April 16, 2025 • 37 mins
The deeply personal journey of cannabis activism unfolds in this raw, emotional account of what happens when ordinary people stand up against an unjust system. Joe Grumbine takes us through the aftermath of his first cannabis arrest, when he discovered that the advocacy organizations he'd supported weren't equipped to help defendants navigate the legal system.
From this realization emerged The Human Solution - a grassroots support network founded on a simple yet powerful premise: showing up matters. With just a few hundred dollars and a handful of dedicated volunteers, they created the now-iconic green ribbon with a red cross symbol, worn by supporters in courtrooms across America as a silent statement of solidarity with cannabis defendants.
The contrast between courtroom appearances alone versus walking in with supporters proved transformative. Judges, prosecutors, and court staff could no longer view defendants as faceless criminals but as community members with visible support networks. This strategy helped Joe win his first case, only to face an even more aggressive raid and six-year legal nightmare shortly after.
What makes this story particularly compelling is its unflinching honesty about the darker side of activism. While building a nationwide network of chapters and supporting countless defendants, Joe encountered both extraordinary loyalty and devastating betrayal. Some supporters emptied retirement accounts to fund his legal defense while others spread false accusations after receiving help themselves.
This episode illuminates the human complexities of social movements - how principles may inspire action, but relationships determine outcomes. Despite the heartbreak, those rare, unwavering allies made all the difference in ultimately securing victory against seemingly impossible odds.
For anyone who cares about justice reform, medical freedom, or grassroots organizing, this story offers a rare glimpse into both the public victories and private struggles behind meaningful social change. What would you risk to defend your principles? And who would stand beside you when everything is on the line?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome back to the Healthy Living
Podcast.
I'm your host, joe Grumbine,and today we're gonna continue
the series that we called theLove Affair of the Broken Heart,
and this is part three,probably, of four parts.
This is where things start toget interesting.
(00:21):
So if you're interested inhearing the story of my lifetime
love affair and ultimatelybroken heart over the cannabis
plant, I encourage you to goback to part one and hear it
from the beginning.
But meanwhile, where we leftoff, I had just gotten arrested
for the first time and began myjourney as a cannabis activist.
(00:48):
So I'm locked up and I get out.
I got bailed out and I didn'thave a lawyer and this is all
new to me.
You know, I don't, I have noexperience with law enforcement.
I don't even get traffictickets, because I was always a
(01:11):
hilltop grower and alwayscareful when I drove.
I always drove with my eyeslooking to the back of my
rearview mirror and I just wasalways super careful and never
got never got pulled over.
But uh, this one time, just insome dark spot, got pulled over
(01:32):
cause there was paint on mylicense plate, or so they said.
Anyways, I can remember goingnow, what I'd have to I don't
know anything about this andI've always said halfway in
joking that the thing I do bestis the thing I've never done
before.
I have always been an explorerand kind of a pioneer, and not
(01:56):
that that's any big deal, it'sjust.
I've never been afraid to trythings and fail.
But in this case I didn't havea choice.
So I've got.
You know, I'm bonded out.
I've never been on bail beforelearning what that means.
And now I've got to find anattorney and I got some numbers.
(02:17):
Now, remember, when I had thedispensary, I was approached by,
you know, this group, asa, andsigned up as advocates.
So the first thing I did is Icalled them and they didn't have
anything to offer.
And then I called normal andthey didn't have anything to
offer and I said wait a minute,I thought I was doing everything
(02:38):
right.
Aren't you guys here to help me?
And then I come to find out.
Well, we have meetings and youknow you can come to the meeting
.
Okay, so I also learned about,you know, lanny Suerdlo's group
out in Riverside, and everybodywas big in the activism there.
But again there was a case thatthey were supporting.
(02:59):
So finally I okay, well, let mego see this meeting and meet
these people that I don't know,and I go up there and I start
telling my story about whathappened and everybody's like,
well, I thought you were legal,I thought you were doing
everything right, and I says,yeah, me too.
But you know, that doesn't seemto matter.
And there was this guy, ronnieKnowles, who had a federal case.
(03:21):
Now that was a different storybecause we knew that, you know,
federally everything was illegal.
It still is to this day.
But this was a state case I had.
So it didn't.
Nobody could understand how Icould have a state case.
Well, how much did you have?
Everybody always said, well, itwas.
Why would it matter, you know?
And so I began telling my storyand I've never had to be a
(03:47):
public speaker and I, frankly,sucked at it for a long time,
but I didn't care.
I needed to tell my story, Ineeded to find a lawyer, I
needed to figure out what thehell in a pretty quick way, and
so what I discovered was,everywhere that I would speak, I
(04:08):
would get some people thatwould listen.
