Silk Road and the Drug War

0:01BubblemanAll right, welcome everybody to episode 129 of Hash Church and apologies for the late start today. I had to drive my son to ski school for eight o'clock in the morning and only had an hour to get back from Whistler and it takes about exactly an hour or so Apologies for the 12 minutes late. Do give me some time. I need to send these links out to the panelists.

0:26BubblemanAnd we've got an exciting show for you today. I hope you guys are looking forward to a good open dialogue. Moving into some interesting conversations today in regards to the Silk Road. Let me just get these links out here really quick. Boom, bam, boom. And I want to send an email to Lynn and... Tatiana, I'm in here to discuss a couple of different discussions. I'll start with Lynn and Tatiana, which is...

1:00BubblemanThey're from the Free Ross Org. Ross Albrecht, who is currently serving life in prison without possibility of parole for his part and involvement in the Silk Road. They're going to come on here today and talk a little bit about cryptocurrency, the Silk Road, and just sort of all of these different three roads that crossed across Ross's path, which is the cyber division, the drug war, and the financial regulations.

1:26BubblemanHey, how's it going, Todd?

1:30SpeakerIt's good now that you're in the driver's seat. Hey, that's what I'm talking about.

1:35BubblemanI thought, did we send out the links yet to everyone?

1:39SpeakerIt came through on Facebook to quite a few of us.

1:42BubblemanOh, it did already come through, so I sent it. Great. I figured you're in here, so we'll send out the link to Lynn. Kind of looking forward to the discussion today with Lynn and Tatiana to get into this Silk Road discussion, which is... More than just Ross's case, but a lot of people out there in the world in particular, people that have privacy, that want privacy in life.

2:06BubblemanThis is going to be a very good conversation for that. And I think it'll open right up into having the Emerys on. I spoke with Jody. I'm not sure if Mark's going to join her, but I suspect he's going to be sitting right next to her. Jody for sure is going to be coming on soon. To discuss the Canada-wide warrants that were executed against them recently here in Canada from all the cannabis culture stores from Vancouver to Montreal and everything in between.

2:31BubblemanSo it was quite a hit they took. Welcome, Etienne and Skunk Man Sam. Oh, Skunk Man Sam's got a friend. You know what that means?

2:43Etienne FontanSkunk Man Sam. I was hanging with that friend yesterday. Were you?

2:50Etienne FontanYes, and it was his birthday yesterday, too. Oh, really? Mr. Chimera.

2:59BubblemanHappy Earth Strong.

3:00Etienne FontanChimera, who's hanging out.

3:04BubblemanThat's good. It's the note. Well, the bow tie, too. I mean, not many people can rock a bow tie like Chimera.

3:11Etienne FontanThat's a fact. That is a fact.

3:19Etienne FontanWell, it's good to be missed. Me? People know me in Europe? No way.

3:49Etienne FontanYou would be surprised. Yeah, even facial hair, they would even recognize you. Yes, absolutely.

3:55SpeakerI'm going to grow more.

3:59SpeakerSo how was Spanibus? Everybody, Spanibus was last weekend and it was, I hope, awesome. I saw the photos. It looked packed.

4:06Etienne FontanIt's actually, it was, it was huge. A lot of people, a lot of representation of all the companies, all the seed companies are out. It's really, White, a situation and watch go down. Major shout out to Strain Hunters and to HQ. I've been hanging out there all week. They've given a lot of love just to be judged on the Masters Cup and I ended up being a, I got in as a pro judge so I judged the solvent competition and I left right before the actual awards ceremony last night at the private party where it was held but I have to say, overall, the quality of everything here in Spain has gotten better exponentially.

4:54Etienne FontanThe quality of the concert is now raw since it's in the store. It was good.

5:17Etienne FontanYeah, there's a beautiful picture right there on my Facebook as well as Instagram of Franco that this artist did. Put the picture up there. Hey, ATN, you're coming in really choppy, bud.

5:42BubblemanYou're coming in really choppy. I'm not sure if anyone else is feeling that, but apparently the people in the chat room are saying you're coming in like a robot.

5:49SpeakerYeah, it sounds pretty robotic.

5:51BubblemanYeah, it's the same for me. Happy birthday, Chimera.

5:54SpeakerSame for me, too. A few days ago. Thank you. I appreciate it.

5:58BubblemanOn the belated.

5:59SpeakerYeah, it's good to be belated. Exactly. You're probably stoned. No, it was crazy, dude. I haven't been in like five years and it's grown so much. Oh, yeah.

6:09BubblemanIt's grown and grown and grown.

6:12SpeakerYeah, they've got a huge outdoor area now and it's more than anything and I don't know, it's weird. It's like a completely unregulated version of legalization. I mean, it's way more out in your face than it is in Canada. It was funny. There was a sign outside the receipt company. They had this big sign of lights that they put up beside the entrance so they could write things on it, right?

6:38SpeakerAnd one of the things that they had written was alta en THC, like high in THC, right, in Spanish. That was their big advertising, so... It's a funny weird market in comparison to Canada and even the United States where all these companies really have to shun the impropriety of it all being about just getting stoned. It is about the patients so they have to maintain this really medical professional opinion.

7:08SpeakerWhereas Spain's just really gone for it. Even though it's not regulated, they're still allowing them to get away with so, so much that's just grown and grown and grown in the last five years. They got good labs. They got lots of seed companies doing stuff down there. There's tons and tons of new associations. There's sunshine. Yeah, sunshine. Good food, tapas.

7:31BubblemanOh, dude, trust me. After going to the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam for 20 plus years... I mean, I'd started going to the Spanish one in I think two or three was the first. And I can't remember if they called it Spanavis or if they called it La Fiera something. And then it turned into Spanavis. But it's been on for a long time and definitely in the last three to five years.

7:53BubblemanEverything's just been getting better and better and better in regards to the genetics and the cultivars, the concentrates that people are producing with those cultivars and the knowledge that people are sharing. And really, can you get anything more positive than the excitement of the Spanish people who are visiting from all around Spain to come show you their sun-grown resin and their little breeding things that they've done?

8:17BubblemanIt just puts a smile on my face for sure.

8:21SpeakerYeah, and they have such a hash culture already that people are doing that. They really are taking their homegrown and turning it into resin. And it's not just the Spanish. I mean, the Italians are there. The English are there. There's lots of cultures there.

8:38BubblemanFor sure it is.

8:38SpeakerThe Dutch are there hardcore for seed production.

8:42BubblemanThank you so much for joining us.

9:05BubblemanThank you so much for joining us.

9:15BubblemanI think it's Spanibus. It was sad not to go this year. I'll say that much. Very sad.

9:20SpeakerI think Spanibus is the best example of the melting pot of cannabis cultures from around the world because even more than High Times was in Amsterdam, the industry and the community has grown so much in Europe in the past 20 years, much in part because of the Cannabis Cup happening. Thank you for watching.

9:59BubblemanThat's the good stuff right there. 20 grams of full melt, clear dome, 99.999%. Dry sift.

10:09BubblemanI'm going to have a hit. Welcome, Mark Scaldone. And welcome to the entire panel and welcome to the entire audience. Today's going to be a great show. We're definitely going to have Jodi Emery in. We're hoping that Kirk Toussaint and Dana Larson will show up in a little bit. I haven't sent them out the links yet because I kind of wanted to make sure that if our first guest showed up, we gave them the proper amount of time to share their story.

10:28BubblemanIt's a little bit different from anything we've ever covered here on Hash Church. I've invited Tatiana Moroz from the Bitcoin cryptocurrency community. She's an author in that community. And she's linked up with Lynn Osborne for the Free Ross organization. And of course, not Lynn Osborne, sorry, Lynn Albrecht. Lynn is Ross Albrecht's mother. And Ross Albrecht was one of the founders of the Silk Road and was recently, well, in the last couple of years, sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

11:01BubblemanAnd although the Silk Road was about a lot of different things, I think the conversation is going to be fairly interesting here for Hash Church. I'm hoping the panel has some understanding of the case. Lynn's going to come in and share their story a little bit different from the media story. And we're just going to sort of have a discussion about the Silk Road and the dark web, the deep web, privacy issues.

11:27BubblemanAnd I think it's going to be a great conversation that will tie right into Jody and Mark and the whole Canada-wide warrant that was put up against them because I'll tell you there's three different things that if you mess with the government, there's three different things where they're going to come after you hard and that's anything in the cyber world, you know, the drug war and then of course the financial regulations and Ross unfortunately hit all three of those nails on the head simultaneously in an intense crossroad and so Thank you for watching.

12:18BubblemanHe can show up as well because he has a good amount of information in regards to this conversation. And a lot of you might be wondering, hey, is this really a conversation for Hash Church? I think it is. I think that we all know that the Silk Road originally started, it was a site, originally it was a site with cannabis being sold. And it was majority a cannabis sales website that blew up into all different types of drugs.

12:42BubblemanAnd of course, if you listen to the media story, It went as far as even going for, you know, they tried to promote weapons that people were buying a lot of weapons and guns, which was a little bit easier to, you know, disengage from considering you can buy those at like, I guess, Walmart in America. I think you can buy them at 7-Eleven too, maybe. So not too worried about people buying guns online like that, but they were definitely promoting this big murder for hire thing, which really smeared the whole name of the Silk Road and Ross Ulbrich.

13:13BubblemanAnd it was really, if you listen to how the story went down and how they came at him originally, Thank you for watching.

13:37BubblemanDeep Web, and Alan Ted's Excellent Adventure. He was opposite of Keanu Reeves in that movie, and now he's making documentaries. He's doing really good research. He's got a couple beautiful TED Talks, and I'm excited for the conversation today. That is for sure. In the meantime, I guess as Rob Clark would say, it's time to blow smoke towards the Vatican. Wherever you are, Rob, I'm sure you're not at the Vatican today, but wherever you are, We smoke this for you, my friend.

14:09SpeakerHe's fishing in New Zealand.

14:11BubblemanThere it is. That makes sense, actually. He said he was going to try and get that done.

14:16SpeakerHey, while we're on the topic of Mark Emery and him having been in the States, there's another seed seller out of the UK that is probably going to be going down in the States. It sounds like quite soon.

14:29BubblemanI heard this the other day. Someone was telling me, did you hear? Did you hear? And I'm like, no, no, I think he's out of problems, out of jail. He's back in the UK. So do you have any updated information? This is obviously Gypsy Nirvana we're talking about.

14:42SpeakerRight. Gypsy has been, they've started the proceedings against them in the UK. And so, I'm not going to talk about his personal situation.

14:52BubblemanNo, no, but anything you know that can be shared.

14:54SpeakerYeah, I mean, essentially, proceedings are underway and he's not able to leave the country and all that kind of stuff, so.

15:03BubblemanBrutal.

15:04SpeakerWe all got to send him, you know, good luck and good wishes. We know what happens when the United States gets the grip on someone for something they think they did. You know, there's a whole really strange little tie-in that I don't know if you know about, but you might, in consideration of Ross Albrecht. Do you remember a character by the name of Plural of Mongoose?

15:25BubblemanYes, of course.

15:26SpeakerSo Plural of Mongoose is tied into this whole Ross Albrecht thing, Silk Road thing also. And he was actually using Gypsy's name as an alias. So I'm not sure if there's a possibility that that might have been how he was tied into this whole thing.

15:43BubblemanDo you guys know the history of the name Dread Pirate Roberts?

15:47SpeakerYeah, it's from The Princess Bride, right?

15:50BubblemanExactly. And do you know the history of the name and how the character who is the name Dread Pirate Roberts is never really the real Dread Pirate Roberts? There was only one original and the name gets passed down. Right. So it's interesting in the sense because the defense of Ross when he came to defend himself in court was that there was another Dread Pirate Roberts that framed him.

16:16BubblemanOr there were multiple. One of the dealers... There's from the site that we were in the documentary Deep Web is said he's not testifying. He's just all blacked out with his voice changed. And he's basically saying, yeah, there were at least two to three people that operated the Dread Pirate Roberts account. And then you have the history of the name being a name that gets passed down.

16:39BubblemanIt's just an interesting story. I found it to be a little bit of an interesting twist.

16:43SpeakerIt is an interesting story, but if you read the Thomas Clark indictment, which is the plural among these guys, You actually can go through and read the pages. They actually, there's, apparently, there's, because when they busted Ross Albright, they found him in some kind of coffee house with his computer open. So they got all the data that was on the computer. And in that, there's a whole bunch of conversations with this mongoose clown.

17:06SpeakerThey actually busted him at the public library.

17:09BubblemanAt the public library, that's right. He was busted at the public library in San Francisco.

17:14SpeakerThey seized his computer open because they had a girl distract him. He turned around and she snatched the computer off the desk before he could log out or close it.

17:22BubblemanBut they also had someone who was contacting him and asking him a question so they knew he would log in. When they saw him log in on this person's computer, that's when they went and picked him up knowing that he was on the computer. So pretty interesting stuff. I'm definitely looking forward to Lynn and Tatiana. I hope they can make it in. We never did the technical difficulties check or the troubleshooting in the previous two days like I wanted to.

17:47BubblemanBut, oh, here we go. There's... A picture of Ross, Free Ross. Is that Lynn?

17:53SpeakerYes, hi. Sorry, I didn't get the email right away, but here I am.

17:59BubblemanThat's okay. Welcome to Hash Church, Lynn. We've just been talking a little bit about the story. You know, bear with us too because, you know, we don't want to offend by saying anything that is like a media lie that we might not know is a media lie. We know what we know. I have a great deal of obvious respect as a parent for what you're doing for your son, both your husband...

18:19BubblemanThank you so much for joining us today.

18:40BubblemanI have to admit I was very ignorant to the deep web. I had no idea, first of all, that the deep web was many thousands of times larger than the internet. I was completely ignorant to that.

18:50SpeakerI didn't know that either.

18:53BubblemanWhen they were showing the internet as the tip of an iceberg, 4% and then the 96% was underneath and all of this information that is not in this deep web. So it's at first the deep web, I'll admit to me, as well as the dark web, it just had these connotations of, oh yeah, that's a bad, that's, You know, the propaganda that they want you to believe, basically, much the way, you know, for this group, the reason I felt like this conversation would be well achieved here in the room is because most of the people, all of the people who are in the room right now, we've been fighting our own fight for the last 20 to 25 years.

19:31BubblemanSome people have been imprisoned for it. Some people have lost their lives. The whole nightmare of this drug war.

19:37SpeakerRoss is in prison for it. Right, exactly.

19:39BubblemanExactly, right. I mean, Ross is even, I talked about it earlier, he's, not only did he hit the drug war, but he also hit cyber crimes and monetary regulation. So that trio seemed to be the most protected aspects of, you know, the world agenda.

19:58SpeakerCan you see me okay? I don't see my image there.

20:01BubblemanNo, your camera's not coming up.

20:03SpeakerWhy isn't that working?

20:03BubblemanIt's just blank right now, but we can hear you perfect. Wow, don't be sorry. It should be working.

20:08SpeakerIt was my fault. You may just have to toggle your camera on and off or unplug it. Well, I'm using a webcam. I can just take off. I have this webcam. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. You might have to go into the settings. Oh, that's probably right. I'm so sorry. There's a little gear that you can click on the screen and then it'll choose which camera and mic and everything you're using.

20:29SpeakerOkay. Gear on the... So sorry. Are we on the air now? Yeah, we're live. I'm just going to pull it out.

20:38BubblemanWe've done this so many times, I'm telling you. You should see me.

20:43SpeakerHey, Kirk, will you help me? My husband, I'll get him over here. I don't understand why it's not working.

20:50BubblemanI'll tell you what. We'll put you on mute.

20:52SpeakerKirk, this isn't showing my picture.

20:54BubblemanWe'll put you on mute. You and Kirk figure it out, and we're here patiently waiting. You know what?

20:59SpeakerI'll just use my computer camera. I've got this other camera. I mean, I'll just use that. It should automatically work. So let me just do that.

21:06BubblemanAll right, I'll just hit up Tatiana right now to let her know that we are in here. I also wanted to let you know, Lynn, that we also have the Emerys coming in later today, Mark and Jody Emery. I'm not sure if Mark's going to be in. I spoke with Jody. There are a couple of cannabis activists here in Canada that have been really pushing the envelope.

21:26BubblemanMark, of course, made the world news when the DEA decided they would Avoid all sovereignty laws and come into Canada and police one of our citizens. Actually, three of them, Michelle Rainey and Mark Emery were all picked up by the DEA, indicted, and they wanted to send them down to the US for life in prison. It was a very scary time for them. Michelle Rainey was suffering from Crohn's.

21:52BubblemanShe ended up developing cancer and promised them that if they put her in prison, she would die in prison and it wouldn't look good on them. So they avoided Greg and Michelle's sentences, but they took Mark Emery out of Canada, put him in a federal penitentiary for five years, which was amazing because we thought he was going away for 40, but five years for selling seeds over the internet in a country that wouldn't even charge you with a crime to be taken by the DEA to a country That you're not even really visited.

22:21BubblemanSo I think the conversation, if we start with you and get into this raw situation and get into the sort of, you know, the ramifications of what all this really means, because it's more than just, oh, they put him in jail. He's going to rot there for the rest of his life. It's much deeper than that, isn't it? Oh, there you are. I see you now, except now you're there's no audio.

22:43BubblemanNow we've got no audio. Let me see. Let's see if your settings. You might have to pick the default speaker. Oh, here we go. Can you guys hear me now? I'm just going to change my mic as well. Can you hear me, Todd?

22:56SpeakerYeah, I can hear you fine.

22:59BubblemanBut I can't hear you, Todd.

23:02SpeakerNow, you can't hear me right now? No?

23:05Etienne FontanI can hear you, Todd.

23:06SpeakerOkay, I got it.

23:08Etienne FontanOkay.

23:10BubblemanTechnical difficulties. I can hear you guys now.

