Speaker 1: Okay, Greg, check this out. I learned something. I learned
Speaker 1: a lot working with you, but this one kind of
Speaker 1: took me back. Did you know that the cops don't
Speaker 1: have to find any drugs on you for you to
Speaker 1: be convicted and in prison for a drug crime? Then
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? This call is from a
Speaker 1: federal prison. You will not be charged for this call.
Speaker 1: We can say pretty confidently that at any point in time,
Speaker 1: they're over forty thousand people incarcerated for cannabis in this country.
Speaker 1: The door, I mean, we have clients who are serving
Speaker 1: life without the possibility of roles for selling twenty dollars
Speaker 1: worth of week. That's correct. This call will be recorded
Speaker 1: and subject to monitoring at any time. You may begin
Speaker 1: speaking now. The Golf ass Force, you came to my
Speaker 1: house and read in my house, and I taught me
Speaker 1: I was being charged with conspiracy to distribute are one
Speaker 1: of the department. They didn't find any guns, they didn't
Speaker 1: find any drugs, they didn't find any money, but feelbout
Speaker 1: ristany and they told me that I would be charged
Speaker 1: for conspiracy to distribute twenty two hundred pounds tomorrow one
Speaker 1: with a maximum census of life and this is solely
Speaker 1: based on somebody else, just what they saying. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they can do that without any drugs on the table
Speaker 1: on the climbing sound. Hey, this is Clayton English. This
Speaker 1: is Greg Glad and this is the war on drug Greg?
Speaker 1: What's going on? How much clay now are you doing?
Speaker 1: I'm good man. We got a little bit of a
Speaker 1: special episode today, right, a little bit longer than the others.
Speaker 1: U two interviews Natalie Pappion with the Last Prisoner Project
Speaker 1: and uh Edwin Rubis who's incarcerated right now where it
Speaker 1: telldega okay Teldegan Alabama at a federal penitentiary right out there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I can't wait for people to hear it because
Speaker 1: it's comment was it was a riot. It made me
Speaker 1: feel a lot of different feelings, anger, upset, and you know,
Speaker 1: he really kind of just put you in his shoes.
Speaker 1: And I don't think we think about it. This is
Speaker 1: the first interview that we've had where we talked to
Speaker 1: somebody that currently yeah, in prison and living with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know a lot of the things that you
Speaker 1: told me as we've started this podcast, I just saw
Speaker 1: first hand in this interview, right, how we criminalize addiction. Yea,
Speaker 1: how people get wrapped up in this, How you get
Speaker 1: the trial, going to trial, exercising your constitutional rights, going
Speaker 1: to trial, How that damages you, the crazy sentences, the
Speaker 1: problems in prison, how you get back. I mean it
Speaker 1: really like start to finish, like shows every little problem
Speaker 1: that you have in the system. And it's it's so
Speaker 1: much bigger than anything you could imagine. Like once you
Speaker 1: once I found out that the people that really need
Speaker 1: to be locked up can give up lesser people and
Speaker 1: get less time. That's feels like the complete opposite of
Speaker 1: what our legal system is designed to do. Right, But
Speaker 1: and Actuality is perfectly designed to do just that exactly
Speaker 1: because again it's not about the drugs, right Yeah. And
Speaker 1: and Edwin's case got on our radar from you know,
Speaker 1: the Last Prisoner Project when we were talking to them
Speaker 1: and Natalie papillon Um who works over there, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's an organization that does, you know, trying to help
Speaker 1: individuals that are currently incarcerated from arijuana fences to be
Speaker 1: able to get released and you know successful inner society.
Speaker 1: You see what you see, what she's fighting for isn't
Speaker 1: just something on paper or just this it's real people
Speaker 1: getting affected by these things. Yeah, and the people that's designed,
Speaker 1: like the cartel is not scared. Are the people in
Speaker 1: charge or not scared? I actually, you know they enjoy this,
Speaker 1: They like it. Yeah, because there needs to be a scalp, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like if you got you got these numbers pinted this
Speaker 1: person who didn't have a fraction of what we had
Speaker 1: to do with it, and they get to take the Brennan,
Speaker 1: we get to keep riberating perfect. Everybody wins as far
Speaker 1: as the corrupt bullish it. Yeah. No one loves mandatory
Speaker 1: minimums and conspiracy charges more than El Chopo and all
Speaker 1: these guys. I mean, who who loves prohibition more than
Speaker 1: alcol Yeah? So I'm really excited for you all to
Speaker 1: listen to this. We have an amazing conversation with Natalie,
Speaker 1: and then we speak with Edwin and m Yeah. Let's
Speaker 1: I think bready get into it. Yeah. Absolutely, Natalie. How
Speaker 1: are you doing today? I'm doing great. I'm excited about this.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. Man, We're so excited to have
Speaker 1: you here doing the lord's work. Yeah, you're doing what
Speaker 1: needs to be done. I mean, I think there's so
Speaker 1: many people that have been thrown away in the system
Speaker 1: for such a small infraction, and infraction that in most
Speaker 1: places as legal are close to legal. Now, so can
Speaker 1: you start us off with just the scale of the