And you know, of course I'mhaving to break into a seasoned
community and the cannabis worldhas always been very, you know,
cliquish or community based.
So you know they don't know you.
Everybody is going to besuspect and it's going to take a
minute to break through.
But I was in a vulnerable spotand I had taken risks that they
(04:30):
had all taken.
And so and I was genuine, so itwas fairly easy for me to get
my foot in the door and, youknow, I turned on whatever charm
I had, did what I could.
Then I went to the.
I turned on whatever charm Ihad, did what I could.
Then I went to the excuse me,asa and normal meeting in Orange
(04:51):
County and again I was received, I was given an audience, I was
able to speak and ended upconnecting with this attorney.
Ended up connecting with thisattorney and first attorney I
called was one out of the bookand he was like $10,000 will
take you, you know, pre-trialand if you have to go to trial
(05:13):
it'd be more than that.
And I was like, wow, I don'thave any money, what am I going
to do?
And then this other attorney,chris Glue, he was, I think he
was speaking at that firstmeeting and he heard my story
and he said you know, I'll takeon your case and he didn't give
(05:35):
me.
I don't remember it was.
It was a a relatively smallamount that he charged me and he
heard my story and I was legit.
You know, we had all the patientrecords.
We did everything rightaccording to California law and
our California law was actuallya good law and it was vaguely
(05:56):
written and it was written insuch a way that it's supposed to
be interpreted in the benefitof the defendant.
But that's not how it workshere in California.
California is a fucked up stateand it is really.
The government is for thegovernment and the government
(06:16):
tries to fleece everybody smallbusinesses, individuals.
We're taxed into oblivion,we're regulated into oblivion
and you know it's all aboutcontrol and fleecing us, keeping
us quiet and broke and scared,and it's a brutal place.
But I live in a remote littlespot and I can avoid most of it,
(06:37):
most of the time, and I lovewhere I live, so I'll stay here.
But my goodness, it's a roughplace to have to do business and
anything like that in lawenforcement, my God.
Anyways, I meet with this lawyerand I say, well, what do I do?
He says, well, I need you toget your case together, you need
(07:03):
to get witnesses together andyou need to get some community
support, people willing to writeletters, maybe come to court
for you and you know we'll go atthis and then when they turn
over discovery, we'll see whatthey have against you and we'll
build the case.
And I didn't know anythingabout anything.
(07:25):
So I said, well, okay, I'mgoing to begin to become an
expert.
And so I learned.
I learned about the law.
I learned about what I had tosupport the law.
I learned about, you know,getting witnesses.
I learned about a lot of thingsand over time I continued
(07:47):
speaking at these meetings andgathering support and eventually
I had gathered enough peopletogether that we decided that
these other groups weren't doingwhat I needed them to do.
They weren't there to supportpeople in court.
They were there to I don't knowadvocate for their own shit.
Norm't there to support peoplein court.
They were there to I don't knowadvocate for their own shit.
(08:07):
Normal's there to reform lawsand, in my opinion, keep
themselves alive.
Asa was supposed to be therefor patients and they did some
rallies and stuff for somepeople and they did ultimately
help us out some, but not really.
Um, it was always the work wedid.
We got them to be included.
Actually, they started doingwhat we were doing more and we
(08:33):
ended up gathering the peopletogether that had supporting
people together in common and weended up having this meeting
together in common.
And we ended up having thismeeting, this little fundraiser,
to raise money for RonnieKnowles and my case.
And I remember we had thislittle fundraiser and we did our
(08:54):
best and threw it togetherpretty quickly and we raised a
couple hundred bucks.
That's what I should haverealized, that I don't know how
to raise any money and it waskind of a crazy deal because we
all got together afterward andwe had this meeting.
We said, well, what are wegoing to do with the money we
(09:15):
raised?
I don't know, it was four orfive hundred bucks, something
like that.
It was a very small amount, notenough to support either of our
cases.
And we had this meeting.
I had this big patio between myhouse and you know the little
house that we had and we hadthis big long table and I don't
know I think we had 30 peopleand we sat there for the whole
(09:37):
day and we discussed and weshared our thoughts and ideas
and by this time, you know, Ihad gathered a pretty decent
group of people together and thewhole idea was that we're going
to support each other.
We're all at risk of having thesame problem.
And ultimately, out of thatlong meeting I think eight or
(10:02):
ten hours we sat at that tableand discussed.
We ended up deciding that,rather than put this money
towards a couple of bucks eachfor our lawyers, let's create an
organization that is there tosupport each other.
And out of that we came up witha bunch of names and I realized
(10:24):
at this point that I was goingto be thrust into a leadership
role and I did not want to forcemyself on these people and but
I just knew nobody was guidingthis thing the way I needed it
to be guided.