23:13SpeakerThank you. We still can't hear mom over here. She's having a hard time. She might have to select on the gear on the screen that you're in and then select the microphone it picks up because it might have changed when you turned your camera. Oh, now she's muted. Hold on. Unmute. Yep. Nope. Still for some reason.

23:32BubblemanThis is incredible. I absolutely can't hear anyone.

23:36SpeakerYou can't hear anyone? We can hear you, Mark. I can hear you, Mark. How about like now? I can hear ATN. Scaldone, good morning. Can you say anything? Hello.

23:47BubblemanHello.

23:49SpeakerHello.

23:51BubblemanI'm good. I fixed it. I'm so sorry. Is Lynn... We can't hear Lynn yet, though. That does get confusing. I went into my cog, and I went into my settings, and all I did was change the... The microphone, and when I did that, it changed the default speaker. I could no longer hear anyone. Well, I hope they get their microphone working. I really want to hear what they have to say.

24:16BubblemanI think Tatiana is going to be coming in here in the near future.

24:19SpeakerCan you guys hear me? Yes. That's awesome. Thank you. My husband is safe.

24:23BubblemanYes.

24:25SpeakerI'm so sorry. I'm not the most technical person. So I'm good now? You can see me and hear me, is that correct?

24:32BubblemanWe can hear you and see you. Tatiana just entered the room and really it was my fault for not doing the technical troubleshooting days earlier. So please, it's not on you, it's on me.

24:43SpeakerI've done this so many times you would think I know what I'm doing. Yes.

24:46BubblemanWell, I'll tell you one of the things that really, one of the things that blew me away about watching you speak was I was watching you and I thought, wow, look at this woman. Like she is the mother of a son who loves her son dearly. And she's been tossed into this incredible Dialogue, like this, and not just, like, I mean, it is advanced. This is an advanced dialogue that most people, I mean, I was nervous about having it myself and I'm not a dumb guy, but I felt like I really needed to do some research and I wanted to make sure that I was able to, you know, really discuss the conversation because it's complex and it's overbearing and most importantly, it has massive implications to the world, to everyone in the world, not just Ross.

25:30SpeakerAbsolutely. I wasn't really aware that much about the drug war, about the mandatory minimums. I knew a bit, and I thought they were wrong actually at the time, but I didn't think about it that much. None of my kids were into drugs or drug problems or anything. And what I've learned is seeing it up close and personal and how the government operates, which is appalling. The U.S. government, I'm talking about when I say the government.

26:00SpeakerIs shocking and frightening. And the fact that you're referring to people who they went after, the EA went after into another country and they're doing it right now to Gary Davis in Ireland. I don't even understand what authority the United States has and the Southern District of New York has to go and do this. I'm really not clear on that. It seems pretty overreaching to me.

26:27BubblemanThe authority is the force, Lynn. And if you look at what was Ross trying to do even in the early, early days, there was a quote on that Deep Web documentary that said something about, I want to start, I want decisions to be made based on like, they were talking about how they wanted the decisions to be made based on like mathematics. Not on brute force, but what's right.

26:51SpeakerVoluntary interaction among people, as long as it doesn't cause harm, was the general philosophy of the site. But what I was going to say is what I've discovered about the drug war is it's not about drugs at all. If it were, they would have stopped by now because it's been over 40 years. Over a trillion dollars. I've heard a rumor people still do drugs. Hello? And it doesn't work.

27:17SpeakerAnd so if they really cared about drugs, they'd find another way. It's not about drugs, I don't believe. I think it's about government expansion and intrusion. And there's a big money-making component. And of course, I go to the prison. I, to visit Ross, and I have come to know the families. I've come to know the other inmates, and of course Ross has. Most people in prison now, more than half, are non-violent, and most of them are drug offenders.

27:50SpeakerAnd I see the ravaging of these families and these children. I mean, to go in and see these kids, they come in happy, they're all excited to see their dad. They leave just crushed and crumpled and crying. Every time, and it's just heartbreaking what it does to people. And there's two and a half million children suffering because of this drug war. And who knows what the repercussions will be there.

28:15SpeakerAnd Tatiana was talking, she can tell you, but mom. And I've talked to several similar situations where her kids were getting straight A's, they were fine, doing great. And now that their dad's in prison, everything's falling apart, their grades are plummeting, behavior is, you know, difficult to control. It's just the whole, families are shattered. And these, you know, it's easy, sometimes when you read statistics, it doesn't really have impact.

28:41SpeakerBut these are real people that I know and see. And it's a horrifying thing. And I really want to try to have people Who are against drugs understand that the drug war is not about drugs. Because the drug question is perhaps philosophical. It's your own experience. Even they can say it's moral. But it shouldn't be a legal question. There is no, as far as I can see on the federal level, any authority legally for drug Can I mention this?

29:16SpeakerWe really should have a war on hypocrisy because my aunt died from the liquor. You know, my grandfather got emphysema. You can smoke cigarettes and drink vodka until you fall off the planet. Nobody cares about you. And, you know, for the government to intercede in us and say we're going to protect you from a joint or protect you from some LSD is so disingenuous on so many levels that it's overtly about something else.

29:40SpeakerAnd Nixon Very, very soundly started the drug war to go after people that were speaking out against his doctrine. And they couldn't bust the hippies for free speech, but they could bust them for a little bit of the drugs that they were doing and they could take them in on that. And I mean, marijuana, for instance, has always been based on racism. And we as a culture have always suffered because It was based on our white government fighting against Mexicans and blacks and the cultures around cannabis.

30:09SpeakerAnd it has now extended even into, dare I say it, white families that don't have a whole lot to do with the old traditional drugs. Now the profit is so huge in the drug war that they will disrupt everybody's lives in order to continue the production and the profiteering that the drug war has created. You know, something I would love to not get lost here is the original agents that went after your son were also prosecuted.

30:38SpeakerThe DEA agent and the Secret Service agent. I believe they stole over a million dollars worth of Bitcoin. And could you talk a little bit about how the corruption went beyond who they were pursuing and into the institution that was pursuing them? Sure. These were two agents at the core of the Silk Road investigation out of DHS Maryland. One's Carl Mark Force, who's a former DEA, now in prison.

31:06SpeakerThe other is Sean Bridges, who was actually working for the NSA at the time, as well as the Secret Service. And they not only stole over a million dollars, but they had unfettered access to the site in all kinds of ways. They were operating under various aliases. They have the ability to commandeer accounts, including DPR's account, including act as DPR and other entities. They could write and edit and delete anything from chats, on the forum, They had a marketplace.

31:35SpeakerThey had keys. They could change passwords. They could change PIN numbers. They had access to bank accounts. They had the keys to the kingdom. So let me clarify this one more time. They are the former NSA and the Secret Service. Secret Service was involved because this was cryptocurrency. And the Secret Service is the police over our currency. And the DEA was involved because this was a DEA case, obviously.

31:56SpeakerBoth those cops colluded to steal money and to really... All of these things illegally interrupt what they were pursuing. So a lot of what you're saying about the murder case that was never brought against your son, that was only brought in the media, could have well been created by these agents looking to lay bait where there wasn't any. Well, yeah. I mean, in fact, the only remaining indictment in Maryland about that was based on testimony by one of these corrupt agents who's now in prison.

32:29SpeakerYeah, so these guys, this information was not permitted by the judge to be known to the jury. So even though the defense pre-trial argued that this was relevant, yeah, you'd think that corrupt agents were all over the site and with a motive, as you say, and the ability, the jury never knew a thing about them. They didn't know they existed. This is a big part of Ross's appeal, is that it's part of, it's called the Brady Rule in U.S. law, which says you can't suppress or hide evidence that's exculpatory, that's favorable to a defendant.

33:08SpeakerYou have to let them know. And they didn't. They made sure, they painted a certain narrative of Ross at trial. It didn't fit the narrative that maybe there are corrupt agents all over the site that could have changed the evidence that the jury was being presented with. Since then, this is really important, it has been discovered by the defense team that there definitely was tampering of evidence.

33:35SpeakerAnd this goes to the heart. When you say it don't even have a maybe. There were two agents that were handling the case that went to prison because they tampered, stole, and lied throughout their investigation. That is not something that is a maybe. That is absolutely true. That's part of court record. They have not admitted to tampering. They have been proven to have stolen. I'm just saying they have the ability.

33:59SpeakerWhat is it about tampering? If I steal from a case, that's true. Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. But I'm saying there's proof of actual evidence which has been shown to be white and that there's a third corrupt agent which is discovered post-trial. And also another thing that was discovered post-trial was that another Dread Pirate Roberts or a Dread Pirate Roberts logged into the Silk Road Forum seven weeks after Ross was in jail.

34:25SpeakerSo this has just come out a few months in November. That and this was not even, you know, mentioned at trial. It's not part of the appeal because it came out after that. But there is there was evidence that was shown to the jury about a conversation between another agent, another rogue agent, a third. And I think there may be more who between DPR and that agent that was wiped.

34:51SpeakerSomeone went in. To the evidence and wiped a big section of significant conversation. And I can tell you more detail about it, but basically that's the bottom line. So there's so many questions here, but yes, the original agents that were convicted were not allowed to be known to the jury. They are now serving time and they've admitted. Meanwhile, a ton of their emails, which remain encrypted, the government did not make it part of their plea to get the key to decrypt their emails, still undisclosed information, still sealed information, because obviously the government is not interested in unearthing the whole story.

35:27BubblemanAnd do you guys have any idea who brought this to the attention of this senator that sort of kind of got, you know, it seems like... Schumer?

35:36SpeakerYeah. Schumer, Chuck Schumer of New York. I think it was Gawker, Gawker article. And the thing is, Chuck Schumer, and see, this is the other thing, just like the drug war is not about drugs, this case isn't about drugs, as far as I'm concerned. It's about, and I don't think that's why Schumer went after it. It's about cryptocurrency, Tor, privacy, and alternate currency, Bitcoin. He was on the Senate Finance Committee, the Banking Committee, and I know, I'm very convinced it's not about drugs because the other defendants who were convicted in the case who were drug dealers, they never said Ross was actually a drug dealer, just they said he was a website host.

36:17SpeakerThe worst sentence was 10 years. One guy just got three years. And then Ross gets double life plus 40 years without parole. It's not about, the threat was not drugs. The threat, I believe, was Bitcoin, Privacy and the philosophy of the site, which was all about liberty, voluntary interaction among consenting adults, as long as it doesn't harm someone. There was no child porn. There was no violent things like assassinations.

36:46SpeakerThere was no stolen property. It wasn't allowed. There was a philosophy involved. In any case, yeah, so that's... It's not about drugs. And so Chuck Schumer decided he was going to take this thing down and pushed it. And Preet Bharara, who was just recently fired by Trump, I think yesterday, who was the head of the Southern District, was Chuck Schumer's special counsel for a decade at least.

37:18SpeakerAnd the judge in Ross's trial was recommended by Schumer for her position. And so it was very much a Schumer case. Ross was arrested in California. But somehow he ended up in New York. You know, I mean, I'm like, hmm, interesting. Why is he being tried in the Southern District or the Second Circuit, New York City, or tried in the Southern District? Yeah. And then they pee those in the Second Circuit.

37:44SpeakerIt's not a mystery. They did it to Tommy Chong. They find prosecutors that are willing to prosecute. And they set up a crime that happens in that district, even if it means that they have to order the drugs to come to them themselves, like they did with Tommy Chong. They ordered bongs to be delivered to a place in Pennsylvania where they were illegal to ship to. And then Tommy got brought to Pennsylvania to be prosecuted.

38:05SpeakerIt's very common. And they also do it because they want to take them out of the Ninth Circuit in what would be considered a soft Thank you for joining us.

38:33SpeakerThank you for watching. See you next time.

38:44BubblemanIt's obviously not about drugs. People were selling drugs online on websites before the website Silk Road existed. And they certainly were selling drugs online immediately after the Silk Road went down. Others popped up. Even a secondary Silk Road popped up with an admin named Dread Pirate Roberts.

39:04SpeakerAnd the guy who was running that just got eight years. Eight years. Ross gets life. And they're saying, well, you're the first one to use the Internet in this way. So you have to be an example. And I'm like, really? But then I guess it didn't work. There's like 10 times the amount of dark net markets, way bigger than silver. Thank you for watching.

39:43SpeakerThank you for joining us.

40:03SpeakerIt's solving these problems in rural America which are being decimated by not the Silk Road, they're being decimated by pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers and distributors and deliverers and all legitimate businesses that are making a ton of money on poisoning America's youth in rural America like places like West Virginia. It's sick.

40:25BubblemanI want to take this opportunity to welcome Tatiana Moroz into the room. She is, I guess, I don't want to introduce you the wrong way, but I guess the way Kevin introduced me to you was that you were an author in the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency community. And I guess you probably are much more than that. So I just wanted to sort of let you be a part of this conversation as well, Tatiana.

40:49BubblemanOh, is she there? Did we lose her?

40:53SpeakerI don't think she heard it.

40:55BubblemanWell, I see her face, but she froze up. She might have froze up. But she'll be back. I hate when the conversation gets going so fast that I can't introduce people that have been in the room for a while. So we'll make sure we introduce her when she comes back as well. Yeah, it's obviously not about the drugs. It's definitely, for me, the thing that I got out of the documentary, The Deep Web, that tripped me out the most What I noticed was this sort of aspect of privacy.

41:25BubblemanAnd it was during one of Alex's that he said, we want privacy. And how you can prove that to yourself is by walking over to your bathroom and noticing there's a bathroom door on it. That's called privacy. The drapes on your windows, those are privacy drapes. You close them so people can't see into your home. And I thought, I thought wow yeah like why we don't have bathroom doors and drapes online for these companies that not even through malware but through apps and other things that you just agree with terms of conditions we give away so much of our information that it would be the equivalent of allowing them to come in and rummage through our things rummage through our our underwear drawer and rummage through our closet and look all throughout our house without a warrant Why, if they cannot do that in the three-dimensional world, should they be allowed to do that in the cyber world?

42:14SpeakerThis is a huge question in this case. I don't know if you want me to say it now, but it's a huge question. Go ahead.

42:24BubblemanWell, it just leads to how they found the server.

42:28SpeakerThat and also Ross's laptop. And what they're saying is, OK, it doesn't search and seizure. Well, the Fourth Amendment's been under assault of the drug war for years. Right. But in this particular case, and it's a big part of the appeal, is that they're saying basically what happened was they used general warrants to seize Ross's laptop and Gmail and Facebook accounts. And General warrants are what the American Revolution partly was fought over.

42:59SpeakerIt's why they wrote the Fourth Amendment, because it has a particularity requirement, which means, like you say, you can't go rummaging from attic to basement through somebody's house to see what you can find. But they basically did that with Ross's digital house. They had general warrants, and it's being argued that Including by Electronic Frontier Foundation in our appeal that this is unconstitutional. And the government's response is, well, yeah, but it's not a physical file cabinet with actual paper.

43:26SpeakerYou know, the founding fathers forgot to say digital in that amendment. And so it's because it's digital because it's a laptop. It's not protected. So they're basically saying we give up our right to privacy. Because we use laptops or computers or phones instead of actual physical paper. And this is a big question. And then they said, well, and even if the warrants are fine, but even if they aren't, we did it in good faith.

43:52SpeakerAnd they're using this good faith argument to expand their ability to intrude and saying, well, even if the warrants aren't proper, it was good faith. We meant, well, I guess that's what it means. I mean, it's like, really? And so the Fourth Amendment is a huge, It's very vulnerable right now. It's being decided in the U.S. courts a lot. And a lot of the courts are upholding this good faith argument.

44:16SpeakerAnd so, you know, it's absurd, of course. It should be protected like any... In fact, a laptop's a file cabinet of steroids. It's got a whole lot more than a physical file cabinet and connections to everything and all your privacy. So is it smartphone? Any of it. They're all computers. Yeah, it's smartphone. Yeah, I should say computer. The other thing they said in the papers in Ross's case is anyone who uses Tor has criminal intent.

44:45SpeakerThis is expanding the criminal umbrella tremendously because dissidents use it, journalists use it, regular people who want privacy use it. That's just it.

44:56BubblemanGo ahead.

44:57SpeakerWell, I was saying the argument of, well, I have nothing to hide, so it shouldn't bother me. Well, like the bathroom door, do you have anything to hide? We all know what you're doing in there. Is that a problem? Why don't you leave it open? It's our right to

45:11SpeakerAnd of course the slippery slope, you know, hugely threatening. Anybody listening, I think is naive to think they have any, any reasonable expectations to digital privacy. You know, anyone who thinks that they're really a PGP and encryption is going to work is wrong. And they're eventually going to be found out because anyone that understands this or been into computers, I've been in a computer since the early 80s, understands that, you know, the Internet was brought to you by the government.

45:39SpeakerThe CIA brought you a lot of the cryptography you use today. It doesn't work. I mean, they all have back doors to this, which is how they can't tell us how they find these things because it would be telling us how they're finding us.

45:52BubblemanAnd Todd, if you watch the dark web, there's an incredible discussion on that very thing that the internet has been made weakened with all of these back doors. And these hackers are talking, that's why they don't operate in the internet, they operate in the deep web where you can actually create things that are so difficult to break into that it's obviously a giant threat when you see them come out and sentence him to double life sentence with 40 years on top of him.

46:20SpeakerThat's the reason.

46:21BubblemanYou can tell they're sensitive. There's something there they really don't like. Because if you watch the Deep Web documentary, it's got a really cool kind of thing where these guys in London, they're these hackers and they're talking about it. They're saying, listen, these guys have on purpose weakened our internet. We can, the security and the privacy of our internet with all of these back doors. And when you build a system in the deep web without those back doors, you can build it extremely strong and much more difficult to get into.

46:52BubblemanPerhaps you have something to say on the matter, Tatiana. This is, you're into the cryptocurrency and Bitcoin community, are you not?