Speaker 1: problem and the injustice when it comes to marijuana arrest
Speaker 1: and who would affect Yeah, I think let's start from
Speaker 1: this misconception that now that many states have either liberalized
Speaker 1: their cannabis laws or outright legalized, they don't use cannabis,
Speaker 1: No one's being arrested, no one's being incarcerated for possession
Speaker 1: or distribution, and everyone who was formally incarcerated has been
Speaker 1: sort of let free the prison gates have opened. That
Speaker 1: is definitely not true. But we have done a lot
Speaker 1: of internal research at Last Prisoner Project and we can
Speaker 1: say with you know, pretty confidently that at any point
Speaker 1: in time, they're over forty thousand people incarcerated for cannabis
Speaker 1: in this country, which is you know, a ton of people,
Speaker 1: especially when you consider the fact that twenty states have
Speaker 1: legalized for adult use, and you know, doesn't more have
Speaker 1: decriminalize the plan. So we're seeing an injustice and a
Speaker 1: hypocrisy where many people are minting millions of dollars off
Speaker 1: of selling cannabis in their states. You know, they're buying
Speaker 1: pot stocks while others are being sentenced to not just
Speaker 1: you know, a few days, weeks, months in prison for
Speaker 1: even something as simple as marijuana possession. I mean, we
Speaker 1: have clients who are serving life without the possibility of
Speaker 1: parole for selling twenty dollars worth of weed. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: Whenever I tell people, they assume I'm making things up
Speaker 1: or being hyperbolic, but I was. Unfortunately, it's true. And
Speaker 1: how does that happen? You know? This one man, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about mister Kevin Allen. He was sentenced to life
Speaker 1: without the possibility of parole because he was considered under
Speaker 1: Louisiana state law habitual Now that seems really scary and okay,
Speaker 1: habitual offender like terrorizing our communities whatnot? He had, you know,
Speaker 1: for previous arrest and they were all for drug possession,
Speaker 1: all non violent. So we have these incredibly draconian laws
Speaker 1: on the books. We have judges and energy social system
Speaker 1: that doesn't isn't empowered to look at the full facts
Speaker 1: of the case. You know, they have to look at
Speaker 1: mandatory minimums, they have to look at habitual offender laws,
Speaker 1: and that leaves you in a situation where we have
Speaker 1: people serving life for twenty dollars with a week. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy, and like marijuana kind of just feels like
Speaker 1: it gets like thrown onto the rug. But it is
Speaker 1: one of the biggest drivers of not only just you know,
Speaker 1: criminal justice contacts through arrest, but also incarceration. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: touched on a really great point. So throughout sort of
Speaker 1: the recent history in the US, marijuana law enforcement has
Speaker 1: ebbed and flows, but the nineteen nineties and you know,
Speaker 1: at the very beginning of the nineties, we start to
Speaker 1: see a huge ramping up of marijuana related arrests. So
Speaker 1: you know, illustrate that in nineteen ninety one there were
Speaker 1: eighty eight thousand marijuana arrests across the country. In two
Speaker 1: thousand two, we're seeing seven hundred thirty thousand marijuana arrest
Speaker 1: So why did that happen? One is sort of the
Speaker 1: cratering of crime rates post the nineteen eighties. And you
Speaker 1: know what police have to do with those bloated budgets
Speaker 1: and how they have to utilize them, and how they're
Speaker 1: incentivized to utilize them, and they do that by doing
Speaker 1: the easiest thing they can do is start picking people
Speaker 1: up on the street for weed. Right. We also have
Speaker 1: this mythology start in the nineteen nineties around the youthful
Speaker 1: sort of marijuana menace. Right, So we have this idea
Speaker 1: that predominantly young black men may have either been in
Speaker 1: car already, are already in cars rated for crack, or
Speaker 1: you know, are not using crack or distributing crack as
Speaker 1: much as they might have been in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: and they're instead turning to marijuana. Is not just contained
Speaker 1: to the inner cities, they're sort of predilection and for
Speaker 1: marijuana use is actually spreading into the suburbs. And I'm
Speaker 1: going to be totally blunt, no pun intended, you know,
Speaker 1: infecting white suburban youth. And this is a crisis, and
Speaker 1: we need to protect the children. And in order to
Speaker 1: protect the children, we need to basically stop stop frisk
Speaker 1: and throw every young black man who might have a
Speaker 1: dime bag on them into prison. Yeah. So you touch
Speaker 1: on something, and it's something that I've worked with quite
Speaker 1: a bit. You know, as states have attempted to either
Speaker 1: decriminalize or legalize marijuana, you know, you sometimes get sometimes
Speaker 1: almost every time, push back from law enforcement. And what
Speaker 1: I've noticed is like it's not necessarily the prohibition of
Speaker 1: the drug itself. It's what comes around with it and
Speaker 1: some of the collateral issues. So it's like, well, now
Speaker 1: we're going to lose this thing that we have in
Speaker 1: our back pocket if we smell marijuana? Are you or
Speaker 1: we can do a stop and frisk on you and
Speaker 1: have a dime bag if it's legal those go away.