And so ultimately, I didn'twant to be the president and I
wouldn't be the president and Isaid you know, I'll be the vice
(10:45):
president or whatever.
We ended up creating this group.
We ended up filing papers toincorporate it.
We submitted a bunch of names.
Now, my name that I hadsubmitted was the human solution
, because I just thought thatwas an awesome name and but I
didn't want to force it in thereand I didn't even pitch it that
much.
But I didn't want to force itin there and I didn't even pitch
(11:07):
it that much, and so I forgetthe name that we had originally
accepted.
But we submitted this name andit got rejected.
And then I took the next nameand submitted it.
It got rejected.
And so, finally, we submittedthree names and the state
randomly selected out of thethree names the human solution.
(11:29):
I was like, all right, well, Iguess that's it, there's no
getting away from it.
And our initial incarnation, whowas the president, backed out
pretty quickly.
And next thing, you know, Ifind myself being president.
I'm like, ok, if I got to dothis, I'll do it.
And so, you know, I find myselfbeing president.
I'm like, okay, if I got to dothis, I'll do it.
And so, you know, I took thebull by the horns.
I'm the one who needed the help, and I can remember when we
(11:54):
originally had this firstfundraiser, we all took these
green armbands and we wore themas a symbol of solidarity.
And when I had to go to myfirst court appearance, I
realized that we can't walk intoa courtroom with armbands and
we said, well, we need to comeup with something that we can
use as a symbol of solidaritywithout it being aggressive,
(12:18):
without it being somethingthat'll be pushed out.
And we ended up coming up withthis really cool idea.
It was at the time when thetrade towers had this was like
2005, 2000.
No, this is 2009.
When it happened, it was 2009.
(12:41):
But still, the ribbons were abig deal the yellow ribbons and
the pink ribbons.
Everybody was wearing ribbonsfor things for cancer, for
support our troops, for supporteverything.
So we thought, well, a ribbonwould be a good symbol because
it's it's a universal symbol.
People understand it.
And then, but then every colorwas taken.
So we thought, well, green's agood symbol because it's you
(13:04):
know to me, it's you know to me,it's a symbol of healing.
And then we came up with thisred cross.
We said, well, you know whatare we doing here?
And we're acting like firstresponders and, and I says, and
plus, we're supporting ourrights to medicate ourselves as
we see fit.
And so we thought, well, we'regoing to take a green ribbon and
put a red cross on it.
(13:25):
And so we sat down and we weremeeting pretty regularly
generally at my place, but therewere other people that we would
sometimes go to, and so webought some art supplies and we
got our scissors and our glueguns and one of our members had
this cricket machine and itworked once, I think and they
(13:45):
made a bunch of these littlefoam crosses and that's where we
started out and we werehand-cutting these ribbons and
the first ones were very awkwardand clumsy, but we put them
together and we stuck littlestick pins on them.
And I remember my first courtappearance and it was called a
(14:07):
preliminary hearing.
I mean, at my arraignment therewas nothing, but then there was
a preliminary hearing wherethey determine if the case has
merit to go forward.
And I remember walking into thecourt for the first time and I
was just, you know, terrifiedand I was all alone, just me and
the attorney, and and I plednot guilty and whatnot, and and,
(14:30):
um, the second time we had Idon't know, maybe a dozen people
with us and we went into court.
We were all there and we hadour ribbons on and we had a
woman in a wheelchair who waspart of Asa and and her husband,
and we had a woman in awheelchair who was part of Asa
and her husband and we had a.
You know just these people thatwere willing to take time off
(14:50):
of their day and go to courtwith us, and it was an amazing
shift.
I felt the difference in thecourtroom when we were there and
I said, whoa, there's somethinghere.
This being in the courtroomtogether matters.
And, frankly, that turned intothe key pillar of what the human
(15:14):
solution became and ultimately,these ribbons got refined and
turned into a really beautifulpiece of work and over many
years, thousands of ribbons weremade and and distributed and
the human solution turned intoan amazing group.
It went through a lot of changesand, and you know, what I
(15:37):
learned about advocates andactivists was that it's a lot of
really broken people and a lotof difficult problems people
with mental problems, peoplewith physical problems, people
just with every kind of problembut for whatever reason, they
were moved to help and they were.
(15:57):
None of them ever had money.
We never raised any money, butwe always could pull people
together and I had the abilityto rally people together for a
cause and, you know, createenough incentive and enough
magic that people would want tocome and ultimately, you know,
(16:18):
this case drug on and wentthrough all these different
prosecutors and and appearanceafter appearance, and and we I
realized that it was difficult.
You couldn't ask everybody toshow up every time, because it's
a lot of work to take your dayoff and go to court and be there
for somebody else and it's ascrewed up place to be and it's
(16:39):
just a terrible spot.