47:02BubblemanOh, we can't hear you. We've done this, I know, trust me. It happened to me, it happened to Lynn. It'll be okay.

47:09SpeakerYeah.

47:11BubblemanIt will be okay.

47:13SpeakerI'm texting her too. I don't know if she's seeing that.

47:17BubblemanWonderful. We got 700. There you are.

47:22SpeakerIs she on? Yes, she's on. You can tell her, Todd. Tatiana, can you hear us? No, she's still... You might have to go to the gear and select a different microphone. And I just wanted to say to Ross's mom, I totally admire what you're doing. Thank you. I was unfortunately one of the first people the feds busted after California legalized medical marijuana. And I spent five years in prison.

47:46SpeakerAnd my mom did just what you're doing, which is run around and speak and do media. And she became the activist. I couldn't be while I was locked up. And I appreciated it a lot. And I was in time. I was in with people like a friend of mine whose his name is Rick Ross. He had life as well for cocaine in the 80s. And he was released.

48:06SpeakerAnd I think that in the future, Ross, your son will see freedom once again, if we're really free. But that's my ongoing joke. I don't think we're really free, but I think he'll be out and having dinner with you. Yeah. All of this will come to light. And appeals will happen. And he will be able to bring this in front of the court. And he will see justice.

48:28SpeakerBut it may be a while. No, I know. They will very slowly. Thank you. I really appreciate that. And really, I see it as a bigger fight. As I mentioned earlier, I know other people. Ross is not unique, as your story attests to. And I do see this as a bigger fight, as well as my fight for Ross, of course. And that's great. Your mom did that.

48:50SpeakerA lot of people, you may not be surprised how many people say my parents would never do this for me. And I am doing it for him. He's a son worth fighting for. But also we're at a tipping point in history. That's how I see it. And this digital age, we're going in, you know, craning into it. And the courts are trying to keep up and decide things within a new context that many of them don't understand.

49:13SpeakerAnd We can go either way. We can go towards more government intrusion and oppression and control or innovation, freedom. It's kind of at a tipping point, and I think it's a really important time in history. And so that's what I keep trying to have people understand, because the sensationalism around the Silk Road case is a big smokescreen, and that's not really what it's about. You know, people like you understand.

49:41SpeakerWell, they had to create a big smoke screen around your son's case because your son's case became so embarrassing to the United States government on so many levels. When you have offices going completely rogue, becoming criminals in the course of their conduct at work. Thank you for joining us.

50:15SpeakerThank you so much for joining us today.

50:35SpeakerAnd I think that cannot be stated enough because when that happens, the amount of bullshit that has to be stirred up in order to bury the fact that they have an illegal investigation and criminals investigating criminals at the best case scenario, you could bring it up. Because if your son did anything illegal, then he had criminals chasing him. So it was just pirates chasing pirates at that point.

50:59SpeakerAll over themselves. Just to be clear, I'm not sure that it's established they were colluding. I think they were operating independently. But so that's even, but I, and there's third. Hold up, wait a minute. You're telling me the two officers were ripping off this thing independent of each other? I'm pretty sure that's correct. I don't think they were collaborating. And there's a third. Potentially a third who wiped evidence for some reason.

51:25SpeakerPlus there's talk of a rogue agent. I believe there's that much money involved. There's all this money in accounted for. That's a whole other thing. Somebody's out there with the money. And there's so much more to the story that the government apparently is not interested in unearthing. One of the things that broke down alcohol prohibition was three out of four federal agents were corrupt at the time they were repealing the 18th Amendment.

51:49SpeakerSo this is another scenario where we're seeing this just all over again. Oh, that's really interesting. Another thing about the amendment for alcohol is that they never got an amendment for drug prohibition. They had to get an amendment for alcohol. There is no, as far as I know, any authority at the federal level, certainly for drug prohibition at all. Not to sound crazy, but marijuana was not included initially in the Harrison Narcotic Act because it wasn't refined, distilled or manufactured.

52:19SpeakerAnd I believe that marijuana prohibition or the taxation against its use has been illegal as some jump and they've known it. And we've just ignorantly complied with it because we didn't know better. I know it sounds crazy. Not really. The other thing is, what I learned, and tell me if I'm wrong, is that actually the global agenda of the drug war was instigated in the 60s by the UN.

52:42SpeakerAnd the fact that marijuana is a schedule one, is a UN, a class one, I mean, is a UN classification. The Controlled Substances Act came under Nixon and it came under the fact that Timothy Leary, the guy that's renowned for LSD, got caught with marijuana coming in from Mexico. His case went before the Supreme Court and he won. And you can look this up. And at the moment he did that, he made marijuana prohibition a thing of the past.

53:14SpeakerAnd the way Nixon responded was by creating the Drug Enforcement Administration, which he crowned in 1971 and 2, and then this Controlled Substances Act, which rolled out at the same time. It was never amended or affirmed by Congress, and everybody listening can look it up. It has just been a floater, and they've just run all over our rights since the early 70s going after the drugs they don't do.

53:40SpeakerYeah, right, exactly. Yeah, and basically they are saying that anything that they don't authorize, they have the right to go after, just if they want to. You know, they give themselves authority. This is a very, very dangerous thing, obviously. You know, that's, it's totally un-American. And I feel like people who, you know, there's so many people, look, the argument can be for drugs, against drugs, don't use them, use them, whatever.

54:09SpeakerThat's not really the real important issue here. It's totalitarianism and using these ways to go closer and closer to the government deciding or any, you know, what they're going to criminalize and put people in cages for. And it's not a very big step to political cases, which I believe Ross's is, and using drugs as an excuse. And interesting, in his trial, there are many legal things sold on Silk Road.

54:40SpeakerIt was totally voluntary, of course, all that stuff. Nothing was allowed to be mentioned at trial to the jury except drugs. The judge said, I don't want anything else that was sold on Silk Road mentioned. And I'm like, aren't they supposed to have all the facts? Can I make you laugh? I couldn't use the word medical before marijuana at my trial because they said it would confuse the jury.

55:03SpeakerWe never want to confuse the jury, right? We wouldn't want to do that. The terminology, the way they go about it is unbelievable. And you never would think that going into it, you wouldn't be able to present the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But that's exactly what happens. A very limited element of reality and truth gets presented and you get railroaded. And your son was obviously a political football in a time where they were trying to get a rein on this.

55:29SpeakerAnd they can't. And that's the real reality. They haven't. We haven't. It hasn't been a deterrent at all. I've just given them life and it didn't achieve a thing. But the other thing, the judge used the idea of an alternate perpetrator because there was a whole thing about another person as DPR that was totally shut down at trial. The jury was told to forget they heard anything about an agent testifying about it because she didn't want to confuse the jury with an alternate perpetrator theory.

55:55SpeakerAnd I'm like, wait a second. If someone else was Jeff Byer Roberts and running this thing, why would that be confusing the jury? I mean, Same thing.

56:02BubblemanYeah, it's like, oh, we wouldn't want your defense to confuse the jury. So we'd like for you not to use your defense if you don't mind.

56:09SpeakerWell, not if you don't mind. You better not.

56:12BubblemanIt's unbelievable, really. I mean, it's already like all the things that are taken into play. And I got the feeling, too, that that judge was just like a soulless person that was like, hey, we're going to need you to do some soulless work over here.

56:27SpeakerWell, like I said, she was recommended by Chuck Schumer, who had a big interest in the case. Thank you. Draw your own conclusions.

56:34BubblemanRight.

56:36SpeakerBut yeah, I'm not going to disagree with your comment at all.

56:39BubblemanYou know, one of the things your husband said in the documentary really broke my heart, and it was, you know, he said, we're in these rooms, very tightly packed, where people get to see their family member for one hour a week. There's 150 of us in there, and we are no longer the race and the color and the belief systems, but we are 150 people whose hearts are breaking.

57:03BubblemanAnd I just, whew.

57:05SpeakerI know, because, you know, I know that there's a whole racial component. But when you're actually there, we're just together in the same boat. We help each other. It's all individuals who are, like you say, whose hearts are breaking. We feel for each other. We help each other. I had a woman whose fiance was in there text me, oh, Ross has been moved. Did you know? Which I didn't, for example.

57:32SpeakerOr just helping each other with forms and people who can't speak English. I mean, we're just... Yeah, I really feel camaraderie with everyone, and I certainly don't experience any racism towards me, and I'm certainly a minority there, at least from the other visitors. But I think generally even the guards who are not very nice, it's pretty much equal opportunity abuse. It's not, you know, racial. And there's, you know, to be fair, there's a few guards in there that are actually Can I be really upfront with you?

58:05SpeakerWhen I got out of prison, three different, I got out of prison in 2003 and three different prison guards contacted me on Facebook after legalization happened to tell me that they were now retired and also smokers and that they always admired what I was standing up for. And they were always nice to me when I was in there. And, you know, I know that it's heart-wrenching for you to see him in prison, but, and everybody listening, you know, it's camp boredom.

58:32SpeakerGo read books. It's not that hard to live through. You can wake up, you can exercise, you can expand your mind. It's not something you can't live through. So I really say that because I wish more people were not afraid to go to prison and were not afraid to take their case to trial because we would break the system if we did. Interesting. Ross is certainly making the best of it.

58:54SpeakerHe tutors other inmates. He's helped several get their GEDs. He's helped four get into a college program. There's four letters from inmates to the judge saying, look, this is a good person. Don't give him the maximum. Of course, she did. There's 100 letters. Four of them are from inmates. He also does all he meditates. He keeps a good attitude. He really does. I'm amazed. I'm amazed at his strength.

59:18SpeakerAnd Tatiana can attest to that. She's visited him many times as well. He certainly doesn't belong in there. At the same time, you know, yeah, you're right. And he's keeping himself physically and mentally, emotionally as healthy as possible. When you're facing life, it's a daunting thing. But, you know, we're fighting it. We're going to fight it. I will just keep fighting it.

59:40BubblemanWell, it's got to bring them some comfort knowing that the dialogue is ongoing and that you're out there and that there's this foundation and that you guys are, you know, making sure that this story is heard and it's not going to go away.

59:52SpeakerOh, yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of people in prison that are forgotten, you know, that are just forgotten, you know, and buried alive, basically. It's a horrible thing. I mean, as Ross said to me once, he goes, it's so old fashioned. We're still putting people in dungeons. When we have the technology, you could put a Ankle brace that are, you know, nonviolent people who aren't a threat to anyone, which most of them are.

1:00:13SpeakerAround their ankle, they could be home with their family or doing community service or making restitution or whatever you want and not costing the taxpayer a bloody fortune. But of course, that would cut into the profits, wouldn't it? Private prisons, even public prisons, they make a lot of money too.

1:00:28BubblemanIt's definitely intense too that when you think of someone getting a, you know, a harsh prison sentence like that. I mean, that woman gave that, that sentence was handed down to your entire family, not just Ross. Absolutely. Yeah.

1:00:40SpeakerAnd she, she says, oh, the hundred letters, they were impressive. But anyway, I'm going to give you the harshest sentence possible, which leads me to believe she would have given the death penalty if she could have. And I'm like, Wow. She could have given him 20 years, which is no small thing. It's a generation. It's a long sentence. But she chose to make sure that he would be buried alive.

1:01:02SpeakerLike I said, it's a death penalty. It's just a slow one. And she even said, she said, you created this site based on a philosophy, and I'm not sure you've given up that philosophy. And what's the philosophy? Voluntary interaction beyond government control. That's what she sees as dangerous. And that's what she saw as something that had to be destroyed. It's a First Amendment issue. You are allowed to have a philosophy.

1:01:30SpeakerYou are allowed to... And she referenced posts on Silk Road, not saying Ross wrote them, but saying that the government was the oppressor and she said that was troubling and dangerous. And I found many quotes by Thomas Jefferson and others That I guess you would also find troubling and dangerous. And I'm saying, well, so would you put Thomas Jefferson in a cage? I'm just wondering. Because it's exactly the same thing.

1:01:56BubblemanI bet you if he lost his ID, he would.

1:02:00SpeakerI mean, this is a very, very frightening thing. What's the judge's name? I'd like to do a little bit of case history on this judge. Yeah, please share with me if you find anything interesting. Judge Catherine Forrest with a double R. Forrest with two R's. Catherine Forrest, and that's in the Southern District of New York. She was just recently reversed, by the way, by the Second Circuit for a general warrants issue as well, where they said you can't use general warrants.

1:02:30SpeakerIt was like what they've used with Ross. It was a civil case, but they did reverse her, and... Hopefully they'll feel the same way. Where's the court? Is it in Brooklyn? Well, the Second Circuit covers New York State, Vermont, and Connecticut.

1:02:48BubblemanOh, thank you, Tatiana. Yes, I see it right there.

1:02:53SpeakerOh, good. The audio's working. We did the test.

1:02:58BubblemanAbsolutely. Welcome. I feel like you've been waiting a while to give us your two cents on all of this.

1:03:06SpeakerWell, yeah, I mean, I'm just listening. It's always really staggering how widespread this issue is. Lynn has done an amazing job bringing attention to it, and I think we're really lucky, especially since, you know, Ross is the one that's on the chopping block, but there are other people that are sort of in line. Which we're seeing from the conversation here. So I'm just happy to be a part of it.

1:03:31SpeakerI've infused a lot of what I've learned about Ross and about his situation into my music. There's a song called The Silk Road that I wrote before I even met Ross. Thank you so much for joining us.

1:04:05SpeakerI think already it's a little bit more of a bipartisan issue. I think that both sides of the aisle are seeing that the drug war is a failure and that this is causing much more long-term damage. And I hope that through music, I'm able to help bring awareness to Ross's case, especially, but also the larger implications of the drug war on families all around the world. Can you show an image of the CD?

1:04:30SpeakerIs that possible? You know what I can do? I can show you guys the actual picture. You want to hold on? Absolutely. Yeah, the song that Tatiana wrote is really beautiful and she's using her music to, you know, as activism. Which, you know, a lot of music seems like currently is not particularly, you know, when I grew up in the 60s and 70s, that was what music, a lot of music was all about.

1:04:58SpeakerAnd it did bring on change.

1:05:00BubblemanWell, Michael Franti is someone who's been writing about his activism for the last, I don't even know how long. I knew it was on the tip of Todd's tongue because Michael's good friends with Todd. I'll let him tell you about it.

1:05:15SpeakerI'll just say you should, I can send you some links. Michael is someone that you would admire. He's a political activist and he does his work through music. He spreads love. He's my favorite activist, I think. Who? Oh, nice. Michael Franchi. Yeah. You'll appreciate him. His music ranges the whole spectrum of music. Okay, cool. What's his name? Franti with a F-R-O. Oh, there it is. Perfect. Okay, so I don't know if you guys are going to be able to see this because the CD cover isn't printed yet, but this is the artwork that Ross drew.

1:05:47SpeakerPull it back a little. Yeah, kind of pull it back a little. Yeah. Okay, yeah, so I mean, as you can see, it's very, very light because of the quality of the pencils that they have in prison. They're not very good, but it's extremely detailed, and I think it's a very nice likeness. So when the album will be out, people can get it as a poster and support the family.

1:06:09SpeakerYeah, I mean, we're just getting the word out, I guess. And hopefully this is something that other artists can sort of get behind as well because I think that, you know, with the drug war, it's the government sort of controls the narrative, but, you know, if we have culture speaking out about it, just like in the 60s and 70s, you know, that's how things got done through sort of bullying the government through civil action.

1:06:38SpeakerAnd that's sort of been lost a little bit these days, but I think that we can push that envelope and hopefully... You know, get people to see that all these drug people are not, you know, monsters. They're either people with problems or people in poverty. I mean, either way, no matter what you think about the drug war or drug use or something, what's happening to them is completely ridiculous.

1:06:59SpeakerIt's way beyond the long-term effects are just devastating, far beyond, you know, just the active use of marijuana or whatever drugs people are into.

1:07:12SpeakerAbsolutely.

1:07:13BubblemanWell, the next guest that I am going to be inviting on, Jodi Emery here in the very near future. She and her husband, Mark Emery, have been absolutely pushing the envelope through civil disobedience. Their issue is cannabis legalization here in Canada and abroad around the world. They fly everywhere and talk about it and they really sort of put their money where their mouth is. You know, they open these dispensaries and they're willing to sell cannabis to anyone 19 and over because that's the legal age of drinking in Canada.

1:07:44BubblemanWe don't have the 21 thing. And they've just been pushing that envelope and recently they got hammered hard by the police. Huge Canada-wide warrant executed, arrested at the airport, both of them. Thank you for joining us.

1:08:10BubblemanAnd so, and they've been doing this for a long time. Not through this particular mechanism, but they've been activists for a long time. Mark used to sell seeds. He was arrested by the DEA back in the early 2000s and sent to a U.S. prison for five years for selling seeds, cannabis seeds, through the mail. So it's, it was one of those things, you know, I kind of call this episode the great disruptor episode because it's all about if you're disrupting something as major as, you know, their system.

1:08:44BubblemanIf you're messing with their system in any way and their system is comprised, obviously they have their cyber division, they have their drug war division, which is the, you know, the policing and the militarization of the police system. And then they have the monetary system. And I'm sure that Bitcoin to these bankers is literally like cannabis. It is a great disruptor in the way people are able to privately purchase things.

1:09:12BubblemanI mean, it gets to a point now in this day and age where every one of your purchases, all of these different things, Thank you so much for joining us.

1:09:43BubblemanI think one of the guys said it was a pretty neat metaphor. He was from Wired. He said in the documentary something about it's a cat and mouse game. And the mouse will win, but the cat will be well fed.

1:09:58SpeakerRight. But can I just say bluntly that, look, I spent time in prison with Kevin Mitnick, who was the first hacker that was held for like six or seven years. Kevin used to make me food when I was in prison. He was a great guy. But the one thing he drove through my head was there is no privacy, Todd. There is no backdoor. The dark web is no more safer or secure than the Google searchable sites.