Speaker 1: Can you kind of touch on like some of the
Speaker 1: other collateral aspects of like what no on legalization looks
Speaker 1: like in those states and how that allows for government
Speaker 1: control over individuals through that and what they're losing from
Speaker 1: a legalization standpoint the government. So you mentioned one thing
Speaker 1: about the odor of marijuana, So that's obviously been the case,
Speaker 1: that's been the basis for so many pretextual stops across
Speaker 1: the country. When it becomes legalized, and if it's legalized
Speaker 1: in the right way, police use that sort of investigative tool.
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of empathy for law enforcement
Speaker 1: departments who say they basically need to skirt the Constitution
Speaker 1: in order to do their job. If I'm being totally candid,
Speaker 1: I think if you can't do your job and protect
Speaker 1: public safety without stopping a bunch of people for smoking weed,
Speaker 1: then you're probably in the wrong line of work, and
Speaker 1: oftentimes this stuff can turn deadly. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember the story of Philando Castile, but the cop
Speaker 1: who sort of approached him said he smelled marijuana, and
Speaker 1: he said that smell made him fear for his life. Now,
Speaker 1: this is a cop, you know, a young cop in Minnesota.
Speaker 1: That doesn't really hold water for me. But you know,
Speaker 1: you can say that because it's illegal, and you know,
Speaker 1: there have been so many court cases that say it's
Speaker 1: the basis for protectural stops and people can can get
Speaker 1: away with approaching people and killing people because of that
Speaker 1: marijuana impetus. That's just so crazy. Like if you can
Speaker 1: smell like cocaine, then you are a kingpin, you are boss,
Speaker 1: you are a scarface. But weed is one of the
Speaker 1: only things, Like yeah, just a small amount, and like
Speaker 1: you said, people have lost their life. Like for him
Speaker 1: to say he was fearful because of the smell of marijuana,
Speaker 1: it goes back to kind of the racial tones that
Speaker 1: it has. You're fearful because they've associated marijuana with black
Speaker 1: people to make you fearful. Yeah, it's it's crazy. When
Speaker 1: you see the numbers as they just kind of stay
Speaker 1: in these horrible hundreds of thousands of people still getting
Speaker 1: arrested for marijuana offense's mainly possession only, and still going
Speaker 1: on in twenty twenty when we're twenty twenty two now,
Speaker 1: And so I know in some states they'll legalize it,
Speaker 1: but they don't make provisions to like make for retroactive
Speaker 1: sentencing for people that are in behind bars, or if
Speaker 1: you have a criminal record for something that's legal now,
Speaker 1: to like seal that or expongic. So, can you talk
Speaker 1: about some of the complications that we see within the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system now as we move to legal that
Speaker 1: are still hindering people that were caught up in it
Speaker 1: prior to yes, So oftentimes activists or policymakers will put
Speaker 1: forth a legalization proposal, they'll spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: thinking about tax rates, a lot of time thinking about
Speaker 1: like what agency should be sort of the regulatory body
Speaker 1: governing cannabis operations, and they rarely ever think about, Okay,
Speaker 1: what happens to the people who either still incarcerated or
Speaker 1: the people who were previous incarcerated and have this sort
Speaker 1: of black mark on their records, And so consumers, the
Speaker 1: general public think, Okay, it's legal, now, everyone goes free.
Speaker 1: Whereas if you don't actually write that explicitly and do
Speaker 1: it in a smart way into the law, people are
Speaker 1: still remaining in prison. So they are in prison while
Speaker 1: they are reading magazines that talk about the latest pot billionaire. Right.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine what that would feel like? Um? That's
Speaker 1: you know. I we have constituents who say, I was
Speaker 1: serving a ten year sentence and I turned on the
Speaker 1: TV while I was in jail, and I saw, you know,
Speaker 1: a conversation on the local news station about like pop
Speaker 1: moms and these like women, um making millions of dollars
Speaker 1: selling selling weed to like rich Beverly Hills moms. Um.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of issues of their criminal
Speaker 1: legal system. I think this is the most one of
Speaker 1: the most obvious examples of just the hypocrisy UM and
Speaker 1: sort of the two systems of justice. According to like,
Speaker 1: if you're you're white, wealthy and well connected versus if
Speaker 1: you're you know, black or brown and low income, you're
Speaker 1: treated quite differently in a very literal sense with the
Speaker 1: with the two systems of justice. A lot of times,
Speaker 1: for a lot of people that I'm around, sometimes it
Speaker 1: just feels hopeless, Like what can be done? Like I
Speaker 1: like to be a solution based person. What needs to
Speaker 1: be done? What can be done at a state and
Speaker 1: federal level. What's some things that people should be looking towards,
Speaker 1: a pushing for in their community to at least try
Speaker 1: to balance this out. No, I want to be solution
Speaker 1: oriented as well. I think, you know, this is sort
Speaker 1: of table stakes. We need to have federal decriminalization and
Speaker 1: ideally federal legalization both to sort of stop the criminalization
Speaker 1: of cannabis that's happening on the federal level. Now we're
Speaker 1: not seeing huge numbers of people sentenced for marijuana on
Speaker 1: the federal level, but you know, a thousand a year,
Speaker 1: So we need to stop that obviously, and that's something
Speaker 1: we can do just by a simple Act of Congress.
