Medical cannabis has been my entire life for many years now. I developed and produced one of the best know product lines in the industry known for quality and consistency. In September of 2007 that would all come crashing down as Drug Enforcement Agents violently raided my home, seized my business assets, and did their best to imprison me with fear and misinformation. I have fought diligently to uphold the standards and values of the medical cannabis community and have been a vocal advocate for the cause at every possible juncture. My work was blatantly slandered on national television and I was made out to be some sick pervert because the medicines I developed were food-based. To put it simply, I have lost everything and now struggle daily to pay the bills and keep my family going.

I am a prisoner in my own community. While organizations continue to flourish in the wake of an Obama election and Justice Department statements regarding less stringent policy for cannabis providers, I have continued to see my life slide gradually off into poverty. I no longer am a proud and confident business owner that generously gives to his community and provides safe and effective medicines. I am now forced to piece together work when I can find it and hope that at the end of the month my bills are all paid. They have not been yet. It is frustrating to read interviews of collective operators boasting about their $20 million dollar sales figures, as you wonder why you cannot even find a steady job to pay your bills.

Not that there has not been a fair share of kind and generous people to try and help me survive. I have been blessed in many ways by being able to work within the community helping form the MCSC, developing business structures for organizations, and helping to build facilities. My health continues to deteriorate, as my second surgery has left both of my legs dependent upon each other just to move and neither of them are strong enough to support me completely. I press through. Climbing ladders, banging nails, and hauling furnishings all over California have helped me to stay afloat for the most part, but it has also taken its toll. I am doing work in pain, forced to consume an uncomfortable amount of Vicodin just to get from one project to the next. But I am making it. One way or another I have vowed to fight through the pain and make things happen. I have good friends that have helped make this process somewhat less volatile.

I found out today that the funding for my admin role with the MCSC was being cut and that the donation I depended upon for my rent was no longer available, as the organization who was sponsoring my efforts has run into financial difficulties. I am in the process of starting a consulting service to try and use my expertise in the industry to help others flourish where I may not. It may be a minute before I see any real income from this venture. I have been able to write some articles that have provided me a small amount of funding to help ends meet, but realistically it is a drop in the bucket when trying to support a wife and two children in the Bay Area.

A friend of mine works at Heald College and works with a gentleman who shares the same name as me and is from the same city in which my home was raided. My friend said that this gentleman has been looking for work for a year and a half and has been turned down on many occasion because the employer assumed he was me after doing a background check. Needless to say this guy was not thrilled with me even though we had never met. I am a walking stigma. Thank goodness one of my friends was kind enough to hire him before he took a vengeance after me or something.

I am a prisoner in my own home and in my community. I have found myself in tough spot after tough spot and have somehow figured out a way to fight through the pain and anguish. Setbacks are bound to happen and the best we can do is hope that things begin to look up real soon. As a political prisoner of the drug war, I feel as if I have been honorable and straightforward in my approach to justice. I have given my freedom to expanding the awareness of cannabis medicines and their many benefits. I have held my head high at every point of the journey and have refused to let the madness get the better of me.

I am now at another crossroad in the journey. Because I was not sentenced to prison, people assume that your situation is all better. They assume that even though you were left for dead that because you did not die that somehow things should be better for you. Well, they are not. It is a struggle everyday to get up, dust yourself off, and go out and face the world. You are supposed to be happy because you were not imprisoned, but happiness is distant behind the worries and struggles of trying to get back on your feet.

I am sure there will be a day when I can look back on this period as a growing experience, and I will understand that because I struggled I am a stronger person. That is tough for me to realize as I am imprisoned by the system, have lost all of my liberties, and have lost my entire livelihood to fight for this cause. It is difficult for others to understand, as they do not have to be accountable to a probation officer 24/7, they do not have to abstain from providing medicine, and they do not feel the sense of loss and disdain that I feel daily. I am grateful that I am not in prison, but that is a consolation prize when I am fighting every day to make it to the next. When you have to tell your kid that he cannot go to summer school because you do not have the money, not being in prison seems like the furthest thing from your mind. When you examine every item in the grocery store to see if it is something you really need, as wants have gone by the wayside, you will know what real poverty feels like.

I am a prisoner of success and a warrior for this movement. I will remember this period and learn to respect those things that I do have. I will survive, but how will I look when I rise from the ashes? Will I still be smiling?