1:10:23SpeakerThe reality is that all of it has a backdoor that they can go into for their own selfish reasons. The IRS, the DEA, the NSA are not giving you your privacy. They don't have to. It wasn't written into the Constitution. They will use every excuse to beat you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

1:11:09SpeakerWell, it's a crazy system. There's no doubt about that. There's...

1:11:39SpeakerIt's not crazy if you're expanding your power and you're making, you know, huge amounts of money and using people as the product because it's feeding the criminal, you know, the mass incarceration in the United States. And, you know, that's a whole other subject. But I would propose that that's human trafficking. When you're making money out of human beings and when, you know, the prison unions and the private prisons are lobbying Washington against legalization, for example, because it'll cut down on inventory, frankly, and the inventory being human beings.

1:12:14SpeakerHow is that not human trafficking? How is that, you know, it's so... Thank you for joining us.

1:12:35SpeakerYou can't force me. And I went to the hole over it. I had spent time in solitary confinement because I wouldn't. That's what I heard. Wouldn't comply. No. If you won't work, you go to solitary. I was like, screw it. Whoa. Yeah, no, I heard that as well. I spent a lot of time in solitary, unfortunately. That's rough. Yeah, Bob Murphy wrote a piece about that, actually.

1:12:54SpeakerBob Murphy, the economist, because I asked him, you know, is that willing labor? And the conclusion was no, because you don't have a choice. You do. No, you do. You do, but you go to the hole. But that's a choice too. Yeah.

1:13:08BubblemanHey, guess not much.

1:13:10SpeakerNot much of a choice.

1:13:12BubblemanWell, Ice Cube called them concrete slave ships. The prisons in one of his songs. And it's I don't think it's too far off with two million prisoners. That's a serious workforce. Eight, 10 hour days, pennies a day. And, you know, the sickness is that not only do they pay you pennies a day, but then they will go and charge you for commissaries like the chips and the cokes and the cigarettes and stuff and pay like outrageous prices of your pennies earned and give it all back to them for a coke.

1:13:42BubblemanDude, a package of Raymond soup, two bucks.

1:13:45SpeakerA little 20 cent package of soup, two bucks at the commissary. And then they pay you 15 cents an hour at Unicor? Yeah, there's a scam there. Yeah, there's all kinds of ways they're making money, including telephone calls, including, you know, and just the taxes alone. You know, there's a huge, yeah, it's not just the labor and what you're paid. It's the whole industrial, you know, prison industrial complex.

1:14:15SpeakerThey're very attached to it and it's going to be tough to change. No, you know, we try, you know, we usually talk about cannabis and hashish and things happy on this show, but, and everyone complains when we talk about politics, but politics has dictated the course of our ability to be happy. And, you know, we can't grow flowers in our front yard, and yet we talk about America being free?

1:14:38SpeakerI find it fucking humorous. Go plant some hemp in your front yard and tell me how free this country is. Yeah, exactly. And it's a slippery, it's happening, it's accelerating. And yeah, it's not happy. It's not a happy topic. And yeah, it's kind of disturbing. But ignore it at your peril, is what I would say. Ignore it at your peril. It's happening and people are suffering and more and more will and our rights will be eroded and that's not very happy either.

1:15:10SpeakerBut it's frivolous not to say, oh, I only talk about happy stuff. Well you know what I want to say this because you know there's so much shit thrown at your son you know with the murder fire and everything and like when I'm sitting here reading this you know there's this little passage I want to read that was in the LA Times it says um force which is the name of which is the name of the cop that was going after him like you couldn't make this up literally Carl M Force was the police Was the officer.

1:15:40SpeakerBut then it says forces the second law enforcement officer to be convicted of stealing bitcoins during the Silk Road case. Former Secret Service agent Sean W. Bridges, 32, admitted this summer to stealing 20,000 bitcoins and liquidating it into 820,000 through a Japanese currency exchange before depositing it into his personal account. They don't mention that he also was working for the NSA because that didn't come out till later.

1:16:06SpeakerI didn't find out till later. It was brought up in court. And that's not even mentioned. Well, it doesn't make more sense, though. Now you just saw that wiki dump come out and they said, you know, they dumped all this stuff about what they're doing. And now, you know, when you start looking at the, you know, NSA and DIA and all of what's going on, you see that it's a really thick, you know, the Internet has been a wet dream.

1:16:29SpeakerI've always thought Google and Facebook were completely CIA and FBI because it gets everybody to. You know, fuel it with their own desire for likes and gratification. And they give up all their privacy, all facial recognition. They give up their friends facial recognition. They tag every friend they can. They make it a field day for the people that are writing these programs and trying to collect data on citizens.

1:16:56SpeakerYeah, that's yeah, absolutely. And also, it's very convenient. You know, everything's synced and you can you know, it's all very convenient to be secure or even try to be secure. It's pretty inconvenient. You know, you've got to... You can't be secure. Well, I know, you can't be... Okay, okay. Trying not to be hacked, at least. That's pretty inconvenient. We were hacked, so we put it in all these places.

1:17:21SpeakerThat's different. But you know what? This is what's interesting, is when you read about these DE agents, they were, if you want to call it hacking, they were hacking the Silk Road, in a sense, pretending to be something they weren't, pretending to be other identities, making friendships that were false. Thank you so much for joining us.

1:17:58SpeakerBut that, you know, like you were saying, they can get into PGP if they want. Well, there's a lot, numerous, numerous emails that this Carl Force and Sean Bridges had that they go, oh, well, it's encrypted. We can't read it. I'm like, really? You can't read it? And you can't get the key from them? They don't want to read it. There's so much, they're covering, they're still covering stuff up as far as I believe.

1:18:21BubblemanYeah, sure. This is the age of Edward Snowden. This is the age of the whistleblower and the, you know, like the system can't, can't continue for another hundred years. Like it's just, it just can't. It causes so much grief and anxiety and pain and misery and, It's just, it's an unbelievable situation that's stripping, particularly coming from the country whose foundation is like freedom. It's the craziest thing.

1:18:48SpeakerIt's been hijacked and it's terrible. But you know, you're right. It's getting worse. I know, you're right. The crazies in office and they have access to all of the tools we're freaking out about and they're able to do whatever they want. They just like fire all of the attorneys that they don't like and hire new ones that they do like. I think Obama did that too, actually.

1:19:08SpeakerI think they just do what they want, whatever's in there. But anyway, yeah.

1:19:13Etienne FontanNo, they do that every single time. If the incoming fires the outgoing and vice versa. So it's just not handled respectfully, but that's the reality that we face. And I agree, it definitely is escalating to a point where, thank you, all the panelists, for making people more aware. I think it's awful that you were forced into this activism, but thank you again for the activism that you've done, all of you, to bring to light this cryptocurrency and this whole reality that, look, I'm a legal cannabis dispensary, and that's why, again, I put the name Patients in Berkeley Patients Group, so that the court The name patients was in there because I saw Todd go through court and couldn't use medical marijuana.

1:20:02Etienne FontanSo each step is a succession of knowledge to help the next case. So hopefully there's been some knowledge once the more outline comes from the case and you can hopefully get the justice that you hope to receive.

1:20:20SpeakerYeah, I hope so. Yeah. I hope, and I hope you're right that it can't go on, but I'm not so sure that's true. That's what I fear. I think it's going to get worse. I said, we're at a tipping point and we got to, you know, we've got some choices to make and pressure to bring to bear. To who? Our government? Our federal government? We're going to go convince the guys that are robbing everybody right now?

1:20:46SpeakerThey're lying to the Senate and going, what? What are you going to do, fire me? I mean, we're in a really weird time right now. I mean, honestly, really weird. What are you going to do, just roll over and, you know, say I want to only have happy thoughts? I mean, you know, seriously. No, I've been a political activist. I had cancer 10 times as a kid.

1:21:04SpeakerSo, you know what, I think we're all doing life sentences to keep it real. And it doesn't matter if you're in prison. And I didn't lose part of my life when I went to prison. I was just as alive in prison as I am right now talking to you at my house. And the truth is, is that you have to realize we're all stuck on this planet.

1:21:19SpeakerYou know, you can't you can't breathe or exist outside a little blue bubble. So once you realize that you can go through life with a lot more courage and be free and flow. And that's what I chose to do. And when I die, I'll die happy. And it doesn't matter where I die. I know I did my best the whole way through. And I don't think that what your son's going through is as bad as you perceive because I went through it myself and this is my life after that.

1:21:43SpeakerAnd I have quite a few friends that have gotten out of prison and their lives are more than normal post that. It was just another experience that he's experiencing right now. And fortunately, this is going to sound weird, but I realized I had a lot of great friends. I mean, you know, a lot of people don't want to get busted because they don't want to look around and realize they have no friends or nobody that cares about them.

1:22:06SpeakerBut it was the opposite for me. I had friends that I would have never expected come out of everywhere to I mean, it was, it was incredible. And so it was a beautiful experience to me because of that unintended consequence of it all, you know, ATN, the kid sitting on this panel was one of the people that used to ride with me on my motorcycle when I got drug tested and, you know, stood with me as I went through the whole damn ugly process and then had to watch me go self surrender to prison.

1:22:39SpeakerCause I went, I showed up in a suit and said, fuck you, I'm not going to be broken. And I think if we all did that, we would totally deal with things so differently in this country because the system isn't that scary. So, you know, keep feeding Ross your positive energy and your activism and lending your voice to this. And someday I believe that justice will be served and the whole thing will be seen in the light of day.

1:23:03SpeakerIt'll just take more time than we wished it would. But, you know, He'll be vindicated for the things he didn't do, if that makes sense, you know, because that's really what's holding him in there right now are the things he didn't do and the collusion of others that were in the employment of the government to actually be criminals and to have that covered up because that's really what your son's sentence is also part of the cover up to cover up the embarrassment of what two different agencies did to the government.

1:23:35SpeakerRight. No, I really agree with everything you're saying. And it's very encouraging. I really appreciate it because from your perspective, it's very encouraging. Ross is hanging tough. Ross has said, you know, because someone called where he is the most soul-killing place in the system, and he said, they're not killing my soul. They're not. And he's keeping a strong attitude and, you know.

1:24:02SpeakerWell, I'd like to attest to that. I mean, Ross is constantly impressing me with his ability to handle this bad situation. And I agree, like, obviously, it's horrifying, especially the sentence specifically because of that lack of the confirmed light at the end of the tunnel. But I've never seen anything like it. And, you know, his letters to me are so encouraging. His letters to other people, his kindness that he shows to other people.

1:24:30SpeakerI mean, he works out all the time. He does, you know, all of his tutoring and different kind of work on himself. I think that it's really exemplary the way that he's behaved. And he is an inspiration to a lot of different people. So, you know, even in the darkest times, there is that little bit of a ray of light. I mean, I guess I want to serve as a character witness because I've been so impressed with his countenance and the way that he's handled it.

1:25:00SpeakerI think it's something that all of us can use in our lives and hopefully he'll be able to share that one day in person and hopefully that'll be soon. Because he's learned a lot of lessons and he, more importantly, takes the time to teach those lessons to other people. Yeah, I hope he's exonerated from the things that he states he didn't do because if they had bodies, they would have charged them with them.

1:25:24SpeakerThere's no question to me that if they had any of the things that they accused him of doing, they would have been on part of that indictment and there would have been absolute evidence that people were murdered and tortured and all the other things that they claim happened, which I think are all suspect when you realize that the people that were claiming these things are now sitting in a different prison for being more or just as much criminal as the people they were pursuing.

1:25:50SpeakerAnd you know, this is going to sound weird, but when I left prison, I was more sympathetic towards the prison guards that have to put up with these idiots than I was the prisoners. Because you know what? The prison was full of people that I think are idiots and shouldn't be in society that do really bad things. Like, like, like steel when they're at work, for instance, like the Secret Service guy and the DEA guy.

1:26:11SpeakerThose are real criminals. Those are people that, Thank you for watching.

1:26:29SpeakerAnd, you know, but then you have people that are railroaded. Well, look, you know what? To me, I lived with these guys for five years and I didn't like a lot of what I met because I don't believe in lying, cheating and stealing. So call me crazy. But I think prisons do have a real significant place in our society. And I wouldn't abolish them if I was, you know, in charge of everything at all, because I think robbing banks and ripping people off and kidnapping people and doing violent things Thank you.

1:26:56SpeakerThank you. Thank you.

1:27:26SpeakerLocking this poor kid up for life for what they're not locking up these secret service agents for life for, to me, is really where you see the injustice of it all. Yeah, let me just quickly say, they've never even claimed there were any actual murders. They're not even saying that. They're just saying, you arranged a murder for hire that never happened. Based on testimony and digital evidence, part of the testimony, well, they threw out, they didn't even bother, like you said, to...

1:27:54SpeakerIndict him in New York. It wasn't part of the trial. Although the judge allowed them to discuss it with the jury as if it were. They said, well, we're not charging him, but he did it. I'm like, what's that about?

1:28:06Etienne FontanIt's the railroad. Yeah, it's the railroad.

1:28:09SpeakerYeah, and then she used it at sentencing as well to justify her draconian sentence. But no murders took place. No victims came forward at trial to say Ross had hurt them in any way. And the only thing left is this thing that's been there for three years or three and a half now, this indictment in Maryland. I would think there'd be a deadline to do this or not, but in any case, that's based on the testimony of a guy in prison.

1:28:34SpeakerAnd they're not saying anyone died. It's just, well, you planned it and it's all digital, which is of course very vulnerable to tampering. It's really flimsy, but the media loves this because it's so much more exciting You know, to talk about murder for hire and the kid that went bad and the, you know, they love this. And I've heard from other people, including someone who's serving life for LSD, Leonard Picker, that they did to him, this murder for hire thing.

1:29:01SpeakerAnd I've been told by other people that they do this.

1:29:05BubblemanThey definitely did it as though it were like an intense, advanced chess move. And they didn't just use it once to smear his name, but they even used it throughout the trial. At one point, it came up in the trial, did it not? Like later on? And what? Go ahead.

1:29:19SpeakerNo, I was going to say, the defense said, this should not be mentioned. It's not being charged. And the judge shot that down. They used it at bail to deprive them of bail. They said... It's dangerous. He's dangerous because he planned these murders and then two months later they didn't indict him for the murders. That was a farce. That bail hearing was a joke. No priors, no evidence of violence whatsoever.

1:29:45SpeakerThey used it to deprive the defense of the witness list until a couple of days in advance so they couldn't prepare their cross-examination because he might have people killed in prison. He has no internet. I'm not sure how he's going to do it. Phone calls are monitored. But anyway, that was deprived. And then she used it in the sentencing to say, well, you arranged murders for hire.

1:30:06SpeakerAnd this is part of the appeal. It's like, hello? This was never proven. It was not in the trial. The jury didn't vote on it. How can you use this to bolster this horrible, barbaric sentence? It's all nonviolent charges. More so, how do you take away the fact that two of the agents were corrupt and illegally gaining for themselves and looking for ways, no doubt, to elongate the investigation, to keep the rig going?

1:30:32SpeakerI mean, these two guys, if they were acting independently, must have been really awkward at, like, you know, company picnics, you know? Because they're both going after the same guy and they're both robbing the same... Okay, which is so strange. I mean, this is beyond so beyond the your son in the when it becomes a government corruption. I think this is what everybody looks at and goes, holy, wow, you know, exactly.

1:31:03SpeakerAnd any of the evidence that stemmed from these two people be considered is absolutely credible when they themselves were lying to their superiors about their own activities. Exactly. And actually one federal judge in Oregon who was trying the guy, supposedly one of the major meth dealers on the site, cut his sentence in half because of the involvement of Sean Bridges, one of the agents. So in that trial or that sentencing, it was taken into consideration and Ross's, no.

1:31:34SpeakerSo that's kind of a conflict as well. That guy got ended up with three years. Can I tell you a funny? The special agent, Sean Bridges, his lawyer just actually asked the court to get out of having to do his appeal because it's frivolous and he has no case. Because he has a right while he's incarcerated to appeal everything. And his lawyer doesn't want to do it because he just states, you can sign the link, that it's frivolous and has no case.

1:32:03SpeakerOh, that's interesting. I didn't even know that. Yeah, it's August 9th, 2016. The lawyer representing Sean Bridges, the former special agent who stole bitcoins while working on the Silk Road investigation, asked the Ninth Circuit to take her off the appeal, saying the convicted fraudster has no case. And he's known for framing people, too. He's got a long history. You know, he's got a long trail of corruption and theft.

1:32:30SpeakerDare I say this, though? You know what? The criminals' investigations should start with it. You know, they should be weeding out their own garden, so to speak, because they're never going to be able to do anything right if the people working there are pirates trying to steal from whoever they can bump into. Like I said, it was a fascinating aspect of the alcohol repeal because of the...

1:32:51SpeakerThe literal fundamental criminal element that prohibition begot into the law enforcement working around it. Okay, I'm going to look into that for sure. That's a really good point. Yep.

1:33:05BubblemanSorry about that. I had to step away. My little guy has been sick for the last four days. It's very unfortunate. It's terrible to see. He's only two and a half, and this is the first time he's ever really gotten sick. So it's just, as a parent, it makes me really feel for you, Lynn, to be away from Ross the way you are. I just, I mean, I know my sons, I have a 13-year-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old son, two sons, and a daughter of 15, but...

1:33:32BubblemanIt just hurts when you don't want them to be scared. You don't want them to be alone. You don't want them to be in pain. Right. This is the life of a parent.

1:33:40SpeakerIt never changes, even when they become adults.

1:33:43Etienne FontanIt doesn't change.

1:33:46BubblemanI bet. I bet. As they get older. I mean, there is that small teenage sort of year where you're kind of like, I'm not sure I like this person anymore. But you do. We love them.