Speaker 1: But also because federal decriminalization will set a tone, you know,
Speaker 1: for other states who have yet to decriminalize or legalize.
Speaker 1: It will help sort of read, it will help policy
Speaker 1: make rethink how they're attributing and how they're distributing those
Speaker 1: you know, burn grants, those federal funds, so we can
Speaker 1: actually fund police to do work that makes our community
Speaker 1: safer as opposed to racking up marijuana arrest. Federal legalization
Speaker 1: decrimination is also really important because it will lessen a
Speaker 1: lot of those taxes, a lot of those expenses and
Speaker 1: capital expenditures happening for state regulated businesses so they can
Speaker 1: and that's going to incentivize people to move from the
Speaker 1: black or gray market into the regulated market and all
Speaker 1: of the good things that come along without you know,
Speaker 1: that's an increase of public health, public safety. That's something
Speaker 1: that's really really important. We don't have like move like
Speaker 1: people don't make moonshine anymore. Like we don't have a
Speaker 1: we don't have bootleggers. And I think that's a really
Speaker 1: great thing. But I don't know if you've been a
Speaker 1: Tennessee you know, I will say my family is from
Speaker 1: Tennessee and they have been known to throw a bat,
Speaker 1: but they have like we now have like craft moonshiners. Right,
Speaker 1: the vast majority of alcohol sales are happening in a
Speaker 1: way where you can where you can sort of track them,
Speaker 1: where you can make sure that underage folks aren't getting,
Speaker 1: you know, their hands on anything shouldn't be, where you
Speaker 1: can make sure that things are tested and regulated, and
Speaker 1: so for and so on. Just it's a win for
Speaker 1: everything for everyone, and that only really happens when there's
Speaker 1: federal legalization. So you know, it's really hard to get
Speaker 1: this Congress to agree upon anything, but I will say
Speaker 1: the vast majority of Americans, Republicans, independence, Democrats, support federal
Speaker 1: legalization and they support allowing the states to do what
Speaker 1: they wish when it comes to regulating cannabis commerce within
Speaker 1: their boundaries. And so we need to put pressure on
Speaker 1: Congress to sort of heed you be responsive to the
Speaker 1: people you seek to represent or you're claiming to represent,
Speaker 1: and do this. And then in states that have yet
Speaker 1: to legalize, make sure that you're pressuring your state lawmakers
Speaker 1: to do that right and not only legalize, but do
Speaker 1: it in a smart way. Think about the long term
Speaker 1: implications of the policy, and make sure you're prioritizing those
Speaker 1: criminal justice reforms. And you know, I focus a lot
Speaker 1: on the criminal justice aspects of this issue, but they're
Speaker 1: also real like medical and public health implications to this. Right. So,
Speaker 1: because cannabis is a Schedule one drug, which is a
Speaker 1: whole other story. It's a whole it's a wild story.
Speaker 1: No one can do any scientists can't do any research,
Speaker 1: right or less they be arrested. So we don't actually
Speaker 1: know as much as we should know about this substance
Speaker 1: that half of American adults will consume in their lifetime. Right,
Speaker 1: And that's, you know, in a word, a little problematic.
Speaker 1: You know, some Israel is doing a lot of interesting research,
Speaker 1: there's some European countries who are doing interesting research. But
Speaker 1: there's obviously some medical efficacy to cannabis consumption, but we're
Speaker 1: not able to maximize that. Or because we're the schedule
Speaker 1: one designation means no one can do research. Yeah, cocaine
Speaker 1: a schedule too drug, right, marijuana, Schedule one you can
Speaker 1: do more selfly cocaine and yeah, And that's crazy because
Speaker 1: the weed that they do test is that same weed
Speaker 1: that's been growing at the University of Old miss Yin
Speaker 1: and we've had so many leaps and bounds with what
Speaker 1: weed is capable of doing. Now, I've seen that in
Speaker 1: Mississippi week, I've had it. It is. It does not
Speaker 1: look pretty compared to what's out there now. And there's yeah,
Speaker 1: so we don't even know what benefits there could be.
Speaker 1: And they're still finding more molecules indo connabinoid system all
Speaker 1: this stuff I'm learning, So yeah, benefits potential harms. Like
Speaker 1: right now we're operating in this space of no knowledge um,
Speaker 1: and that's that's going to have negative effects for everyone.
Speaker 1: That's what's up. So go to last Nu's project or
Speaker 1: get active, like you said, called your local on the state,
Speaker 1: and everybody got to push for the field everyone. I mean,
Speaker 1: this should be sort of Americans don't agree on anything.
Speaker 1: They do agree on legal weed. Let's make it happen, right. Yes,
Speaker 1: they need to know, they need to know. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. This is such an important topic
Speaker 1: and I'm really grateful that you're spending time on it.
