I got out but
fortunately, I've done motions to change bail conditions
before and I should have those issues broached by next week.

When I got out, I was real disappointed to realize that my
gamble had made the news all across the country, the CTV
national news, the national newspapers, but that my home
town papers had both killed it. Of course, the Sun and the
Citizen have been killing stories about for years but it's
still revealing how a story that they know made the national
outlets still gets killed in my home town. I guess they
don't want me getting any of the toker votes in my upcoming
election for mayor. They've always censored any moves that
would have brought me support like media in other towns do
not have to censor me.

Sad though to have the citizens of Ottawa so ill-served by
their own media about one of Ottawa's own politicians doing
something extraordinary. Well, as long as Ottawa's internet
readers know about the suppression, it can't be worse than
internet readership knowing how CNN suppressed much truth to
support the last US conquest to rival their victory of the
formidable armed forces of Grenada.

So the media stinks most everywhere that it counts. At least
it's good to know they do it.

--
Abolitionist Slave Leader John C."The Banking Systems Engineer" Turmel
for UNILETS interest-free time-based currency in U.N. resolution C6
to Governments in the http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration.htm
http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel / http://www.medpot.net 613-562-0669