1:33:57SpeakerYeah, in spite of it all. That's called hormone poisoning, right?

1:34:04BubblemanYes, exactly. Exactly. Welcome, D420K. In the house with little dabs.

1:34:12TonyHow you doing, everybody? I've got a little mic coming for next week.

1:34:18BubblemanOh, great, great. Well, I got my little one right here. I'm very happy to... Thank you so much for joining us today.

1:34:48BubblemanSitting here with mom from the Silk Road. We've got Tatiana Moroz as well in the room. And we've just been talking about, you know, of course, Ross's predicament. It's tied to everything that's that's being discussed. But beyond also Ross, because it's really although he's the only person really serving this jail sentence. Thank you so much for joining us.

1:35:30BubblemanWe'll be hearing more about their situation with the Canada-wide warrants that were executed against them. Of course, they were arrested at the Toronto Pearson Airport and had warrants executed all the way across the country from Montreal to Toronto against their shops for selling cannabis. If you can imagine, they're selling cannabis in a country where the Prime Minister said that we want to legalize cannabis, but he's still arresting non-violent people.

1:35:58BubblemanDon't expect... Yeah, still being a bit of a dick. Jodi had to visit Mark for five years in a federal penitentiary in Mississippi. And she also experienced what you experienced, Lynn, that the penitentiary Pain of all these families visiting their loved ones, able to see their fathers or mothers for such a short period of time. It's destructive by nature and I certainly think we can all agree that jail is not to actually get people better and ready them for society.

1:36:31BubblemanAlmost much like school when we're young kids. I mean, if they wanted to get us ready for society, They'd be teaching us about taxes. They'd be teaching us about mortgages. They'd be teaching us about...

1:36:42Etienne FontanI'm trying to talk because that's why you're... What's that, Etienne? Sorry. Go ahead.

1:36:48BubblemanThat's okay. Welcome back, Tony, to the room.

1:36:53TonyHow's it going? Being in jail and having a visit from your kids or your family and not even being able to give them a hug because the glass is there and you have to have those types of visits.

1:37:05SpeakerWell, luckily Ross isn't behind glass. He was when he was in the shoe. But we are all, I'm in the room with him and other inmates. We're all together. They're not dangerous. They're scary. It's like, you know, we're all just together on chairs. So that's better, you know, at least.

1:37:22TonyWell, the places that I was in up here, they were super maximum places. Oh. Yeah. They didn't allow visits with contact because there's so much drugs coming into the place and stuff. It was just their security protocol.

1:37:38BubblemanAnd because there's so many drugs coming into the place, they want to maintain control over how much drugs they bring into their prisons. That they bring in for us. Of course. Absolutely. That's the craziest thing when you actually do end up in prison and you realize, wow, there might be more drugs in this prison than there were in my... My neighborhood.

1:37:59TonyAnd those guards are more corrupt than most of the fucking inmates in there too. Guaranteed. Trust me, I know these things.

1:38:08BubblemanWell, I guess it's that situation of wanting to have a job where you're in charge of someone. We had Dr. David Allen come in probably over a year ago and talking about the amygdaliac hijacking of the brain and how this sort of fight or flight switch can be rusted into the flight. And so the ability to empathy and compassion, some of that becomes a little bit lower.

1:38:36BubblemanAnd you see a lot of people with this situation getting into law enforcement and military and prison guards and, you know, working at a psych ward, whatever. As long as you can kind of hold a power over someone, there's going to be opportunities in that situation for you to, you know, for you to do no good. Yeah.

1:38:56TonyYeah, that's for sure.

1:38:58SpeakerI think in general, bureaucracy does not bring out the best in people.

1:39:02BubblemanRight. Well, and also, let's be honest, I'm sure some people that just need the job get the job, but generally, like, caring, kind, compassionate, empathetic beings are not applying to work at prisons or to be, you know, to want to, like, be in this sort of... Some are, which I said. Some are. Some are. Some are.

1:39:26TonyI can agree with that. There were some very good people that were in there that did have both qualities. And I see those people on the street today and I shake their hand and say, hey, how you doing? And we laugh and work stuff.

1:39:40SpeakerAfter living there, man, I think they're serving society a great service because I wouldn't want to babysit the people that rob banks at gunpoint or rob grandmas or kidnap your daughters or any of that shit. And that's what they're doing every day. And, you know, my heart goes out to all of them. I mean, I don't think, you know, nonviolent drug offenders should be mixed among those people that are violent by nature.

1:40:01SpeakerBut I was one of the nonviolent drug offenders who was there with murderers and shit. And trust me, it's nowhere you want to be. And I feel bad they got to go in and go to work every day or among that. But I'm glad they do. I'm glad they do. Well, violent to protect society from people who are violent is one thing. But more than half, I think 60 percent, maybe more are nonviolent and they get paid pretty well.

1:40:27SpeakerAnd they have excellent, excellent benefits as well. Four out of ten of the crazy guys standing in front of you are willing to choke you out. Think about this. Four out of ten of the crazy guys standing in front of you are willing to kill you. Yeah, right. Because then there's the guys who are... Thank you so much for joining us.

1:41:15BubblemanNonviolent people do not deserve to be. The violent ones, not all the good prison guards. What I'm talking about is the shitty prison guards and the nonviolent, non-destructive, haven't caused victimless crime, if you will.

1:41:29SpeakerNo grandma's lost all their money. Substance, let's all agree, substance use and abuse should not be considered a crime because alcohol use and abuse is not considered a crime. You have to do something criminal to go to prison for being an alcoholic. And it should be the same with drug use. You shouldn't go to prison for the drug use itself. This is what's wrong with society because otherwise law abiding people are being locked up with people that are not otherwise law abiding people.

1:41:56SpeakerAnd that's the sick mix. Yeah. Yeah. Well, with the Wall Street guys, wouldn't you want restitution? Wouldn't you want them to be out in a controlled way where they could pay you back some money? No. You want to know why? Because, honestly, they're scammers and they're ripping off more grandmas to get that money back. And it's not all about money. And I don't think that people with briefcases should have the right to stay in society and steal and cheat and rob people out of their retirements, their homes, and their everything.

1:42:22SpeakerSo, fuck them guys, too.

1:42:24BubblemanWell, I'll tell you one thing, Todd. You're definitely on the ball with how many times those dudes repeat offend because my friend Ron did some time with a guy in prison who was kind of one of those guys and he got out and, you know, just did it all over again. Ended up, and just to buy Ferraris and like stupid shit that are like, how many people did you bankrupt and literally destroy their, it is terrible.

1:42:46BubblemanIt is terrible. It's absolutely terrible. Those guys can stay there for a while anyway.

1:42:52SpeakerNo, but nonviolent drug offenders, people that are just like a cigarette smoker or an alcohol drinker, they shouldn't be in prison for their substance use. And that's something that we as activists have been arguing for decades because it's Thank you so much for joining us.

1:43:37BubblemanYeah, it's pretty incredible.

1:43:39SpeakerDown with the liquor stores. I tell you.

1:43:43BubblemanI tell you, it's definitely... We live in a bit of a topsy-turvy world. I think I've mentioned this before, where you end up with a lawyer that decimates the justice and police that decimate the law and doctors that decimate health. And I'm not talking about all. I know there's good ones. I'm just saying in a general sort of way, it seems like our world is a little bit upside down where...

1:44:07BubblemanYou know, like, life in prison without the possibility of parole. Like, think of all the different criminals that will be released in that time that he's supposed to serve. I'll say he's supposed to serve.

1:44:18SpeakerIncluding violent, by the way. Including violent. Many violent.

1:44:23BubblemanAbsolutely including violent. And I say, I would hope that, like Todd mentioned, that one day that clemency does come for him and that he finds himself outside of that system.

1:44:35SpeakerMe too. Yeah.

1:44:36BubblemanYeah. What do we got there?

1:44:39SpeakerOh, we'll break it. And, you know, that's that's that. And it's people like you that's pushing and that's keeping this in the conscious and explaining it. It's what's going to cause everybody to understand it. And that's where it breaks. I mean, I think there is a hundredth monkey theory that works. I mean, I think the consciousness is key. And, you know, we really are trying to expand thinking with what we're doing.

1:45:02SpeakerAnd, you know, what you're doing, especially, I think, is I would highly recommend them.

1:45:37SpeakerThanks. Yeah. I think is the woman, Nora Callahan. I'm trying to work and support other organizations against the drug war, against mass incarceration and all of that so that I can, I have a certain notoriety because of the case, because of Ross to help them as well. And they can help me and we can work together. And I agree with you or I hope you're right. And I hope I'm right that, you know, changing minds ultimately Thank you for joining us.

1:46:22SpeakerHe wasn't a gang member, but he was running drugs in the 80s. And Maxine Waters, who was a representative in his area of L.A., was fundamental in getting his sentence reduced and him released over time. And there are paths that you can take that you should be politically going down in order to try to get more help on the side. And honestly, the two sides of it, you should be trumpeting.

1:46:47SpeakerThank you for joining us.

1:47:01SpeakerYeah, that should be a communication to Chuck Schumer. You should send that as a short, crisp email, a couple paragraphs to Chuck Schumer if Chuck Schumer is your senator. He needs to know that. Who's behind the whole thing. He needs to know that. Yeah, well, isn't this the issue? Isn't this the issue, right? I really doubt there's any help to be had from Chuck Schumer, but... No, there's not, probably.

1:47:31SpeakerBut you can find others in Congress and in the Senate that actually would listen and would see the internal corruption and find it appalling. The best side you could get it on would honestly, dare I say it, be a conservative Republican who is disgusted with this kind of behavior in the Secret Service and the DEA and wants to get to the bottom of it and wants to see an injustice undone because, you know...

1:47:56SpeakerThe disproportionate sentences between your son and the Secret Service agent and the DEA agent is really what should be focused on because they should be the ones getting life because they took an oath to uphold laws and your son never did. Your son never joined the DEA and swore that he would be a good officer, instead did what these guys did. These guys should be held to a higher standard because they were cops.

1:48:21SpeakerWell, and they're not saying Rust stole from people. These people stole from individuals. It's not just the Silk Road. No, right. He organized, he was like running Amazon and they were ripping off the bank. It is totally a different scenario when you look at it like that. And so, yeah, I know that it is a bipartisan issue. There are people from both sides of the aisle who are against this mass incarceration and And the whole thing that are... Who's the other senator from New York?

1:48:49SpeakerSo if not Schumer, who's the other guy from New York? I don't know. I'm in Connecticut, so... You're in Connecticut, okay. But right now staying with family, basically. I'm not... Well, why don't you... Why don't you reach out to your senator? Because this is at the federal level, this has to be addressed at the federal level. It's really the senators that really, I mean, that's your go-to person.

1:49:14SpeakerI would actually just step back and try to find one that you thought was most friendly to deal with. I mean, you're playing the long game here. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, and I have done some of that, but I think you're right, and get connections and

1:49:34BubblemanI wanted to take this moment to welcome Jodi Emery into the room.

1:49:38SpeakerHow's it going?

1:49:40BubblemanOh, Jodi. Welcome, welcome. Sorry to see and hear and at the same time, you know, you guys are the cannabis warriors. We're all behind you.

1:49:51SpeakerThank you so much. Yeah, it's very interesting. I'm still just coming to terms with what's happened and what we're facing. We haven't even been found guilty of anything just to get out of jail on bail so I didn't have to spend two more nights locked up. I had to agree to disassociate myself entirely from cannabis culture, including the magazine, including our vapor lounge, including our head shop.

1:50:15SpeakerI mean, that's our, that's my life. Like, you know, you know, I've been there in that building since I turned into an adult. I've been, my whole life is there. It's killing me that, you know, to think that we can't go and we've been stripped of everything we have. So. That's, that's, you know, we'll deal with that. We'll see if we can get the bail conditions varied so I'm able to at least spend time at the main headquarters, which is a political party office, our magazine office.

1:50:44SpeakerBut yeah, I'm not at all associated anymore with the cannabis culture franchise model of cannabis distribution. And that's sad, but... You know, I don't regret what we did. I know we never hurt anybody. We've only done wonderful things for people. And I could die tomorrow happy knowing I did everything right. I'm doing the right thing and I know it. And I know that the prohibition oppressors, they're the ones who are evil.

1:51:11SpeakerThey're the ones doing wrong. So like many great battles for human rights throughout history, Maybe we suffer for it, and maybe in the end, you know, we're not victorious in our own personal dreams and desires, but ultimately, for everybody else, a model has been set, an example has been made, a good example by us, and all the people who are so bravely willing to keep doing this.

1:51:38SpeakerAnd, you know, it made me so happy to see that every shop You know, they all got raided and I saw video footage and, you know, our employees, not our employees, the employees are being taken out, flashing the peace sign. You know, it's, we're all about peace and they reopened and they're all still doing their thing, not under my guidance or direction, but... You know, our movement is strong.

1:52:05SpeakerAnd when, you know, we've been making a lot of gains recently. Marijuana legalization, you know, reform. There's a lot of progress. There's wonderful, exciting things I'm seeing in Jamaica and Spanish. I mean, everywhere around the world, wonderful things are happening. But it reminds me that We were losing before. When I first got into activism, we were on the losing side. If you found one newspaper article about marijuana, it was usually negative and full of lies.

1:52:33SpeakerAnd it was so hard to even just break through that demonization and that barrier. And now so much has changed. So that's wonderful. But when we were losing, we were fighting hard to win. And the prohibitionists are losing now. So they're going to fight real hard with all their guns and all their force and all their might. They're going to fight hard to try and maintain what they've got in place.

1:52:58SpeakerSo we'll see what happens ahead.

1:53:00BubblemanWell, that's definitely been the conversation, Jodi. I would like to introduce you to Lynn Ulbrich, who's in the room here. She's been telling us about her son Ross' situation, and we've been talking about the Silk Road, and it's very much the same sort of situation in this sort of not doing harm, not doing wrong, but pushing the envelope beyond what most people can comprehend to the point where there are people that are, you know, just like, oh, well, they're They're selling cannabis.

1:53:30BubblemanThey should be locked. Like when I read the odd person writing that reply, it just hurts my soul.

1:53:37SpeakerI know. Even a lot of people in the marijuana industry, I've seen like people with pot leaves as their icons and they make edibles and they sell pot to people and they say, well, you know, you're no different than a crack house. I'm going, how can you say this? How can you actually say that? And I just received an email saying, You know, it's strange. I just received an email from somebody who's just a supporter and they said, I hate that this happened to you.

1:54:01SpeakerIt's so awful. But you need to start buying licensed producer weed and you need to start praising the government and praising Trudeau and praising them so that they don't keep hurting you. And for me, it's like, you know, do I really want to, that doesn't make sense to me. Like I, to say to them, yes, I'll give in to you. You're great. You're wonderful. Stop hurting me.

1:54:24SpeakerNo, I'd rather they keep hurting me and demonstrating how evil and cruel and sadistic they are. So people see what's really going on. There's no way that I'm going to turn around and give in to them that way. I can't. I know what we're doing is right. I know we're not hurting any people. And whatever happens to us, you know, for me, I haven't been arrested before.

1:54:45SpeakerI was detained in Montreal in December, but it was in the hotel room and they were very nice to me. And after four hours, I got out and left. But this time... You know, I was detained. They didn't let us call lawyers. I was kept overnight. I was sent to a woman's jail. And, you know, I've heard about this kind of experience. I've heard about being strip searched.

1:55:04SpeakerI've heard about all of it. We've been fighting against it for so long. But for myself to be in that situation, you know, I wasn't afraid. I didn't cry. I wasn't scared. It was more of a wide-eyed kind of, wow, this is what people have been going through. This is what they experienced to be forced to Thank you so much for joining us.

1:55:47Speakerwas terrifying and so many times as I was as I was sitting there thinking about how bad it felt I would say to myself well at least I know that when I hear a guard coming he's not coming to like go waterboard me or electrocute me or hang me upside down in the dark like political prisoners and people around the world are actually being treated right now all over every day so I know it's not as bad as it could be and that's what got me through it but it's still disgusting that that's happening to people all the time everywhere it breaks my heart

1:56:17BubblemanYeah, that's a pretty powerful statement, Jody. I definitely haven't really thought of that myself. But yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, there are people around the world right now in situations that we can't even fathom. And I guess...

1:56:31SpeakerThank you so much for joining us.

1:56:48SpeakerI still speak freely. I have freedom of speech. Maybe I can't talk about certain things just on my bail conditions and this or that. But at least, you know, I'm always trying to look at the bright side of things. And the best way to get through stuff is to think of how it could be worse. I'm always just saying at least I'm not in that position. So I'm all right.

1:57:07SpeakerI'll survive. Yeah, that was something that Ross specifically wrote. One of the first things that he wrote me from the prison was about how he would think of how much worse it was in other places. So I think that's a good thing to keep in mind, although it's obviously still not a good situation.

1:57:26BubblemanIt's interesting that difficulty and oppression and something worse is what gets us through things, not something better.

1:57:35SpeakerWell, I have to say that the dream and the vision that we had Okay, some people might say I was naive. And by the way, I'm going to apologize. The police took my makeup, my socks, my bras, my underwear, everything. So I've got nothing right now. But, you know, when I think of... Oh, shoot. And I'm also a bit brain dead from exhaustion and not eating too much well.

1:57:57SpeakerSo just about to say something before I interrupted myself. Well, happy out of prison. Yeah, yeah, no, no doubt. I concur. I think that what you're laying down is what other paths others will follow. And it's hard on us at first, you know, and welcome to getting arrested. I can't even count. I've been prosecuted now four times. So the amount of arrests are like ridiculous at this point.