Speaker 1: It's something that a lot of people do not know
Speaker 1: about and that's a shame. We got a couple of
Speaker 1: bills to pay, but we'll be right back. Money money, money. Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm Jason Flam CEO and founder of Lava for Good podcasts,
Speaker 1: Home to Bone Valley, Wrongful Conviction, The War on Drugs,
Speaker 1: and many other great podcasts. Today we're asking you, our listeners,
Speaker 1: to take part in the survey. Your feedback is going
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Speaker 1: for your support. The War on Drugs podcast is sponsored
Speaker 1: by Stand Together. Stand Together is a philanthropic community that
Speaker 1: partners with America's boldest change makers to tackle the root
Speaker 1: causes of our country's biggest problems. Like many others who
Speaker 1: experienced addiction, Scott Strode was using drugs and alcohol to
Speaker 1: numb the pain. For him, it was childhood trauma. In
Speaker 1: his early twenties, Scott was invited into a boxing gym
Speaker 1: by a friend and that's where he discovered the healing
Speaker 1: power of sport and community. In two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: Scott founded The Phoenix, a free, sober, active community that
Speaker 1: uses the transformative power of sport to help people treat
Speaker 1: and heal from addiction. Scott Strode is one of many
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs partnering with Stand Together to drive solutions and education, healthcare, poverty,
Speaker 1: and criminal justice. To learn more of visits stand together
Speaker 1: dot org. Just waiting on this call from Edwin rubis
Speaker 1: Yeah get to hear his story, which is one of
Speaker 1: the casualties of the drug war. Yeah. So, um, for
Speaker 1: those of you don't know, Edwin Rubis um is you know,
Speaker 1: right now in federal prison for allegedly trafficking marijuana from
Speaker 1: the border to Houston on conspiracy. No drugs were ever
Speaker 1: found at his home, it was just people that were
Speaker 1: arrested said that he had been transporting drugs from Okay, Okay.
Speaker 1: This call is from a federal prison. You will not
Speaker 1: be charged for this call. This call is from This
Speaker 1: call will be recorded and subject to monitoring at any time.
Speaker 1: To accept this call, press five to block this call
Speaker 1: in all future calls. Press seven to reject this call.
Speaker 1: Hang up now. You may begin speaking now. Hello, Hello,
Speaker 1: Hi Edwin, how are you doing it? Well? How are you?
Speaker 1: How are you doing? Man, I'm doing I'm doing okay
Speaker 1: despite the circumstances. Yes, right right, This is Clayton English
Speaker 1: and Greg glaud And you know, thank you for calling
Speaker 1: into the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, yes, no problem. Yes,
Speaker 1: I want to thank you all for the opportunity to
Speaker 1: be able to speak a new platform. Yeah, absolutely, And
Speaker 1: I know we we're short on time too, so we'll
Speaker 1: get into it. So you know why don't we just
Speaker 1: start from kind of the beginning, Um, you know how
Speaker 1: this all occurred and transpired, you know, going a little
Speaker 1: beforehand and what the things that you're going through. Um,
Speaker 1: so just kind of tell your story and then we
Speaker 1: can get in everything else. Okay, Well, basically, h the
Speaker 1: golf pass force came to my house and read in
Speaker 1: my house and told me I was being charged with
Speaker 1: conspiracy to distribute to marijuana and right, and they found
Speaker 1: nothing at your house, right, Yeah, I mean when they
Speaker 1: came to my house, when they came to my house,
Speaker 1: and basically it was early in the morning, and they
Speaker 1: came and me on the floor, ransacked the house from
Speaker 1: to bottom. My son was traumatized by the halivn. Of course,
Speaker 1: my pregnant wife was confused and just sat there. They
Speaker 1: didn't know what was going on, and I didn't know
Speaker 1: what was going on at first until I was they
Speaker 1: explained to me with the reason why, you know, what's happening.
Speaker 1: And they didn't find any guns, they didn't find any drugs,
Speaker 1: they didn't find any money, but they still arrested me,
Speaker 1: and they still took me down to the Federal building
Speaker 1: you know, um downtown Houston, and they told me the charges,
Speaker 1: and they took me to court and I was arraigned,
Speaker 1: and then they told me that I was being charged
Speaker 1: for conspiracy to distribute twenty two hundred pounds on marijuana
Speaker 1: with a maximum sentence of life. And I couldn't really believe,
Speaker 1: you know, what I was being charged with. And I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I was shocked, and I asked, I said, well,
Speaker 1: where does this derived from, you know? And basically they
Speaker 1: told me that people, this call is from a federal
Speaker 1: prison at the Drug Enforcement Agency, and that they were
Speaker 1: co operating with the government, that were cooperating with the government,
Speaker 1: and given him my name, and we're saying that I
Speaker 1: was involved with them, you know, for selling marijuana. And
Speaker 1: this is solely based on somebody else, just what they say. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And basically the conspiracy laws worked out a way. I
Speaker 1: had to learn that the heartwaight, of course, And after
Speaker 1: so many years have been in prison, I've come to
Speaker 1: understand that if there's an agreement between two people that
Speaker 1: basically say or agree that someone else has been a
Speaker 1: participant in an illegal painter or or illegal transaction of drugs,
Speaker 1: then that person can be arrested basically with the same
Speaker 1: charges that those two are a green that you had
Speaker 1: something to do with. Yeah, and they can do that
Speaker 1: without any drugs on the table. That, yes, they can
Speaker 1: do that. And I'm a prime example of And at
Speaker 1: that time I didn't really know anyone. I had lost
Speaker 1: contact with the people that I had been telling drugs,
Speaker 1: and so he was very difficult for me to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: well this Joe blow here, you know he's selling drugs
Speaker 1: or you know this is a guy John. You know,
Speaker 1: he's also saying I couldn't say that. I mean, there
Speaker 1: was no way that I could have given him any
Speaker 1: type of information even if I wanted to. So I
Speaker 1: ended up happening is in my ignorance, you know, I
Speaker 1: decided to go to trials, and that was the worst
Speaker 1: decision that I could have made in my life. You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't know what the ramifications were going to be.