And so, you know, over time welearned about, you know,
managing resources and all ofthis.
But meanwhile, you know I'mback to the dispensary, still
working and I'm going throughthis and every day, of course,
worried that you know the fedsare going to come raid us.
I've still got this case andeventually, after I think it was
(17:03):
about nine months it's been awhile now so the very specifics
of this sometimes are getting alittle fuzzy, but that's not too
bad.
They end up dropping the caseand it was sort of unexpectedly.
We've gone through, I think,three prosecutors and it was
sort of unexpectedly.
We had gone through, I think,three prosecutors and, for
whatever reason, the fourthprosecutor actually wanted to
(17:24):
look at our evidence and I canremember the attorney saying you
got all those records?
I go, I sure do.
And he says, well, we're goingto take them to the court.
So I literally we had I don'tremember how many boxes, but it
was probably.
There was thousands of recordswe had from the patients that we
served, the, the clients, andit validated everything we did.
(17:46):
And I literally I had a truckand I showed up with a dolly and
I don't know it was at leasteight or ten cases of records.
And I said I showed up at theda's office and I says I've got
this discovery to turn over toyou guys.
Where do you want it?
And I had a dolly with three orfour cases of records and I
(18:10):
remember them looking at youlike, whoa well, put it over
here.
I said so, there's more.
And so I went back and forth, Ibrought it in there and we had
this pre-trial hearing and thiswas the last hearing before the
judge was going to push thisthing to trial.
And I can remember going inthere and it was just me and my
(18:39):
attorney into his chambers and Ididn't know what was going on.
And I remember they came outand the judge dismissed the case
with prejudice and I was likewhat the heck?
And I walked out of there andwe celebrated Eventually I even
(19:01):
got my evidence back, all thepot that they seized, all this
stuff.
I got it back in evidence bagsand it was just amazing, a giant
victory.
And through this time, you know,now we have this group, the
Human Solution, and we had thehub at the dispensary and we had
(19:22):
a lot of people that weresupporting.
But the part that I didn'treally pay attention to and I
was always the optimist, I wasalways the one that would see
the good in everybody and makeexcuses and what I didn't pay
attention to and maybe I shouldhave was the amount of people
that walked away, the amount ofpeople that were afraid, the
(19:44):
amount of people that would notcome to court, the amount of
people that said they wouldsupport me but didn't.
I didn't want to see that butnonetheless, enough people were
there and enough people didsupport and we were able to get
this victory.
And I realized this thing thatwe were doing worked Well, we
celebrated and within I believeit was less than a month, I was
(20:07):
raided and that was where thereal nightmare began.
So I can remember showing up atthe dispensary and getting set
up and then all of a suddenlooking up in the cameras and
seeing all these cars descendingon us and boom, they come in
Next thing.
I know I'm staring down thebarrel of a weapon and I don't
(20:32):
know if you've ever stared downthe barrel of a weapon before
that's being pointed at you bylaw enforcement with the finger
on the trigger, but you canactually see the tip of the
bullet inside the weapon.
And that was quite anexperience and scared the shit
out of me.
Get locked up again.
(20:53):
And when I got out I realized mywife had been raided, my whole
property, my daughter had gunsstuck in her head.
They had simultaneouslydescended on multiple places and
took everybody.
They thought we were El Chapo.
They thought we were this bigold thing.
(21:14):
But the thing they didn't find.
They didn't find any weapons.
They didn't find any drugs.
They didn't find any weapons.
They didn't find any drugs.
They didn't find any money.
I mean, relatively speaking,they didn't have shit.
They had a bunch of plants, uh,at our grows, but they're
really there.
There was no evidence of thisgigantic um thing, but they took
everything and they spentalmost a year building a case
(21:36):
and when, when they finallyfiled their charges and took me
into custody, they hit me withthis $125,000 bail and the real
nightmare began.
Well, meanwhile, the humansolution has grown and I
realized that it was going to beimportant to start helping more
(21:57):
people, that it was going to beimportant to start helping more
people and you know, every timeI went to court I found people
that needed help too.
And of course, you know peopleask about this ribbon and you
know this is really starting tobecome a thing and other
advocacy groups are connectingwith this.
More and more people arereaching out, are connecting
(22:19):
with us.
More and more people arereaching out, and you know it
really, I became stronger andstronger in this role and I
became more resolved because, asI'm meeting more and more
people, going through more andmore stories, I'm realizing that
people are getting arrested andthey're not.
They haven't done anythingother than grow a plant or
(22:43):
provide medicine.
And you know, for me it wasn'teven so much about the plant.
It was about the idea that wein America are not allowed to
put any substance we want in ourbody for any reason.
We get told what we can do andwhat we can't do, and that we
can't grow a fucking plant.
(23:04):
Are you kidding me?