1:58:19SpeakerBut it doesn't really break you. And when you go through it and you see what others have been experiencing, it motivates you even more. You know, when you get out, you're like, you know what? We really, really got to change this. Yeah. Well, the girl, one girl I was with in the detention center, she's in there for probably selling drugs of some kind or another on a small scale.

1:58:38SpeakerBut she was telling me her story about how, you know, she said, I've got three kids. I'm a single mother. And If you've never been in a situation where you're starving yourself to feed your kids, where you can't even pay your rent, you can't pay for the power, your children are freezing cold, you're withering away, what am I going to do? And she goes, now CAS are trying to take her kids.

1:59:00SpeakerShe's like, so now I need to fight this. And I thought, you know, I hear about this all the time. I've written about it. We've covered it. But to actually be there and to feel these women and their experience and to realize, like, no, they've totally fired me up. If I'm out of work for cannabis culture, I'm 100% employed in my activism now. And I think it's good to know that, yes, it's better in Canada and the United States than other places.

1:59:27SpeakerBut it doesn't mean we're not on our way there. And that's what concerns me. You know, and we've talked a lot before you came on about that and how it is a slippery slope and there are no guarantees. You know, things will always swing back and forth. And I remember what I forgot to remember was that I was going to say some people might say we were naive.

1:59:47SpeakerLike I know Mark, Mark Emery has been through quite a few arrests and, you know, we all know he's experienced quite a bit. But he said to me, well, of course, we're going to get raided. Of course, we're going to get arrested. It can't possibly go on. And I kept thinking. Well no, why do we have to get arrested? In all the possibilities that exist in the universe, one of those possibilities is that we're doing the right thing, we've got a wonderful model, people love us, people support us, we're looking to help people grow their business, employ themselves, be free from You know, being a slave to a corporation, they could go do their own job.

2:00:23SpeakerWe were really building out something beautiful and, you know, it took me back. I swear to you that right before we got arrested, I had said to Mark in the back of the Uber car on the way to the airport, I said, I'm the luckiest girl in the world. Things are going so well. We're opening new shops. Everything is wonderful. But it reminds me of exactly in 2005, Mark and others will remember this, when the DEA raid happened.

2:00:46SpeakerLiterally, we had just sent the best magazine edition of Cannabis Culture to press. We just had the best Tokers Bowl. You know, changes were kind of coming. We had the biggest seed catalog going out. In fact, my memory is me sitting back at my desk like, oh yeah, this is all good. And then, bam, they came in, right? So it's like when you think it's all going really, really well, that's probably when you should be like, hmm.

2:01:11SpeakerSomething might happen here. But again, it might be naive, but I'd like to say it was more hope and optimism. And when people are criticizing Trudeau and the government, it wasn't naive for us to believe what we were being promised. I mean, sure, I question politicians all the time. I don't trust government. But why is it naive to believe that maybe something good or decent or right might happen?

2:01:35SpeakerIs it so wrong to have that hope? Because if I hadn't had that hope, For that naivete or whatever, if I hadn't actually believed in what we were doing, I wouldn't have been able to do it. If I had woken up every day saying, well, today's the day I'm probably going to lose it all, it'd be awfully hard to keep doing what we were doing. So every day I kept saying, hey, our dream, our vision, our mission, it's perfect, it's wonderful, we're heading towards that goal.

2:02:02SpeakerAnd if it's taken away from us, it's not our fault, it's obviously the fault of the oppressors, so...

2:02:08BubblemanAnd they've got you staying in Ontario?

2:02:11SpeakerYep, I'm court ordered to live here in Toronto with Mark at our rental apartment here. So I do have a rental apartment in Vancouver, which the police tore apart. They turned over plants. They terrorized my cat. My sister is such a sweetheart. She's taking care of my cat for me. They like ripped apart my place and I, you know, I can get permission or I'm allowed to travel back to British Columbia if I let the police know.

2:02:36SpeakerBut right now we're not even allowed to travel around Canada. I was supposed to go to Calgary at the end of this month and speak in a debate session for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. And I can't travel there now. So, you know, we'll see. We'll try and vary these bail conditions so that Mark and I can start touring across Canada again. In 2009, we did the farewell tour for Mark before he went to prison.

2:03:01SpeakerAnd way back before that, Mark and I did the summer of legalization tour. So we could maybe start a new summer of not legalization tour, you know, or something. But we'll definitely get back to more of our writing, our activism, our political efforts. I mean, the fact is the business was sucking up all of my time, all of my energy, all for a great purpose. You know, there were 200 people working in cannabis culture locations at least.

2:03:28SpeakerSo we were building something beautiful and maybe it'll keep growing without us. But, you know, now I'll focus 100% on my writing, running for office, doing all the stuff we've always done otherwise, and maybe even having a big Supreme Court challenge so that we can win this thing.

2:03:46BubblemanExcellent. Well, you always have a spot here on the panel to come share what you're doing with our audience. We have 854 people watching live right now and 10,000 will watch in the next seven days. And yeah, just I hope that it... I hope that it ends up being good. It's just, it's so strange that they just, you know, when I saw the picture of you and Bill Blair, which was such a, standing there and big, bad Bill Blair looking down on you.

2:04:15BubblemanYou're also, you're just so innocent. It was a very powerful picture, whoever got it. I thought in that moment, I also had this positive sort of outlook. Like, I was like, you know what? Look at that. Fucking Jodi, like, just like Hillary. She'll just be like, move in there and smooth, smooth everything over. And maybe this is going to be good.

2:04:35SpeakerWell, especially since Bill came up to me and he came up and said, Jodi Emery took my hand. I'd really like to talk with you about legalization in the months ahead. I was like, well, absolutely, please. Yes. And then the next day I applied for the task force and the health minister at first said, sure. Yeah. Why, why can't she apply to be on the task force?

2:04:54SpeakerAnd then Bill Blair came out the next day saying, hell no. We're not having her on the task force and ever since he's been really avoiding me. But I just want to say, Mark, it's great to be on your show here and to think back of when, you know, I got first involved in all this. Mark hired me, Mark Emery hired me as the editor of Cannabis Culture, the assistant editor.

2:05:13SpeakerAnd I remember doing articles way back in the day of zip lining through grow rooms and stuff, you know, like there's all this wonderful stuff and how things have changed. So really, I feel, you know, it... Even considering the horrific situation we went through with the DEA, with Mark facing life in prison, I mean, that was probably more heavy handed than this. Although, to be fair, I'm being told that with the mandatory minimums and with what we're being charged with, we do face life in prison in Canada.

2:05:42SpeakerSo this is very heavy. This is very serious. But within two years or so, it should be legal in this country. And again, You know, we went through so much hardship and so many horrible things in the past, but look at where the movement is now. Look at where the culture is now. Absolutely. Look what we built out. I've got zero regrets and we'll survive, you know?

2:06:04BubblemanIt's kind of one of the reasons I was happy to have you in along with Lynn telling Ross's story. You know, Ross obviously is serving life in prison with no possibility of parole right now, but I see similarities, the way they came after Mark, the way they came after Ross. Mark...

2:06:23BubblemanThey had Mark, one of the top 44 most wanted people in the world, only which one of, I believe, was from Canada.

2:06:32SpeakerHe was the most wanted drug trafficking kingpin in Canada. Is that what you said about Mark?

2:06:41BubblemanSo there's similarities in the way they went after Mark and the way they went after Ross. And I think that the outcome of like when Mark went down there, this was sort of the props that I give to Mark because holy shit, I literally remember sitting in the editing office. You might have been there that day, Jody, and just saying like, oh, Thank you for joining us.

2:07:18BubblemanThank you for watching.

2:07:37SpeakerWell, he was facing 30 years to life. And I remember Mark saying, no, I'm going to go fight this. I'm going to go fight it. We had a great case. We had the DEA statement that it was a political arrest. We had so much evidence to show how it was wrong and unjust. But come on, when the government does things that are unjust. Thank you for watching.

2:08:15SpeakerBut in the end, you're going to be sent to prison and you'll die there. Can you please just take a plea deal instead? Could you please take a plea deal so you can come home so we can keep being activists? I'd much rather you go spend 5, 10 years and come home than go spend 5, 10, 20, 30 years and die down there. And so here in Canada right now when we're looking at this case, we have to consider the same thing.

2:08:38SpeakerDo we want to... Thank you so much for joining us.

2:09:04SpeakerBut at that time, things were very different. And it's very nice to see lawyers like Kirk Chusaw and Rob Laurie and a lot of other lawyers and legal experts saying, you know, you could revisit our versus Mama Levine. You could go back to that case. You could argue the recreational marijuana sale case in court. Because again, for anyone who doesn't know, cannabis culture decided to open up storefronts that were not medically focused.

2:09:31SpeakerI mean, patients are welcome. We have medical marijuana products. But we did not feel it was right to require people to see a doctor, pay a doctor, Be sick. Lie about being sick. We didn't, you know, put their information in a database at the location. We thought, treat it like Amsterdam. The oldest model people are familiar with is Amsterdam. You go in, you get some, you can enjoy it there, you can take it home, you know, but our model was supposed to be that for Canada.

2:09:57SpeakerBut of course, the Liberal government and those who have financial interests, including a lot of former cops and politicians, they're very interested in maintaining a model that benefits them Over others.

2:10:09BubblemanSo, um, did, did Malmo Levine not touch on harm reduction?

2:10:14SpeakerYes. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

2:10:16BubblemanSo because in, in Ross's case, uh, in the Silk Road case, there was a police officer, I believe from Connecticut, possibly, uh, part of LEAP, the law enforcement against prohibition. He's in the documentary Deep Web. He's a black gentleman. Okay, yeah, great, great, great guy and great information talking about the harm reduction of the Silk Road and how, you know, he's like, listen, you know how many, how many less people could be shot in a city like Detroit if there were, if they were able to get these things ordered through the mail.

2:10:49BubblemanSo he came at it from this whole harm reduction, um, uh, Thank you so much for joining us.

2:11:15SpeakerAnd the journalists went there and it was reopened. But it didn't reopen until after we got out of jail. I guess everybody was waiting to see what happened to us. And again, we have no affiliation. We did not order them to reopen. We have no connection with that. But they decided to do it themselves. But before they opened the doors, and there were dozens of people lined up down the street, banging on the doors, asking to get in, the reporter noted in his column, he said, right next door, there's a shady guy standing in the doorway, and he's literally saying, I don't like that Mark Henry guy, I hope they don't reopen.

2:11:48SpeakerAnd every person who passed by said, hey, you want to buy some pot? Hey, you want to buy some pot? And some people did, but a lot of people did not. And the journalist said, this is exactly... What these storefronts are trying to replace. And it's incredible when the police raid dispensaries and raid these storefronts, they know for a fact they're turning people to the sources that they claim are more dangerous.

2:12:10SpeakerThis is all a manufactured crime. I bet I'm just preaching to the choir here. But we all know that the drug war and drug prohibition is just a policy designed to enrich You know, police budgets and those who create the legal alternatives, pharmaceutical companies. And it's very telling that, you know, we've got this opioid crisis all across Canada. People are dying on the streets every day, all across the US too.

2:12:34SpeakerWe know that the opioid fentanyl crisis is a serious, serious drug problem. You don't see the cops raiding doctors' offices. You don't see the pharmaceutical companies being told to pay for this in any way, shape or form. And yet they turn to the marijuana people. And at the same time, we know that when you increase marijuana access, you decrease opioid deaths. And I've been sharing the drugfree.org website, the U.S. government's own anti-drug website, has the report.

2:13:04SpeakerAnd it says, where medical marijuana is available, opioid deaths go down. So I'm saying, you know, every time that the liberal government and any government seeks to restrict and limit marijuana access, Those dead bodies from opioids are on their hands because those people could have been saved by a safer alternative.

2:13:23BubblemanYeah, it's pretty intense. I had a thought. I've lost it now as well, but it was in regards to something that you were saying. Darn, it was a good thought too.

2:13:33SpeakerThe hypocrisy is pretty thick, yes. You know, you can die popping pills, but if you smoke a joint and get happy, you are a problem in their society. It's that drug hypocrisy on the one hand, but then it's also the fact, I can't get over the fact that the former drug squad people, former politicians, former cops, they are literally owning and running and operating these marijuana businesses.

2:14:00SpeakerThey're literally pushing out the people that they oppressed and trying to take it over. And I have to apologize to all of the people in the U.S., Thank you for watching.

2:14:24SpeakerNo, no, no. You were right then. And you know what? We have to keep that attitude now because the transition is awkward, but we knew it would be. I mean, the former mayor of the city of Oakland is now trying to open a pot club in San Francisco. Just, you know, just to put this in comparison. So the reality is, is we're facing this all over. But you know what?

2:14:45SpeakerThe best thing would happen is the people that once oppressed us wanted to become like us. So, so let them emulate you and, you know, be the spearhead you are and realize that the change will follow, you know, I mean, it's just this awkward, you know, when Mark first opened his bookstore in the eighties, he couldn't sell in high times and grow books. And now that's no big deal.

2:15:08SpeakerAnd someday, and probably the not so distant future, it will be not a big deal that they're selling buds and hash, just like they're selling grow books in high times and, you know, transitions, It's an uncomfortable phase, but you know, if you weren't doing this, other people wouldn't look at you and go, you know, I could do this too. And that's where I think you all gotta like be optimistic and focus on and keep the direction on equal rights.

2:15:35SpeakerNot just rights, because, you know, legalization was rights. Now we want equal rights. We want to be treated like wine users, beer drinkers, cigarette smokers, pill poppers from whatever doctor's office didn't get rated. We want equal rights. Yep, we got to end the stigma, end the demonization. We do need to normalize cannabis. You know, and a lot of these government officials say we don't want to normalize it, don't want it to be normal.

2:15:59SpeakerI'm saying absolutely we need to normalize it. And you're right. Incrementalism is important. So, you know, we never would have gotten this far without first having cannabis. You know, decriminalization or even lowest police priority and then medical marijuana. And you're right, this transition phase will be different and difficult. But at the same time, we can illustrate and we can argue about why these changes need to happen.

2:16:23SpeakerAgain, with the hypocrisy angle, you know, the mayor of Toronto here, the biggest city, I think it's the fifth largest city in North America. John Tory. He's in the newspaper saying, hey, the law is the law. I support these raids. We need to keep arresting people. That's the way it is. Meanwhile, he admitted himself that he was smuggling pot in a boat years ago with his friend and the police were following them and they hid the stash and they managed to smuggle it successfully.

2:16:49SpeakerThese guys are so hypocritical. But when people see it and they hear it, they know it's lies. And Is this the mayor that followed the last really, really crazy mayor of Toronto? Yes, this is Rob Ford and then John Tory. Okay, well, how do you follow that act? I mean, you got to come up with some bullshit. You know, they better go find like, you know, get some alcohol and style.

2:17:13SpeakerHe'll be the next. The next guy, right? They can smuggle stuff and be junkies, but you can't sell pot in their city. Oh, honey. No, but it's so sad when initially there, you know, two years ago, it felt like there weren't many raids. There weren't many arrests. Legalization had been accepted as an idea. The liberals were going to win. I was running as a liberal candidate nomination candidate for well over a year.

2:17:36SpeakerAnd I remember, I remember saying many times, Thank you so much for joining us.

2:18:05SpeakerAnd the police chief, Bill Blair, who's now in charge of legalization, you saw them starting to fan out across the country and say, okay, okay, legalization means restrict access, limit access, stop the gangs, protect the kids, and it's not about anything else. That's all it is. And now they're going to the police station Chiefs across the country, the most recent tour Bill Blair just did on the legalization tour was only to talk to the police to promise them their budgets would remain intact.

2:18:32SpeakerAnd in fact, they'll get more money to deal with all the problems legalization will bring up. It's absolute madness. But again, prohibition profiteers, you got the gangsters, you got the government, you got the cops, and they're all kind of in there together.

2:18:47BubblemanAnd, uh, you know, it's for real because the day Bill Blair was in Abbotsford was the day Johnny B, John Burfellow got pulled over by the police and he went live on Facebook and showed it. He was like, why the hell is this drug cop in Abbotsford? I've never seen these guys before. He had a drug dog. And I told him later, I said, that's the day Bill Blair was in Abbotsford.

2:19:08BubblemanI guarantee you. Absolutely. And that guy knows this. This prohibition wave is rippling. John, who's lived there for 20 years or more, is suddenly getting harassed.

2:19:23SpeakerAnd our vapor lounge where people smoke pot inside. The day after Bill Blair visited Vancouver, we got bylaw officials came by and gave us a ticket for operating without a license, a ticket for smoking indoors. And then in London, Ontario, Bill Blair shows up the next day, five raids. And then Toronto. I mean, everywhere they're going, you can see what they're doing. You can see what their mission is.

2:19:46SpeakerIt's not a secret. It's not a conspiracy. It's very obvious. But again, it just it means that we need to be strong and be bold. And, you know, if we cannot be activists through civil disobedience like myself, I can't break the distribution laws anymore. So I can't use civil disobedience myself anymore. But I damn right, I'm going to be political. I'm going to educate. I'm going to talk to media, doing tons of interviews.

2:20:12SpeakerWe won't give up. And just like when they stopped the seed business and we had to lay people off and it was hard, it was painful, it was difficult, but we survived and we're stronger. It's like Obi-Wan Kenobi. Darth Vader, you can strike me down, you'll make me stronger than you could ever imagine. So, you know, we'll just keep being strong. And I'm very sorry that... But you've lost your son to jail.

2:20:35SpeakerI mean, it's killing me that I just can't get over how many lives are being ruined. We can't even calculate it because then you consider the loved ones. You're suffering. Your family is suffering. His friends, his family. I mean, the ripple effect goes out everywhere. And I just had a critic on Twitter saying, how dare you compare your struggle to the civil rights movement of the 60s for, you know...