Speaker 1: My attorney basically didn't present any type of witnesses on
Speaker 1: the witness stand. He told me not to testify. There
Speaker 1: wasn't any evidence that shown, you know, to try to
Speaker 1: demonstrate my innocence. Yeah, no physical evidence. Nothing was found.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, nothing was found. No, of course not
Speaker 1: if anything would have been found, then I guess again,
Speaker 1: you have to understand that I was ignorant to the law.
Speaker 1: I was twenty eight, twenty years old, and I mean
Speaker 1: there was no way I couldn't. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know how to um basically believe that they could have
Speaker 1: find me guilty of it. Could have said okay, well
Speaker 1: we're going to convict you based on over the mouth,
Speaker 1: and I didn't understand that. But again I had to
Speaker 1: learn that the hardware, and I have learned that the hardware.
Speaker 1: But most people think of the judicial system, if they
Speaker 1: don't have any evidence, what are they going to hold
Speaker 1: against me? And you know, you were just operating under
Speaker 1: the assumption that I think most people have, you know,
Speaker 1: most Americans have, and so really your only way out
Speaker 1: of the situation was for you to give somebody else
Speaker 1: up and continue this psychic wow exactly. And I couldn't,
Speaker 1: I mean even if I wanted to. I mean again,
Speaker 1: the people, the leaders of the conspiracy, the leaders in
Speaker 1: my case, I wasn't a leader, the leaders in my case.
Speaker 1: Basically I had been arrested and other among others, and
Speaker 1: that this call is from a federal prison operating and trying,
Speaker 1: you know, to try to get their centers reduce. So
Speaker 1: here I come. You know, I'm arrested. I'm not a
Speaker 1: leader of the conspiracy of the or the case, and
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm trying to prove my innocence. So
Speaker 1: the government uses all the testimony from them to basically
Speaker 1: label me as the guy that was in charge when
Speaker 1: I wasn't. And they know that. And even in my case,
Speaker 1: if you read the transcripts of my situation, I mean,
Speaker 1: on my case in my trial, you're gonna basically easily
Speaker 1: come to understand it. That's the case. You know that
Speaker 1: I wasn't a leader. And it was kind of ironic
Speaker 1: now is that the leaders of the organization, or the
Speaker 1: leaders of the or my case in my case, have
Speaker 1: been released, every single one of them. The actual people
Speaker 1: that were doing this whole thing, making the connections, making
Speaker 1: the deals, doing whatever else intimidating you, are able to
Speaker 1: walk free because they have, you know, higher paid attorneys.
Speaker 1: They understand what's going on, and they had information to
Speaker 1: flip on people that were actually less culpable in this
Speaker 1: whole thing. I mean, yes, because of the reason that
Speaker 1: I couldn't cooperate with them and I couldn't flip you know,
Speaker 1: all the you know, I couldn't flip in his nature
Speaker 1: on other people. And that's one of the main reasons why,
Speaker 1: you know, I received such a harsh sentence. You know,
Speaker 1: I proceeded to trial, and you know, they gave me
Speaker 1: every single type of enhancements that they could have gave me.
Speaker 1: They game me abstructional justice, they gave me leadership role,
Speaker 1: they gave me a gun that they didn't exist because
Speaker 1: I was never found with any type of weapons, but
Speaker 1: people testified and they said, oh, yes, yeah, he had
Speaker 1: he had a gun sometimes. Yeah, and that's and they'll
Speaker 1: use all of that information to basically enhance your sentence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's incredible. You know. By now I have already done,
Speaker 1: you know, over twenty four years and two months to
Speaker 1: the day, I have been imprisoned, you know, serving this
Speaker 1: non violent cannabis off you know, for this non violent
Speaker 1: cannabis offense. And I still have ten years left to go.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't defeat me, you know, because for the
Speaker 1: simple fact is you know, yes, I mean when I
Speaker 1: first came into a prison, I was extremely depressed, and
Speaker 1: I was distraught, and I still struggling with drug addiction.
