As I was growing up in a small Midwestern town, I always heard stories about the areas in the south that supplemented their tax revenues by speed traps. Midwesterners driving south to Florida for the winter holidays were warned by AAA and other civic minded groups which areas to watch out for, and what areas to avoid. It was a notorious practice.
Now we have the Drug War and we have the practice of Contrived Venue. With a contrived venue, you do not have to have ever been in the area, and the law does not have to be broken by you or anyone you know in that area, but you can be tried, convicted and sentenced in that venue for crimes that never took place.
A contrived venue usually starts in a jurisdiction with an atmosphere of passion to punish and a need for revenue from fines and forfeiture. Law enforcement and Prosecutors understand the mission. The District Judge is able to set standards that are favorable for conviction. The Prosecutors and the Agents can bask in the glory of a high conviction rate and a high monetary gain through seizures. The Criminal Justice system suffers by this over zealous prosecution. The laps of civility allows conviction not by truth, but by assumption. This erodes the social trust and the citizens suffer.
My legal problems began in 1994. I believed that a person could only be tried where and when a crime occurred. I now know that you can be picked up anywhere in the world and taken in chains to anywhere in the USA and be arrested so that court or Judge can take venue over your case. We have a justice system that is driven by monetary gain.
In the late 1960s, I moved to the San Francisco Bay area. I found a freedom there and an idea of social tolerance that was lacking in the small town I grew up in. I was a child of the 60s with all the implications that come with it. I was interested in alternative life styles and decided that hemp was compatible with a good life. In the late 70s I worked at a company that manufactured and sold hydroponics equipment to the Home Growing Industry in this country and abroad.
In the 80s, I knew the "WAR on DRUGS", actually the war on people and plants was going to speed up and the tolerance that I had come to know would be subverted by groups much like the early prohibitionists. Big government would now begin to prosecute life style issues.
At this time an opportunity arose that would allow me to pursue my interest in Hemp use by society without fear. Canada is a sovereign country to our north. The people of Canada are as diverse as Americans with one exception, they have a more tolerant attitude toward life style issues.
In the early 80s, I entered into a project of supplying hashish to the Canadian market. Hashish is a pollen derived from the hemp plant. There are numerous ways of obtaining, concentrating, and using this pollen. In Canada and throughout Europe, it is broken up and smoked with tobacco. It is not a product that the U.S. market uses. There is little or no use of hashish ( hemp pollen) in the United States.
Going into these projects in Canada I felt was safe from the retribution of the United States Law Enforcement Industry. The Canadians treated hemp use by it's citizens as a choice rather than a criminal issue. This is the environment I chose to work in. I liked the idea of hemp use in North America.
The people I worked with in Canada would change yearly. It was kind of like a pickup basketball game. A group of people would come together and offer their services. A collective exchange of ideas would take place and an agreement would be reached. At the end of the Yearly Project, everyone would go home. In the late 80s I stopped working altogether and was living in the San Francisco area.
In 1990 my wife and I spent our summer at our home in Northern California. We were packing our belongings as my wife had been accepted for a Doctorate Program at the University of Hawaii. She was also pregnant with our only child.
Our son was born late 1990. I had not worked for over three years. I still had friends in "the business" and I would talk with them at times. I never condoned any work in the United States and told all who would listen that I had stopped and that they should also stop.
In 1992, some friends who worked in Canada were arrested. Again I made the statement to all who would listen to stop working. Because of my continued stance to stop working, people were told not to talk to or associate with me.
In 1992, Sonia Vacca was arrested on a conspiracy charge in Northern Florida. I had known her from the 70s. She was the object of a sting operation set up by the DEA, Prosecutors, and a man named Clifton Brown who cooperated for a reward and or to have his prosecution dismissed. I had no knowledge of any illegal activity, and indeed the crime she was charged with never took place.
My trial was May 2000. In the opening statement, the Judge stated that the conspiracy would have to have had a continuance, or ending in Northern Florida for venue to be there. The DEA agent stated on the stand that there was no conspiracy in Florida.
The Prosecutors put 15 Royal Canadian Police on the stand to testify about crimes in Canada. They stated that I was not wanted for any crimes in Canada. Out of 30 or 40 witnesses, none testified that I had any knowledge of or helped in a conspiracy in Northern Florida, or in the United Stated.
At the end of the trial the Judge said that because I was arrested in Northern Florida (I was taken off an airplane in chains and arrested), that was enough for VENUE to be in Northern Florida. The Northern District of Florida could try and convict me of crimes they accused me of that may or may not have been committed anywhere in the world.
I was convicted of a crime I did not commit, in a Venue where no crime took place, by a Judge with biased intent. The war on drugs is really a war on people and plants that has grown and been nourished to expand and enrich the criminal "justice" system.