"I am under the impression that the sentencing hearing`s only purpose was to determine a convict`s liklihood of reoffending. Davey? I read not one word from you spoken which showed any remorse for breaking the law; the Crown does not need to be reminded about the bennies of the drug you pled guilty to of illegally trafficked."


"... bennies of the drug ..." ??? What does that mean? I didn't sell any bennies.






"I do say, your witnesses and yourself rather reminded me of Gore and Leiberman ranting on after the election was over."

It may be that you are incapable of understanding that harm is an element of the principles of sentencing, and that it's relevant ... or it might be that you attempt to confuse every issue before you.




"Summary:DML has no intention of changing his habits. Are not the magistrates and judges deliberating on your intent?"

I wish you would study more carefully that which you claim to have a grasp of ... if you paid more attention to the subject matter I wouldn't have to re-quote myself so often to you:

From my speech to sentence:

"The defendant is unwilling to renounce civil disobedience itself due to the glaring fact that it seems like the only tool the public has available to put pressure on the government to do the right thing. Civil disobedience was a component of almost every major advancement of human evolution for the past 150 years, be it the abolitionists or the suffragettes or the civil rights or anti war or environmental or the modern day human rights and social justice movements. The reason so many turn to civil disobedience is that often nothing else works. When effective legal means of righting wrongs are finally introduced into society, the defendant has no doubt that civil disobedience will be voluntarily abandoned and the defendant will be among the first to do so.

However, the defendant is willing to provide the court with some assurance that the defendant will not open up another Herb School. When the defendant opened up the Harm Reduction Club in 1996, he did so believing that the totally open “in your face” approach should at least be attempted by someone with regards to cannabis retail activism for the use of cannabis medicine by healthy people. As soon as a judge ordered him to stop dealing cannabis the defendant did stop (on the occasion of the second – not the first - of the two trafficking offences), and did not breach either of his conditional sentences. While he was working his way up to the Supreme Court of Canada many people – including some members of government and police officers – had indicated that a subtle approach would be better received by the community. The defendant noticed the successes of the supervised injection site activists and the cannabis seed sellers who took a less “in your face” approach to civil disobedience, he came to the conclusion that the subtle approach may succeed where the blatant approach failed. The defendant set up the Harm Reduction Club as a blatant approach. The defendant set up the Herb School as a subtle approach. Now he sees that neither approach has been particularly effective.

Another reason to believe there will be no recidivism on top of the “tried it once and it wasn’t effective” argument is that, so far, no other person has been physically harmed or convicted of a crime as a result of the defendant’s actions, and the defendant wants to keep it that way. The defendant is determined not to hurt others in his efforts to prevent the drugwar from hurting others – and that includes recklessly subjecting others to a situation where they would be likely arrested. The defendant has demonstrated that one can operate a store selling cannabis, mushrooms, botanical DMT and small amounts of opium for over three years without causing harm or attracting police attention and doesn’t feel the need to demonstrate that again.

The last reason for suspecting there will be no recidivism is that conducting such an operation is very, very expensive. The defendant is in debt as a result of the raid and will be for quite some time - probably four of five years. His financial backers are unlikely to invest such money in any similar projects in the future. The defendant has a herb museum and an art gallery and wants to attempt to make them viable businesses without any lawbreaking connected with it that might threaten their existence. While unable to make comments to the court that could be construed as renouncing civil disobedience, the defendant is willing to admit that the arrest, confiscation of the herbs and money and the threat of the confiscation of the museum and art gallery make it highly unlikely that the defendant will be back before the courts any time in the future. Perhaps being a herb museum curator will allow the defendant to make enough of a difference in altering the collective conscience so that future disobedience is unnecessary. The defendant is willing to give that approach an honest try."

http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/content/david-vs-goliath