And that really just reallyburned me to my core.
And I was willing many yearsago to, you know, hike miles
into the mountains and find asecret water and go through
endless hardship to go and growthese plants so that I could
have them for my own enjoymentand ultimately for people's
(23:26):
medicine.
I was willing to take that riskand I just deepened my resolve
and we would meet more and morepeople and eventually we met a
person who had a prison outreach.
And I come to discover thatthere were all these people
locked up in prison, mostlyfederal, but then we find out
(23:48):
they're state prisoners.
So this human solution expandedand we began to do prison
outreach.
And meanwhile, you know, we'regrowing prison outreach and
meanwhile you know we're growing, and eventually I had somebody
from Northern California withthe case and they reached out
and all of a sudden we startedsprouting chapters and next
(24:12):
thing, you know, we've got aNorCal chapter and an Arizona
chapter and then a San Diegochapter.
And then all of a sudden, knownactivists are connecting to us
and we had an activist down inSan Diego and then this activist
from LA.
We ended up joining with them,we absorbed them is how it
(24:35):
turned out.
We took their prison outreachprogram and made it our own.
So then Human Solution now hasthis prison outreach program
evolving out of this otherprogram.
Well, all these people that werecoming to us, I believed that
they were genuine and I thinkthey were.
To some degree they hadeverybody's best interest in
(24:57):
mind.
But what I didn't see was theagenda.
I didn't see the drivers behindit.
We ended up supporting casesall around the country.
Eventually, my case drug on forover six years I got locked up
(25:18):
multiple times one time formonths they did everything they
could to keep me from being ableto fight my case and through
this, people came and went.
The drama began.
Oh my God, I had no idea thedrama that could ensue.
And so these people that wouldcome in and be volunteers and be
(25:41):
so adamantly supportive.
I didn't really want to see it,but we were given a medicine
and providing and supportingthem and going to court.
I was traveling around.
I didn't have any money, but Ialways found a way to sacrifice
myself and go out and be therefor them, with them.
I understood the importance ofthese people coming to me.
(26:09):
So when my trial finally came up, we had organized, we had
coordinated with everyconnection.
I had the biggest network I'veever had.
We had thousands of peopleinvolved and we had leaders from
other groups.
I mean, we had standing in thecommunity and when my trial
began, we had a rally, a protest, we had courtroom full of
(26:33):
supporters and it was a powerfuldemonstration and I believed it
took all of that to ultimatelymake the change we did.
But I can remember how muchwork it was.
I had people that were willingto bring food, people willing to
donate rides, people donatedsome gas money.
We had whatever medicine I had,I gave it to people.
(26:58):
We even paid people sometimesto, you know, just so they could
take off work to come.
We did everything we could doto get people to come.
It did not happen without ahuge, huge, huge effort and that
was when everybody was reallycohesive, the most cohesive.
At the same time the Occupymovement was going on and I can
(27:19):
remember my trial and the Occupymovement happening at the same
time and there were times whenwe actually would leave the
trial and we'd go down todowntown LA and I got up on the
courthouse steps in there andwith my bullhorn and I would,
you know, speak out there andand and somewhere.
There's some recordings of that.
But you know, I was, I wastruly an activist and I was, I
(27:43):
was, I was the tip of the spear,I was willing to, I was willing
to do what I believed anybodyshould be willing to do and they
just kept beating me down and Ikept getting back up and it was
quite an experience and one daymaybe we'll tell that whole
(28:03):
story.
But through this whole storythere were all kinds of
betrayals and all kinds ofdramas, and that's when I
started becoming accused.
Now, remember, the biggestproblem here was that I was
accused by the government ofdoing something that shouldn't
have been a crime and I didn'trealize it at the time.
(28:24):
But even activists werestarting to accuse me of things,
and that's when I realized atone point that I was actually
having an impact.
And when I really got my firsthaters, I became aware wow, I'm
actually making a difference outhere, and these people that I
thought were my friends, theyturned on me, sometimes in
(28:45):
horrible ways.
I got accused of stealing money, I was accused of stealing
electricity, I got accused oftaking advantage of patients and
just doing shit that wasn'teven ever remotely true or real,
and that was always the thingthat got me.
You know and I believe that'sthat contributed to the cancer
that I currently am dealing withis all the betrayal and all the
(29:09):
hurt and all the you know, it'slike man.
I'm spending my time trying tohelp all these people.
And I'm being attacked by them.
Well, so be it.
I kept going and ultimately weoverturned it and this story had
(29:33):
I don't know how many miraclesthat happened.
I think there were sevenmiracles over six years things
that could never happen, butbecause of the amazing effort
and will and the love and thesupport that we had, just the
balance tipped over and Ibelieve the hand of God was
right there guiding andsupporting me.