2:20:59SpeakerAnd I said, you know what? She said, nobody's being beaten up or killed over pot. And I said, that is untrue. People are violated, strip searched, abused, executed all the time in this drug war. People are dying right now because of cannabis prohibition. So don't you tell me that's not happening. But they don't know. A lot of people don't realize how deep marijuana prohibition goes. It's... You know, the idea of pulling people over at the side of the road and reaching into their genitals to search for pot when they just didn't stop fully at a stop sign.

2:21:31SpeakerAnd that's based on pot, taking kids away for pot. You know, all of these horrible things. I mean, there's that story about that couple that lost their kid to foster care and the child was killed. Because they use cannabis and they lost their kids and the kid dies. I mean, this is a massive human rights crisis. So whenever people say to you, oh, don't, you know, it's just pot.

2:21:53SpeakerYou just want the right to get high. Absolutely not. If they stopped the war on drugs... Thank you for watching.

2:22:15SpeakerSure, because I'm not in this so I can smoke pot. That's not my goal. My goal is to stop this massive, massive, multi-billion dollar, multi-trillion dollar expense of ruining people's lives. But remember, cannabis is freedom for the mind, for the spirit. And that is the threat. And when you think of 1984, the book, and you think of all the stories of when humans are being oppressed, even the fact that people who exercise Tai Chi are executed and their organs are harvested.

2:22:47SpeakerI mean, what is it? Why are we being punished? It's because we're free thinkers who will not be subservient to the oppressors. And they hate that more than anything else. So it's not about pot. It's about being... Thank you for watching.

2:23:14SpeakerHow long can they really lock me up for until they break? Because I was faced with it. I got busted for growing pot. In 95, they raided my house the first time in San Diego. And I had to make a conscious decision. Was I going to live afraid? Or was I going to get back out and grow pot again? And, you know, four more, four more prosecutions later, obviously, I made an outward decision to not live by their horrifically stupid rules.

2:23:41SpeakerAnd, you know, we have to make that choice. I mean, someday we're all going to die. We may well die, you know, living the way we thought was totally right, peaceful with integrity and courage rather than in compliance and fear. So, and you're in Canada. So how long can they lock you up for anyway? You can kill people in Canada under a decade, right? It's Canada. They have nothing over your head.

2:24:05SpeakerAnd you bring up the fact that people, they have died. And I think of, you know, Michelle Rainey and many others who literally dedicated their lives to this fight. And they're not here today to see the progress that we have made. We have made progress. And you know what? I'm not going to be around to see the progress either, but Many times in my speeches over the years, I would say, you know, there's no end goal of victory because even when we get our freedom, our enemies will never stop fighting to take it away.

2:24:35SpeakerSo every victory we gain, we're always going to be struggling to keep it because they're going to try and take it away. But at least I know that in the goal, the goal of freedom, the goal of liberty is It's a destination of sorts. And as long as I'm putting down my stones in the path towards that goal, I know that the people behind me, the kids who are not even born yet today, but the work that we're all doing, the activism that we're all doing, we're laying the path for other people to get closer to freedom.

2:25:06SpeakerSo even if we don't get to the end of that path, at least I know I laid down some stones and people are walking that path. I got to say something here. We talked a lot before you came on about how the drug war is not about drugs. And the effort you're making and others are making is not about drugs, as you made that point. And it is a historical battle.

2:25:29SpeakerAnd the world's kind of dividing up between people that care about freedom and want freedom and people who want to control. And it's international. And so you're right. It's not... It's just another vehicle for the expansion of a totalitarian state. And you mentioned the families, and I just want to say that, you know, going to the prison, saying earlier, I get to know the families and the children.

2:25:58SpeakerAnd there's two and a half million in the United States, children who have an incarcerated parent. And the ripple effect in society of what's happening to these families is so destructive and so cruel. And I believe way more destructive than any drug use of any kind. Oh, absolutely. And what they're doing is just, it's horrendous. You know, I just wanted to underline what you're saying. You're right.

2:26:27SpeakerI remember Mark being in prison and for me, you know, going there, visiting him. We're strong. We love each other. Like we were getting through it. But the things that made me cry was when you saw the moms and their children. And it's that point where like you have to leave. So you have to separate and all the men go line up on the one wall and the moms.

2:26:46SpeakerAnd I remember moms turning away and trying not to cry and their little nine year old is like, Don't cry, Mommy. It's okay. It's going to be okay, Mommy. And just how that killed me. And then even worse was the thought that these poor families, first of all, they're struggling without a loved one. So they're financially definitely in dire straits. So when they save up the $50 they need to buy gasoline to get in the car to drive the four-hour trip to prison, those are the lucky ones.

2:27:13SpeakerThose are the lucky ones. When you think about that, the other ones who can't visit, they don't even have money for a phone call. They can't even... Speak with their loved ones, and yet the ones I'm seeing suffering right in front of my face, these little children running up to their daddy and hugging him and watching those men themselves trying not to cry, trying to be, I'm tough, I'm in prison, but you know it's fucking killing them.

2:27:36SpeakerThat was so heartbreaking. You're right. The repercussions of this. And even Mark said when he was in prison and they had the drug classes where you have to go to like, I forget what it's called now, but where they teach you about drugs and how bad it is and you have to, you know, give it up. They say to these inmates, like 70% of your kids are going to be arrested or jailed or something in the future.

2:27:58SpeakerAnd it's because... And they know they're manufacturing this. You're taking away that child's parent. You know you're putting them in that position. And then even like the seizing children from parents and ripping them apart and even putting kids in separate homes and they get shuffled around. I mean, that's a forever effect. That's abuse. You're right. If you gave that child drugs, it wouldn't hurt them as much.

2:28:22SpeakerAnd speaking of giving kids drugs, it's Pretty funny to watch as I'm on TV and I'm doing my interviews and I'm watching the interview where we're being released from prison and right on the bottom of the screen on the ticker it says, Canadian universities and doctors are going to be giving cannabis oil to children in a huge study across Canada. So while the cops are saying, oh, they're selling shatter and extracts, by the way, we're giving shatter and extracts to kids to save their lives.

2:28:50SpeakerIt's maddening, but at least I know everybody watching, like the world sees this. And as much as the media can get stuff wrong and things are spun and the false news and whatever, people see hypocrisy. They know when they're being lied to and they know when they're being jerked around. And when they see that sort of contrast, they say to themselves, This isn't right. And for all the pot people who are saying, yeah, they should go to jail, it's rewarding to see a lot of people who are like, I don't even like Jodi and Mark Emery.

2:29:17SpeakerI don't like them at all. But this is wrong. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. And I am with them 100% on this. I don't like them, but I'm with them. And that's nice. I like that. It means we're doing the right thing.

2:29:31BubblemanThat's right. That's why voice is always important and not to be, you know, not to allow them to hammer down too hard. You know, through that, it's once again goes back to their enforcement. You know, they force through violence. They'll come and physically get you with weapons and then they'll put you in cages on wheels and drive you to other cages. It's a pretty incredible thing. A system that we have for ourselves here.

2:30:02SpeakerAnd even, you know, I didn't think, like I'm tough, like I said, when I was in custody, when I was in jail, I never cried. I mean, it was a horrible experience waking up repeatedly all night long. Like, what time is it? Are they coming to get me finally? It should be 5 a.m. by now. I want to go to court. Get me out of here. But for me, it's the after effects.

2:30:23SpeakerAnd even my lawyer said, Jodi, you need to be ready to process what's happened. Because I think I do have post-traumatic stress disorder. You know, when I first got apprehended in Montreal and held for four hours, it was undercover officers. And they came up to me in the hotel and they said, hey, Jodi Emery. And I'm like, yeah. And they go, can we get our photo with you?

2:30:43SpeakerAnd I was like, well, sure. You know, I do that all the time. And then immediately I'm like, well, who's got the camera? Smack, cuffs, you know, I'm under arrest. And these were four plainclothes guys that I thought were fans. And then we just got detained at the Toronto airport, plainclothes officers, just men in regular jackets coming up, putting handcuffs on us. And literally when I'm out at a restaurant or I'm walking down the street and I see a guy who looks a bit tough maybe, and I'm like, oh my God, is that a cop?

2:31:11SpeakerAm I about to get arrested? Like I'm actually traumatized. And I woke up The day after we got out of jail, so yesterday morning I woke up to the sound of a truck backing up outside, and you know it goes beep, beep, beep, beep, and I'm like, whatever, that's a truck backing up, but what it did to me is it put me back into that prison vehicle, the back of that steel cage where you can't see out, and you're handcuffed, and you're Thank you for watching.

2:31:52SpeakerThank you for watching.

2:32:11SpeakerAnd again, I could be arrested any time. There could still be ongoing investigation. I could get picked up today. I really don't know. But I just want people to know I'm not afraid because I know that we're doing right. I might be uncomfortable. I might be a little worried and I might think it's wrong. But whatever happens to me, I know I'm doing the right thing alongside a great number of people.

2:32:32SpeakerAnd every time I speak out, I'm not speaking just for myself. I'm always trying to speak for everyone else who doesn't have that voice, who doesn't have that platform, for all the nameless, faceless people who have suffered, who will never get a chance to share their argument. I'm going to dedicate myself 200% now to making sure I speak on behalf of all those people who are suffering and will keep suffering.

2:32:55SpeakerThat's my life. I'm dedicated. Thank you. Me too. I feel exactly the same way. When you go to the prisons and you get to know those people and you realize they don't have that voice and that they're, multiply them by multiple thousands, then just, I mean, when I get Ross out or when, you know, he's released, we won't, or I won't stop. Yeah. Because, you know. How can you?

2:33:21SpeakerAnd I, the reporters, some reporters were saying, after hearing about the treatment, they said, does that mean you're going to become an advocate against prisoner treatment and against jails? And I said, absolutely. I've been criticizing that from the get-go, but even more so. We know that the private prison system is awful and all the prisons are wrong, but it's very scary looking to the United States right now and seeing that, you know, the idea that these private prisons who have been losing clients, prisoners, are now very excited about the idea that not only the illegal immigration situation, but the drug charges.

2:33:57SpeakerI mean, in the back of one of the prison vehicles, there was a guy who'd been living here for 20 years And he had a previous charge for maybe something that wasn't a good thing, but he got stopped with a dime bag of weed and now he's being deported to Somalia because of a dime bag of weed. So, you know, maybe, I don't know if he should be here or not.

2:34:15SpeakerThat's not my point. But the fact is they're using marijuana as a reason Thank you so much for joining us today.

2:34:49SpeakerYou know, nobody's being forced at the point of a gun to buy marijuana and use it. Nobody. So it's just the government criminalizing consenting transactions. And that's wrong. That's unjust. And if you do no harm, you can die. Hurt nobody. And when we're helping people and the government's hurting people.

2:35:09BubblemanTrue, yeah. Well, they have their specific, what they call illegal drugs, and those are disruptors to their system. You know, just the same way the Bitcoin technology that, you know, can't be traced and can be used in a way to buy anonymously through the deep web. It created an agenda or a platform or a mechanism that the agenda absolutely fears because it would crumble their very foundation if it could take...

2:35:37BubblemanThank you for joining us.

2:35:52BubblemanWe would probably sniff out other things that weren't free, that should be free. Cannabis is easy to get behind, but it sure seems like if they give it to you to placate you, I sure wouldn't want to stop, especially when I hear stories that go deeper than just our cannabis activism has taken us, but these great disruptive technologies like cyber cryptocurrencies and the dark web.

2:36:22SpeakerLet me say a quick thing about the private prisons. Judges and prosecutors are allowed to invest in them on Wall Street. So there's, you know, that's just one thing, but it's such a conflict of interest. And they do. And they do. Yeah, not just that they can. And they do. Yeah.

2:36:43BubblemanYeah. And they control how they make that money. And I'll tell you a firsthand story. My friend Pedro Smiley, a glassblower from back in the 90s, he got into some trouble at a fish show. He was asked for he wanted to find a ticket. And the person who had the ticket said he wanted to get a tab of ecstasy. And my friend Pedro was didn't have ecstasy, but it was fish lot.

2:37:06BubblemanSo he was like, I'll find you some ecstasy. Just hold on for a second. And he went literally two people over and found a little pill of ecstasy. Instead of bringing the guy over, bought it and then brought it over and traded it with the guy. Well, that was a federal agent and he was brought into a van and he was offered freedom if he gave up three people, which he refused to do.

2:37:27BubblemanSo he ended up getting a couple of years For this transaction, and he had to serve it in this particular, I think it was in Deer Creek, Indiana, where he had this thing happen.

2:37:40SpeakerYeah, Deer Creek.

2:37:42BubblemanYeah, Noblesville, exactly. So he ended up there for a couple years, but this was the crazier thing. This is how we found out about the judge and the prosecutor both being involved in this prison because he got sent home back to Oregon and they basically called him months later and said, oh, there's been a mistake. We need you to come back and serve another six months. And he he did a little research and found out that the judge and the prosecutor both invest in this private prisoner prison and that the prosecutor often asks for the most time and that the judge often gives it because they both get paid.

2:38:16SpeakerYeah, inventory.

2:38:17BubblemanGotta have that inventory. That seems just too, like, that seems like that could not happen. I mean, that's so flagrantly, right? Like, you don't even have, like, that's not like a deeply hidden government secret. That's just like, you could find that shit out.

2:38:31SpeakerHuman trafficking, like I said.

2:38:33BubblemanIt's human trafficking. That's what it is.

2:38:36SpeakerAnd it's kind of like how here you've got the police raiding dispensaries and they go, well, by the way, you can buy marijuana if you go to these companies that our pensions are invested in. Go buy stock in the weed ticker. Go buy stock. Go buy weed. These companies are happy to grow it. So right now, I could go buy stock in a marijuana growing company that was started by cops and politicians.

2:39:06SpeakerAnd meanwhile, I'm still facing jail time for not even growing pot. No, it's absolute madness. But again, as this goes on and as it gets worse, people see the hypocrisy. And we've got a great column in the paper here where the journalist said, this is clearly a corporate takeover. This is an attempt to push out the pioneers, take what they built. It's absolutely corrupt. But I don't think anyone's surprised to find out that government is corrupt and evil.

2:39:36BubblemanYeah, or it's just like I think I saw Kirk Lynn's husband on the Deep Web documentary as well talk about the media. And he's like, oh, I never really realized how, you know, how angled the media was until I was in it. And I felt the same way. And I wasn't in the media in a big way by any means. But it's true for anyone that's probably, you know, if you've been in the media and It is frightening the shit that they can get wrong.

2:40:01BubblemanThe way what they get wrong coincidentally like kind of paints this angled picture that you can't ever get away from.

2:40:09SpeakerRight. And then you have to then wonder every article you read, even if it's like firemen rescued a kitten from an oak tree on Smith Street. And you're like, Was there really an oak tree? You know, is that actually life? You start to question everything they write about. You go, well, hold on. If they got a simple fact wrong in this article, you got to question everything.

2:40:30SpeakerSo I kind of sympathize with people who are, you know, fake news and this and that. And listen, I know there's a lot of hate out there. In the 90s, when they wrote about me getting busted in the Bel Air Mansion, LA Times, all the newspapers embellished who bailed me out and dropped every name they could in their journalistic entries of me. And then the Inquirer did a whole page on my case.

2:40:53SpeakerThey didn't drop one name. They got every fact correct. And they told the story straight. And I went, wow, that fucked up. And I never looked at the news the same ever again. No kidding, right? Yeah, Gailey Mantle did a good job with my interview, too. But I'm skeptical about everything I read in the media, about anything now. And what I've been told is, you know, they want access to the government.

2:41:18SpeakerThey don't cross them a lot of the time. They don't want to give up that access. And a lot of them, I think, are a mouthpiece for the government. That's my personal observation. Oh, no, it's absolutely true. A lot of media people are definitely, like, looking to be friends with the authorities, the oppressors. And, you know, I have a lot of disdain and disgust for a lot of media and a lot of lawyers, like the prosecutor lawyers, you know, a lot of people hate lawyers and media.

2:41:45SpeakerBut then when I think about it, without lawyers and without media, government is not held accountable by anybody. So even if the media get... I feel bad for real journalism because clearly we all know there's no money for real reporting and real journalists. I mean, back in Vancouver, they're shutting down basically our entire newspaper. They're firing everybody. Everybody's gone. There's no journalists. There's only press releases that get put out.

2:42:16SpeakerThank you so much for joining us.

2:42:45SpeakerThank you for joining us.

2:43:05SpeakerWe know we're doing the right thing. We know we're peaceful people. We're defending this plant. We're defending this culture. We're defending the concept of freedom. And we're doing no wrong. So whatever happens, I am still confident that we are going to be looked well upon when people look back at history.

2:43:26BubblemanAbsolutely. I think you guys will persevere for sure. I have strong feelings for both of your cases, for the Emerys and for the Albrechts. I feel that, you know, it sounds like there's so many different holes in Ross's case that he has a lot of different angles to come at fighting his appeal.

2:43:49SpeakerWe're hopeful. Thanks. Yeah, we'll find out. It's being deliberated. Are people able to donate to a legal, like what would you recommend? Well, freeroff.org is our website and there's definitely an opportunity to donate. There's lots of different things that people can do through that website. So that's the main hub. And yeah, please visit. There's a lot of facts about the case that are actually true. And, you know, and lots of opportunities if you, um, Yeah, to volunteer, to donate, to buy through Amazon and help us a bit.

2:44:29SpeakerYou know, there's an art game. Tatiana mentioned how Ross is an artist. There's an art game where for a dollar you can help reveal what art he did. There's just lots of different fun things too. Well, a big part of what I wanted to do, the reason I decided to I guess I shouldn't admit anything, although it's all in the newspapers. We wanted to build this cannabis distribution model to be able to restart what Mark Emery did with the seed business.

2:44:56SpeakerMark sold millions of seeds and made millions of dollars, and that money was all given away to court challenges and rallies and all sorts of efforts. So when Mark got out of jail two years ago, And we were kind of struggling to figure out what to do. You know, there were dispensaries everywhere. There's business growing. And I thought, without money, we can't really help a lot of people.