Speaker 1: And you know, the demons that I was dealing out
Speaker 1: in the streets. I was still dealing with them in prison,
Speaker 1: and to the point that it became very unbearable. You know,
Speaker 1: there was a time, you know, the first year and
Speaker 1: a half two years was extremely difficult that I even
Speaker 1: tried to commit suicide, you know, I try to take
Speaker 1: my own life. I couldn't face the fact that I
Speaker 1: was looking, you know, to my release date that was
Speaker 1: going to be thirty five years later. I mean, my
Speaker 1: mother was suffering, you know, and my children, my ex
Speaker 1: wife were left out on the street. I mean it
Speaker 1: was horrible. I mean, and there was nothing I could
Speaker 1: do about it. I mean, all I could do was called,
Speaker 1: you know, them on the phone for fifteen minutes, just
Speaker 1: as I'm doing that, as just as I'm doing that
Speaker 1: right now, you know, and talk to them. And I
Speaker 1: didn't really do much for them. Yeah, and this all
Speaker 1: costs significant money. You know, I work in criminal justice policy,
Speaker 1: so I'm aware, you know, you know, commissary items. It's
Speaker 1: the phone calls, it's the video chats, it's emails. They
Speaker 1: call them stamps where you have to buy stamps just
Speaker 1: to send an email. If you want to send an
Speaker 1: attachment to an email that's another stamp. And so you know, I,
Speaker 1: you know, we read about how you were trying to
Speaker 1: you know, you're trying to better yourself in there, and
Speaker 1: you're trying to go through college courses and all these
Speaker 1: different things, but you had to essentially choose between you know,
Speaker 1: eating sometimes um or sending an email or um getting
Speaker 1: tuition bits and things like that. Can you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about some of those kind of struggles that
Speaker 1: you've had with that whole area of the prison system.
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry, I'm just I'm about to play break
Speaker 1: down crying because you know, it's just it's so hard,
Speaker 1: you know, at the times that I have found myself
Speaker 1: going through that in and I had to make a choice,
Speaker 1: you know, to either you know, purchase some things, or
Speaker 1: you know, or purchase my college books. And but again,
Speaker 1: I haven't given up, you know, I haven't allowed my
Speaker 1: circumstances to defeat me. M You know, I have tried,
Speaker 1: you know, through my face and my perseverance to try
Speaker 1: to make something of myself. You know, despite being behind
Speaker 1: Edwin is we got people listening here. What is something
Speaker 1: we can do to help? What is something that people
Speaker 1: listening at home can do to help in any capacity.
Speaker 1: The thing that I request for people is to sponsor me.
Speaker 1: But our request is for people to raise a race,
Speaker 1: a voice, to basically to say, enough is enough? Why
Speaker 1: are you keeping this man behind prison bars? When this
Speaker 1: man has been truly rehabilitated. This man has accomplished more
Speaker 1: than anyone could accomplish under those dire conditions. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: what I want people to basically know. This call is
Speaker 1: from a federal prison. I mean, it's unfair. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just I mean, people don't really have a clear
Speaker 1: picture of what a prisoner actually goes through behind the fence,
Speaker 1: and you know, we don't. Of course, we have different
Speaker 1: programs that show up in the violent um you know,
Speaker 1: notion or angle of what takes place behind prison walls
Speaker 1: that you know, they never really demonstrate the emotional turmoil,
Speaker 1: the anguish, and the mental anguish that our prisoner goes
Speaker 1: through when he's being deprived of having that affection of
Speaker 1: hugging their loved ones, of having that social connection with
Speaker 1: the people that he loves. You know, those are the
Speaker 1: things that they don't demonstrate, and those are the things
Speaker 1: that I believe affects a lot of people behind prison walls.
Speaker 1: You know you have people in here suffering from PTSD.
Speaker 1: You have people are here taking medication, and you know
Speaker 1: you have people here breaking down sometimes and going to
Speaker 1: suicide watch. That happened to me when I first came
Speaker 1: into prison, and like I said, I wanted to take
Speaker 1: my own life. I just couldn't fathom the notion that
Speaker 1: I was gonna be in prison for forty years and
Speaker 1: it was just insane. And that's probably compounded by the
Speaker 1: fact that you're innocent for most of the things, the
Speaker 1: gun and the hearsay, and they caught you with no evidence,
Speaker 1: so or you're you're doing you did something that other
Speaker 1: people are making millions of dollars off of right now.
Speaker 1: It's an unjust system, to say the least. Is there
Speaker 1: any way do you want people to contact you or
Speaker 1: email or I don't know how ye, any any other
Speaker 1: ways that yeah, we can go out or anything you'd
Speaker 1: like to say before we go here? Yes, um, there
Speaker 1: is there is an email address on my brothers and
Speaker 1: our ministers and it's called Edwin Rubies at a or
Speaker 1: L dot com. Okay, okay, yeah, we'll plug that in
Speaker 1: our podcast link and everything else. We'll we'll put that
Speaker 1: in there and so people can this call it's from
Speaker 1: a federal prison. Really greatly appreciate you're giving me the
Speaker 1: time to be able to speak with you. No, thank you,
Speaker 1: It means it means a lot, you know. In one
Speaker 1: last thing that I would like to say, if you
Speaker 1: will allow me to, yes, please, that the fact that
Speaker 1: you know when I communicate with people, when I speak
Speaker 1: to people over the phone, as I'm speaking to you
Speaker 1: right now, to me, that is oxygen to my lungs.