(29:55):
I was righteous, I was doinggood work and eventually fast
forward.
I ended up beating the case andwhen it was over, I realized
that, you know, I was free, muchbecause of all the support I
had.
Again, ignoring all the dramaand all the chaos and all the
(30:18):
horrors, I mean, we went up onthis bus trip up to Montana.
It was the most hellishexperience of my life.
Some good things happened onthe trip and we connected with
the NorCal chapter and met someamazing people and all of that.
But I saw the dark side ofactivism in this and these
(30:39):
people ended up turning on usand accusing us of taking gas
money.
I mean, it's just, it's thecraziest shit.
And you know, we went on thisweek-long 10-day trip on a bus,
in this freezing cold bus withthese people, that ultimately,
all of them ended up not beingsupportive, and what a
(31:03):
life-changing experience, and Ishould have learned.
You know, the craziest thing waswe went up there to help this
guy named Chris Williams and hewas a righteous guy.
We thought and we went andsupported him as he was about to
be potentially sentenced to 100years, 99 years in prison, and
(31:24):
we had an influence on thesituation and ultimately he got
10 years in a camp and throughthe time that we were supporting
him and he knew what we did andall the good things, somewhere
in the middle of it, somebody'saccusations trickled down to him
and he severed ties with us andit began to happen these people
(31:47):
in prison that we weresupporting, people's cases that
we were supporting, we'd gospend days in court.
I visited people in jail, inprison.
We did all these things and,one by one, these people, after
we were done, they justvaporized and I always thought,
(32:08):
man, we could build this amazingworld, this amazing community,
and we did, but instead of it,growing and building because
these people were grateful andwere wanting to give back and
true and committed, one by one,not only did they not do that,
(32:35):
except for rare occasions, therewas just a handful.
Sometimes they'd turn on us andyou know, if I had three cases,
what happened at one time, andI could be at one of them and
I'd choose the one I could go to.
You know, if I had theresources, I had the time and
the ability, the ones that madesense to go to whatever and I
(32:58):
would get attacked by the one Ididn't go to.
It just was the craziest thingand I navigated it.
But that was really the storyof my activism and we'll get to
the heartbreak of it all as westart looking at it, and I want
to highlight this becausethere's a lot of heartbreak that
(33:20):
we're going to get to.
But some of the most incrediblepeople emerged out of this.
Emerged out of this A womannamed Kathy Z, my friend Laura,
a handful of people that cametogether in critical times when
I really needed it, people thatvisited me in jail, and some of
them ended up turning on me inthe end, but there was
(33:45):
demonstrations, people who werewilling to testify, tracy and
Charles and some of the peoplethat you know, really stood up
and really sacrificed and someof these, sandra, you know, gave
us money when we didn't haveany money and I didn't have any
way to pay the lawyer and she, Ican remember she called me up
(34:06):
one day and says I heard yourstory and I just want to meet
you.
And I drove down to HuntingtonBeach and I remember her husband
going into his safe and hepulls out money and he handed it
to me.
He says I just want you to havethis.
And Kathy Z my God, she tookher retirement and got me out of
(34:28):
jail so that I could fight andsome amazing, amazing, wonderful
, wonderful people came out ofit.
But you know, the percentage ofthose people was so small and
had I been mindful of that, Iwould have maybe done things
different.
And I think we're going to capit on this note.
This is probably going to endup going to five episodes, but
(34:51):
this is just the tip of thestory, the bullet points.
I've got a YouTube channel thatactually documented a lot of
this.
If you go back into thearchives of that, there's a lot
of information about this wholeactivism and the human solution
and all of it.
But this really was howimportant this plant was to me
(35:14):
and the people that wereinvolved and I had dedicated my
life to it at this point.
So I really thank everybodywho's been supporting this and
if you want to learn more aboutthe story, there's more
information coming and if youwant to support the show, you
know there's a subscriber optionand you can get support the
(35:36):
show and become more of it.
If you want to be a guest, hitme up and otherwise, I hope you
have a great day and thank youfor being a part of the Healthy
Living podcast by Willow CreekSprings.
Hello and welcome back to the Healthy Living
Podcast.
I'm your host, joe Grumbine,and today we're gonna continue
the series that we called theLove Affair of the Broken Heart,
and this is part three,probably, of four parts.
This is where things start toget interesting.
(00:21):
So if you're interested inhearing the story of my lifetime
love affair and ultimatelybroken heart over the cannabis
plant, I encourage you to goback to part one and hear it
from the beginning.
But meanwhile, where we leftoff, I had just gotten arrested
for the first time and began myjourney as a cannabis activist.
(00:48):
So I'm locked up and I get out.
I got bailed out and I didn'thave a lawyer and this is all
new to me.