2:45:18SpeakerLike, I want to donate to court cases. I want to be able to give back. We need to find a way to do that. So the idea of cannabis storefronts made sense that we would be a model where people would shop with cannabis culture, knowing that it was going towards helping people. And Mark managed to donate a lot of money. I donated a fair bit myself. But the fact is right now, unfortunately, we don't have the ability to do that anymore.

2:45:43SpeakerBut we have a massive audience. We've got a lot of people out there who are willing to help our causes or our shared causes. So I will use my voice to help raise the port for those who need it, even if I don't have the dollars to give it myself. But also, maybe I will get a job as a public speaker. Maybe I'll be making millions for something else, you know, and I'll be definitely...

2:46:06SpeakerDoing what I intend to do with that money. Using it as a tool to help free people. Because I don't own a house. I don't own a car. I don't have jewelry. I don't need anything. But you need money to make things politically. So that's what we need money for. And in some way or other, we're going to try to find a way to keep doing that.

2:46:24SpeakerYeah. That's the goal. Yeah, I really think people, everyone who believes in freedom, you know, whatever your particular cause is, we need to support each other because we have a very formidable adversary. And it's not just the United States. It's, I think, a global thing. And it has to be a grassroots effort. And I think we need to help each other. And it's not only with money.

2:46:50SpeakerYou always need money. That's one of the ways they crush you is it costs so much money. Thank you so much for joining us.

2:47:16SpeakerThat people realize that this is bigger like you said than getting to smoke pot peacefully. It's about freedom in general and how that is being eroded very rapidly and through the drug war and other means. People think, a lot of people think, well, it's drugs, it's bad, so it's okay, go do whatever you need to do, and they don't understand how this is going to impact them as well and their own personal freedom.

2:47:42SpeakerYeah, and the fact that for a lot of people who are not pot enthusiasts, you know, they're against drugs, and they're like, well, I... I don't care. You should all go to jail. You know you're paying for it too. Your tax dollars are being used. So wouldn't you prefer your money pay for your health care or maybe your kids to go to school or something else, but you'd rather it be spent?

2:48:03SpeakerLike you're paying for it too, even if you don't smoke pot and you don't like it. Paying for those prisoners. Bye. You're leaving. I see you leaving. I just want to say bye. Bye. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Thank you, everybody, for all coming together. It's been really interesting. And it's great to be able to extend Ross's story to other people. And thanks, you know, for putting up the good fight.

2:48:33SpeakerAnd yeah, signing off. Thanks, everyone.

2:48:38BubblemanThanks, Tatiana.

2:48:42BubblemanWell, I'm just working.

2:48:43SpeakerMark, you're having Dana Larson and Kirk Toussaint are going to be on your show today?

2:48:48BubblemanYou know, Dana ended up texting me and saying that he's at a loud event. And he said, would that work? I'm like, no, no, we need quiet rooms, headphones, like that sort of thing. So Kirk said he would try. But I haven't heard from him yet. And we're going into our last little bit here now. So hopefully he makes it. Otherwise, we can have him on another episode.

2:49:10BubblemanI've always tried to get Kirk on. He's so well spoken and seems to really, really know what he's talking about in regards to the entire the overview and I guess being involved in so many of the different trials.

2:49:23SpeakerIt's hilarious thinking, you know, Mark Emery brought Kirk up to Canada from Detroit to the U.S. and put him through law school here. And Kirk went and wrote his exam, his bar exam to become a lawyer in Canada on July 29, 2005. And he finished his exam and he walked out and he pulled out his phone and it's like, Kirk, the DEA is raiding our store. You've got to come help.

2:49:49SpeakerThey've arrested Mark. And he's like, well, I guess I'm a lawyer now, you know. So Kirk is amazing. Kirk Tucson is fantastic. If you get a chance to follow him on Twitter or Facebook, I mean, he is so brilliant and wonderful. And here's Mark in his house robe. Hey, Mark Richardson, how are you? Hey. I remember you wouldn't let us even print your name. You went apeshit one time.

2:50:14SpeakerThen we put the name in accidentally. So how things have changed, eh?

2:50:18BubblemanYes, absolutely. We've all stepped up a little bit, you know.

2:50:22TonyGood to hear it.

2:50:25SpeakerAnyway, the good thing about this is that Jodi has to live with me by force of law now, so she's all mine. Nice. Always looking at the positive.

2:50:37BubblemanAlways looking at the positive, indeed. Yes.

2:50:44SpeakerWell, thank you so much, Mark, for giving me the chance to speak to your audience. I mean, everybody knows hash church is huge. And I'm sorry that I'm not often on the show smoking hash. And right now I'm prohibited until I get my license. But once I get my license, or wait, are you legally allowed to consume hash as a Health Canada patient? I don't know. Is that allowed now?

2:51:04SpeakerI guess so.

2:51:05TonyAbsolutely. It is. Good.

2:51:06SpeakerAll right. Well, I'll come to hash church with my hash pipe once I'm legally authorized to do so.

2:51:13BubblemanExcellent. Sounds like a plan. We'll keep in touch for sure. And thank you so much for coming on and sharing your guys' story.

2:51:20SpeakerAwesome. And I see a lot of familiar faces down there, Todd. It's awesome to see you. I mean, Mark and I can't travel. Is that Todd McCormick? Yeah, yeah. Oh, hey, Todd. How are you doing? So Mark and I, unfortunately, we can't travel right now. Todd's great. Hi, Mark. I'm thrilled to see what you're both doing, honestly. I really, really love it. I'm sorry to see you both going through it, but I really love you doing it.

2:51:42SpeakerEvery decade, the government takes my business away from me. They took the seeds away. Now they're taking our chain of stores away. But you know what? It's just another day in paradise. And you know, Todd, it's funny when you just mentioned that you got arrested in 1995, and I'm thinking, you know, I was starting grade five then, so props to you longtime warriors, not to age anybody.

2:52:04SpeakerYou know, the funny thing is Todd doesn't look older than you. Yeah, you must be using some sort of hemp oil. Hemp seed oil. It's hemp seed oil. I use a lot of it. That's how I got into it all. I read Jack's book and I didn't believe shit because I was a cynic. And the more I learned, the more it blew me away. And, you know, yeah.

2:52:24SpeakerBut getting raided and arrested the first time sucked and it was uncomfortable. But I did have to make a conscious decision that I was going to continue to do what I thought was right. And I've always admired that. And you, Mark, and you know it. And Jodi, welcome to the club. I don't know what Are you guys in Spanibus right now? No, I'm not. ATN is. Oh, okay.

2:52:43SpeakerGreat. How's it going this year?

2:52:47Etienne FontanEveryone's missing you. Everybody was anticipating you guys to be there, but it's been...

2:52:52SpeakerI was supposed to be opening up a club there.

2:52:55Etienne FontanNow I can't leave Canada, so that's unfortunately going to get cancelled, but... You're sorely missed, both of you, and I know everybody sends their love and respect and appreciation, needless to say. But fight the good fight. Be strong. Everybody's with you. And we send our love and appreciation. Head high. Awesome.

2:53:17SpeakerThank you. Sweet. Thanks so much, Mark, and everybody else. And then I'll share the free Ross link very soon here. Thank you so much.

2:53:27BubblemanI'll get you guys in touch with each other, Jodi.

2:53:29SpeakerOkay. Happy to. So nice to meet you. A lot of Todd's dedication to me when I got my Lifetime Achievement Award in Amsterdam. I think about that often. Thank you again, Todd. Oh, you know, I meant it, Mark. I've been, you know, if it wasn't for people doing what you're doing, if it wasn't for the people that looked at society a little different and said, hey, we got to step up and stand up for our rights, we wouldn't have rights to stand up for.

2:53:52SpeakerSo it's not just getting the right. It's now implementing the laws that are changing. And you're doing that in a really profound way. And I think that is fantastic. And the world is watching more than ever. And I think the only outcome is triumphant. I don't see any other way this could work out other than prohibition failed and things get set on the path of correct. And that won't happen if we don't stand up.

2:54:19SpeakerAnd I love that you're breaking the system. And the more and more cannabis people use, I really, you know, just for the viewers, if you don't know, when I was in high school, I was against marijuana. I was against drugs. I gave my best friends so much grief for smoking pot. I said, you may as well just go die right now because you're killing yourself using marijuana.

2:54:41SpeakerAnd then I realized, you know, that I'd used it. And then I realized I was lied to. And my pot smoking friends were incredibly smart and incredibly brilliant. But for me, I kind of want to do to the world what was done to me. Once they start using cannabis, you know, for preventing Alzheimer's, for, you know, health reasons, all of these people out there who are going to use marijuana either medically or recreationally, I think the plant...

2:55:08SpeakerItself and the spirit of cannabis will change the world revolution that once you start using cannabis, you're going to start questioning things that are wrong. You're going to start being a little more tolerant. It naturally makes you think of things in a different way. So cannabis will actually open people's minds and maybe, and maybe I'm just being naive again, but maybe we will have a big cultural revolution, the new age of Aquarius and everybody will be anti-war and using cannabis and we'll replace oil and petroleum with hemp biofuel and we'll reverse climate change by using hemp in our buildings so it sucks the carbon dioxide out of it.

2:55:48SpeakerIn fact, I might just become a full-time hemp activist at this point because there's so many ways that that's going to save the world too. So, um, Just no biofuel, no biofuel. No, it's too valuable to burn as a fuel. All right. It's too valuable. Can we grow enough? Feed people. We could grow enough to feed people is more important than putting a liquid fuel inside an internal combustion engine.

2:56:12SpeakerThere's other ways to transport goods and people that don't need liquid fuel. That is true. You're right. It takes a whole lot of energy to convert Because, you know, think of whenever you look at the plant, you should look at the cellulose as stored sunlight. And it takes a lot of energy and the plant exudes a lot of energy in building up those high molecular weight things.

2:56:38SpeakerTo break those down to small molecular weights like ethanol and stuff like that, it's just not economically viable. It's not good. We should use the high molecular weight stuff to do. We always like to have at least one PhD in the room, Jody.

2:57:09SpeakerYeah, well, hey, you know what? That's another thing that we need is we need more PhDs in the room. We need people who are in the non-cannabis industries of food and medicine to embrace this as a new industry. Thank you for joining us.

2:57:47SpeakerThank you for joining us.

2:58:06SpeakerAgain, you can't be made into safe and effective medicines in that there's all kinds of careers and opportunities for really, you know, bright, driven people in this industry. So we need the talent. We need more PhDs in the room, Mark. It shouldn't just be me.

2:58:23BubblemanWell, I'll make sure that I get a few more. I've got a list here of the PhDs that I keep close.

2:58:30SpeakerNo, no, I'm speaking figuratively. You know, I'm just saying that I think we need just more. It should be okay for a professor at a university Thank you so much for joining us.

2:58:54SpeakerYour cannabis from the University of Mississippi and it's now been coming out. What we've always known is that it's a swag moldy weed farm, right? And now there's science to prove it. And I predicted this two years ago when they started identifying all these hydroxylated metabolites on the plant themselves and saying, oh, we've discovered new cannabinoids. It's like, no, you've discovered degraded cannabinoids because your weed's all moldy, right?

2:59:25SpeakerIt's funny that you mentioned the irony of the fact that the legal marijuana in the US is federally grown in Mississippi, which is where Mark Emery spent the majority of his prison sentence. You know, but there's a lot of little ironies, like Mark's own prosecutor joining me Thank you for joining us.

3:00:01SpeakerA lot of experts. But there is still a stigma. And for many, many people, it's like, well, I don't know if I want to be that pot professor, if I want to be that pot researcher. So it does take courage to come out and to do that. So other professionals other than attorneys, it seems like there's a plethora of attorneys. And, you know, they're like sharks that circle around sometimes.

3:00:24SpeakerAnd, you know, Thank you for joining us.

3:00:57TonyAbsolutely good advice.

3:00:58SpeakerWell, thank you so much again. I think I have to run now because I keep getting lots and lots of messages. I think I have an interview coming up soon here. But if anyone wants to see anything more from me, I'm constantly ranting on twitter.com slash Jody Emery. And you can see a lot of my commentary about prohibition in general and a lot of issues. And of course, our case will be in the news.

3:01:20SpeakerSo... People will hear more and learn more in the weeks, months, and probably years ahead. But cannabis culture is apparently still going on. Can't be ours, but cannabis culture as a vision, as a mission, as a brand that represents a goal, it seems to still be going on. And I encourage people to support not just cannabis culture, but all of those people and organizations that are really working hard.

3:01:46SpeakerThank you so much for joining us.

3:02:11SpeakerNice. Sounds great. That'd be great. All right. Peace and pot. No more marijuana arrest. All right. Take care, everyone. Take care. Thanks. Bye, Jodi.

3:02:25BubblemanBye. Always the optimist, Jodi Emery.

3:02:31SpeakerI didn't know she didn't smoke in high school. I mean, I thought the reason why it's called high school, you get high in high school, right?

3:02:41BubblemanNot everyone, you know. I guess, yeah.

3:02:43SpeakerRight. I definitely, yeah. The reason why they called it high school.

3:02:52BubblemanI was also of the school of I thought that was the reason why they called it that. You know, it's funny going back to thinking of all the time I spent smoking cannabis in high school and thinking I was doing bad and being wrong. And it just seems... Seems ridiculous now that I look back at it and think of my friends that were abusing alcohol and other things that have had like long-term ramifications from those relationships.

3:03:16SpeakerYou're just a prankster. You're like your buddy who got in trouble for that tab of ecstasy. You know, Mark, I got to tell you at... At Deer Creek one year, this was a Grateful Dead show in 1990. My girlfriend, who's now my wife at the time, was traveling with me and we had her friend who was, I think, 17 years old or maybe 18 years old. And yeah, I mean, she...

3:03:44SpeakerDidn't have a ticket. So she was outside the venue. So my wife and I had gone in and she was sort of sitting in our car and just had a sign saying looking to trade for a ticket. And, you know, a guy on a bicycle came up, knocked on the window. She's like, hey, what's up? And she's like, well, hey, I was looking for a ticket. Do you have anything to trade?

3:04:03SpeakerAnd she's like, well, I got this, you know, this bud or this nug. As soon as she took out anything from her pocket, yeah, coughs on her right away. She got hauled away and left a note that she was at the jail bus. And when my wife and I got out of the show, we were like, Jail bus? What the fuck kind of thing is that? Is that like some kind of crazy Grateful Dead bus out on tour?

3:04:27SpeakerThe jail bus? Because there's all kinds of school buses and done up, you know, circuses back in 1990. So that Jerry was still alive and the circus was still in town. So, yeah, they ended up basically hauling her off for a bud. And I think she had like a tab of acid. And so two different counts. We went and visited her for her arraignment the next day.

3:04:52SpeakerThey had her dressed up in orange robes at the Noblesville County Courthouse or whatever in downtown Noblesville. And they had gone through and arrested just the right number of people for the cells that they had. They had exactly like arrested just enough people that they can fill all the cells. And so we were there for the arraignment the next day when they were going through the charges.

3:05:16SpeakerAnd the guy that was arraigned just before... Just before my wife's friend was like some three-time loser who had been out on dead tour, you know, total drug dealer. I mean, now I say drug dealer, just, you know, total guy who's out swinging shit. I mean, total loser that deserved to go down. But then they had, you know, Our friend get up there and holy shit, all she had was head stash.

3:05:44SpeakerYou know? I mean, it's just like completely ridiculous. It totally screwed up her life. We ended up, this is the tour, this is right when Brent died just after this summer tour. We ended up going up to Chicago because we had to leave her there in Noblesville, but it totally screwed up her life. It screwed up her college. She ended up getting pregnant. I mean, it totally screwed up this girl's life.

3:06:07SpeakerJust because of she was looking to see a concert. She went to a concert. She had a sign saying, hey, I'm looking for a ticket. And just like your friend, some, you know, transaction goes down with some undercover cop that's there to bust somebody for just, you know, hardly an offensible material. You know, I mean, she hardly had anything on her at all. But that's the kind of shit that, you know, Noblesville is crazy.

3:06:33SpeakerNoblesville, Indiana, where Deer Creek is. Yeah, that place is nuts.

3:06:40SpeakerBut very bad experience there.

3:06:42BubblemanWell, I think I'm going to thank Lynn for coming in and sharing her story. She's mentioned freeross.org is the place where people can connect with you.

3:06:54SpeakerYep. And there's a contact page. You can write Ross from there because he can't, he doesn't have email or internet privileges because it's an internet crime. So other prisoners do, but he doesn't. But you can get letters and you can contact me directly from that site. And, you know, like I said, anyhow, please spread the word on social media and wherever else. You know, if you have contacts with people like, you know, you guys who would like to have me on there to speak out about this and the drug war, I would be very happy to.

3:07:27SpeakerAnd yeah, and of course, raising money is always an issue. So yeah, freeross.org. There's a lot of information there also. So thanks so much for the opportunity. I really appreciate it. It's been really interesting and great to virtually meet all of you. And yeah, so thanks for having me. I'll tell Ross all about it.

3:07:48BubblemanWe'll keep in touch with the story, and if there's any great significant changes, we'll have you come back and tell everyone about them.

3:07:56SpeakerOkay, that would be terrific. Okay, well, thanks a lot. Thank you, Lynn. Talk to you later.

3:08:01BubblemanThanks to the rest of the panel, Todd McCormick, Mark Scaldone, Skunk Man, Sam, and the happy belated chimera, Etienne in Barcelona with all of our... Barcelona family, sorry to not be there this year. We do miss you as well. Next year, we'll do it again. And of course, D420K, finishing it off with a bong rip. Thanks, everybody. We'll talk to you next time on Hash Church. Peace.