Speaker 1: That is life given to me because I come to
Speaker 1: think of it as a way of knowing that there's
Speaker 1: a world for me out there waiting on me, and
Speaker 1: that I'm not just here in prison, and that this
Speaker 1: is my life. Because you have to understand the perception
Speaker 1: of living behind personal walls for almost twenty five years
Speaker 1: and not knowing when you're going to be able to
Speaker 1: see society again. You know, by the time I get out,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be sixty three years old if I
Speaker 1: have to do the remaining of my sentence, and by
Speaker 1: that time, I would have spent thirty four years prison
Speaker 1: for a non violent cannabis offense. And to me, that
Speaker 1: is harsh. I mean, it's inexplicable. So when I speak
Speaker 1: to people like you, and I speak to other people
Speaker 1: you know, from society, it gives me hope and that
Speaker 1: is what keeps me going. It gives me faith to
Speaker 1: know that one day I would be a to speak
Speaker 1: to you personally out there in the streets. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: when when that happens, I'll be there because I would
Speaker 1: love to shake your hand and give you a hug
Speaker 1: for everything you're doing, you know, and hopefully, you know,
Speaker 1: we can get your home a little bit earlier with
Speaker 1: all the you know, support that you're getting out here.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, man, yeah, we see what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Love what you're doing, and uh, we're gonna do everything
Speaker 1: we can to get the word out. And thank you.
Speaker 1: Is there anything else you would want to tell the
Speaker 1: people out there listening? All right, I love each one
Speaker 1: of you. That's all I want to say. I love
Speaker 1: each one of you. Amen, Thank you, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Man, thank you, thank you. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back with the War on Drugs podcast. Well
Speaker 1: it's um it's uh man y yeah, that was that
Speaker 1: was That was That was tough because you hear it,
Speaker 1: but it's different hearing it from somebody in there being
Speaker 1: reminded that they're in there, and then uh yeah. At
Speaker 1: one point while he was talking, I just I felt,
Speaker 1: I can I can see myself in that situation, Like
Speaker 1: nobody would want to do any of those things he's
Speaker 1: describing for one to two years, let alone twenty four, right,
Speaker 1: and like the hypocrisy of it all, Like you know,
Speaker 1: this morning where I'm getting ready to come over here
Speaker 1: to the studio to record, and we're about to this thing,
Speaker 1: and you know, I see it's like nine to forty
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, the market's open for the stock markets,
Speaker 1: like let's see how much money I've already lost, and
Speaker 1: cannabis stocks I'm looking at them, and how crazy is
Speaker 1: that that publicly traded entities, right, profiting off of sales
Speaker 1: of legal marijuana in this country, in Canada and all
Speaker 1: over the world. And then there's an individual there that's
Speaker 1: in federal prison for forty years and not looking at
Speaker 1: coming home till twenty thirty. Yeah, it's just a lot
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a lot um. So that's you know,
Speaker 1: as we think that we're moving towards a more actual
Speaker 1: system or legalizing marijuana is going to be you know,
Speaker 1: everything's all good. There are still thousands of people like Edwin,
Speaker 1: and cars are at the state and federal level for
Speaker 1: things that are now completely legal. Right. Um, it's just wrong.
Speaker 1: And hopefully you know, things can things can change and
Speaker 1: and folks like him can get home. Yeah, and with
Speaker 1: people like us and the people listening, maybe we can
Speaker 1: you know, change the course. Yeah, I mean again, call
Speaker 1: your congress people, call the free presidents, call the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice, like getting up support for this. I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: it does work, um, and it can help. And so
Speaker 1: it's just a case that um, you know, really really
Speaker 1: impact me. I know, I know it's impact both of
Speaker 1: us just talking to him. So I hope that comes through. Um,
Speaker 1: I hope you. I hope this drives you to want
Speaker 1: to do something more about this and get bills passed,
Speaker 1: get people like him home, and so you know we
Speaker 1: can kind of move forward and he can have a
Speaker 1: positive impact in our lives. I think he'd be a
Speaker 1: tremendous value to society. Absolutely. Yeah. Make sure you follow
Speaker 1: the War on Drugs podcast so you don't miss any
Speaker 1: new episodes or any of our Quick Fix bonus content,
Speaker 1: and we'll be right back next week with another episode
Speaker 1: of War on Drugs. Until then, Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening. Executive producers for War on Drugs are Jason
Speaker 1: Flum and Kevin Wards. Senior producer is Michael livest Editing
Speaker 1: by Nick Massetti and Michael Epstein, Associate producer and mix
Speaker 1: and mastering by Nick Massetti. Additional production by Jeff Clatburn
Speaker 1: and Anna mecintial. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram,
Speaker 1: Twitter and Facebook at Lava for Good. You can follow
Speaker 1: Greg on Twitter that's me at Greg Glode and Clayton
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Clayton English. The War on Drugs is
Speaker 1: a production of Lava for Good Podcasts, an association with
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number One. I'm your host, Greg Glode and
Speaker 1: I'm your host Clayton English, and thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: the War on Drugs podcast. M