You know, I don't, I have noexperience with law enforcement.
I don't even get traffictickets, because I was always a
(01:11):
hilltop grower and alwayscareful when I drove.
I always drove with my eyeslooking to the back of my
rearview mirror and I just wasalways super careful and never
got never got pulled over.
But uh, this one time, just insome dark spot, got pulled over
(01:32):
cause there was paint on mylicense plate, or so they said.
Anyways, I can remember goingnow, what I'd have to I don't
know anything about this andI've always said halfway in
joking that the thing I do bestis the thing I've never done
before.
I have always been an explorerand kind of a pioneer, and not
(01:56):
that that's any big deal, it'sjust.
I've never been afraid to trythings and fail.
But in this case I didn't havea choice.
So I've got.
You know, I'm bonded out.
I've never been on bail beforelearning what that means.
And now I've got to find anattorney and I got some numbers.
(02:17):
Now, remember, when I had thedispensary, I was approached by,
you know, this group, asa, andsigned up as advocates.
So the first thing I did is Icalled them and they didn't have
anything to offer.
And then I called normal andthey didn't have anything to
offer and I said wait a minute,I thought I was doing everything
(02:38):
right.
Aren't you guys here to help me?
And then I come to find out.
Well, we have meetings and youknow you can come to the meeting
.
Okay, so I also learned about,you know, lanny Suerdlo's group
out in Riverside, and everybodywas big in the activism there.
But again there was a case thatthey were supporting.
(02:59):
So finally I okay, well, let mego see this meeting and meet
these people that I don't know,and I go up there and I start
telling my story about whathappened and everybody's like,
well, I thought you were legal,I thought you were doing
everything right, and I says,yeah, me too.
But you know, that doesn't seemto matter.
And there was this guy, ronnieKnowles, who had a federal case.
(03:21):
Now that was a different storybecause we knew that, you know,
federally everything was illegal.
It still is to this day.
But this was a state case I had.
So it didn't.
Nobody could understand how Icould have a state case.
Well, how much did you have?
Everybody always said, well, itwas.
Why would it matter, you know?
And so I began telling my storyand I've never had to be a
(03:47):
public speaker and I, frankly,sucked at it for a long time,
but I didn't care.
I needed to tell my story, Ineeded to find a lawyer, I
needed to figure out what thehell in a pretty quick way, and
so what I discovered was,everywhere that I would speak, I
(04:08):
would get some people thatwould listen.
And you know, of course I'mhaving to break into a seasoned
community and the cannabis worldhas always been very, you know,
cliquish or community based.
So you know they don't know you.
Everybody is going to besuspect and it's going to take a
minute to break through.
But I was in a vulnerable spotand I had taken risks that they
(04:30):
had all taken.
And so and I was genuine, so itwas fairly easy for me to get
my foot in the door and, youknow, I turned on whatever charm
I had, did what I could.
Then I went to the.
I turned on whatever charm Ihad, did what I could.
Then I went to the excuse me,asa and normal meeting in Orange
(04:51):
County and again I was received, I was given an audience, I was
able to speak and ended upconnecting with this attorney.
Ended up connecting with thisattorney and first attorney I
called was one out of the bookand he was like $10,000 will
take you, you know, pre-trialand if you have to go to trial
(05:13):
it'd be more than that.
And I was like, wow, I don'thave any money, what am I going
to do?
And then this other attorney,chris Glue, he was, I think he
was speaking at that firstmeeting and he heard my story
and he said you know, I'll takeon your case and he didn't give
(05:35):
me.
I don't remember it was.
It was a a relatively smallamount that he charged me and he
heard my story and I was legit.
You know, we had all the patientrecords.
We did everything rightaccording to California law and
our California law was actuallya good law and it was vaguely
(05:56):
written and it was written insuch a way that it's supposed to
be interpreted in the benefitof the defendant.
But that's not how it workshere in California.
California is a fucked up stateand it is really.
The government is for thegovernment and the government
(06:16):
tries to fleece everybody smallbusinesses, individuals.
We're taxed into oblivion,we're regulated into oblivion
and you know it's all aboutcontrol and fleecing us, keeping
us quiet and broke and scared,and it's a brutal place.
But I live in a remote littlespot and I can avoid most of it,
(06:37):
most of the time, and I lovewhere I live, so I'll stay here.
But my goodness, it's a roughplace to have to do business and
anything like that in lawenforcement, my God.
Anyways, I meet with this lawyerand I say, well, what do I do?
He says, well, I need you toget your case together, you need
(07:03):
to get witnesses together andyou need to get some community
support, people willing to writeletters, maybe come to court
for you and you know we'll go atthis and then when they turn
over discovery, we'll see whatthey have against you and we'll
build the case.
And I didn't know anythingabout anything.
(07:25):
So I said, well, okay, I'mgoing to begin to become an
expert.
And so I learned.
I learned about the law.
I learned about what I had tosupport the law.
I learned about, you know,getting witnesses.
I learned about a lot of thingsand over time I continued
(07:47):
speaking at these meetings andgathering support and eventually
I had gathered enough peopletogether that we decided that
these other groups weren't doingwhat I needed them to do.
They weren't there to supportpeople in court.
They were there to I don't knowadvocate for their own shit.
Norm't there to support peoplein court.
They were there to I don't knowadvocate for their own shit.
(08:07):
Normal's there to reform lawsand, in my opinion, keep
themselves alive.
Asa was supposed to be therefor patients and they did some
rallies and stuff for somepeople and they did ultimately
help us out some, but not really.
Um, it was always the work wedid.
We got them to be included.
Actually, they started doingwhat we were doing more and we
(08:33):
ended up gathering the peopletogether that had supporting
people together in common and weended up having this meeting
together in common.
And we ended up having thismeeting, this little fundraiser,
to raise money for RonnieKnowles and my case.
And I remember we had thislittle fundraiser and we did our
(08:54):
best and threw it togetherpretty quickly and we raised a
couple hundred bucks.
That's what I should haverealized, that I don't know how
to raise any money and it waskind of a crazy deal because we
all got together afterward andwe had this meeting.
We said, well, what are wegoing to do with the money we
(09:15):
raised?
I don't know, it was four orfive hundred bucks, something
like that.
It was a very small amount, notenough to support either of our
cases.
And we had this meeting.
I had this big patio between myhouse and you know the little
house that we had and we hadthis big long table and I don't
know I think we had 30 peopleand we sat there for the whole
(09:37):
day and we discussed and weshared our thoughts and ideas
and by this time, you know, Ihad gathered a pretty decent
group of people together and thewhole idea was that we're going
to support each other.
We're all at risk of having thesame problem.
And ultimately, out of thatlong meeting I think eight or
(10:02):
ten hours we sat at that tableand discussed.
We ended up deciding that,rather than put this money
towards a couple of bucks eachfor our lawyers, let's create an
organization that is there tosupport each other.
And out of that we came up witha bunch of names and I realized
(10:24):
at this point that I was goingto be thrust into a leadership
role and I did not want to forcemyself on these people and but
I just knew nobody was guidingthis thing the way I needed it
to be guided.
And so ultimately, I didn'twant to be the president and I
wouldn't be the president and Isaid you know, I'll be the vice
(10:45):
president or whatever.
We ended up creating this group.
We ended up filing papers toincorporate it.
We submitted a bunch of names.
Now, my name that I hadsubmitted was the human solution
, because I just thought thatwas an awesome name and but I
didn't want to force it in thereand I didn't even pitch it that
much.
But I didn't want to force itin there and I didn't even pitch
(11:07):
it that much, and so I forgetthe name that we had originally
accepted.
But we submitted this name andit got rejected.
And then I took the next nameand submitted it.
It got rejected.
And so, finally, we submittedthree names and the state
randomly selected out of thethree names the human solution.
(11:29):
I was like, all right, well, Iguess that's it, there's no
getting away from it.
And our initial incarnation, whowas the president, backed out
pretty quickly.
And next thing, you know, Ifind myself being president.
I'm like, ok, if I got to dothis, I'll do it.
And so, you know, I find myselfbeing president.
I'm like, okay, if I got to dothis, I'll do it.
And so, you know, I took thebull by the horns.
I'm the one who needed the help, and I can remember when we
(11:54):
originally had this firstfundraiser, we all took these
green armbands and we wore themas a symbol of solidarity.
And when I had to go to myfirst court appearance, I
realized that we can't walk intoa courtroom with armbands and
we said, well, we need to comeup with something that we can
use as a symbol of solidaritywithout it being aggressive,
(12:18):
without it being somethingthat'll be pushed out.
And we ended up coming up withthis really cool idea.
It was at the time when thetrade towers had this was like
2005, 2000.
No, this is 2009.
When it happened, it was 2009.
(12:41):
But still, the ribbons were abig deal the yellow ribbons and
the pink ribbons.
Everybody was wearing ribbonsfor things for cancer, for
support our troops, for supporteverything.
So we thought, well, a ribbonwould be a good symbol because
it's it's a universal symbol.
People understand it.
And then, but then every colorwas taken.
So we thought, well, green's agood symbol because it's you
(13:04):
know to me, it's you know to me,it's a symbol of healing.
And then we came up with thisred cross.
We said, well, you know whatare we doing here?
And we're acting like firstresponders and, and I says, and
plus, we're supporting ourrights to medicate ourselves as
we see fit.
And so we thought, well, we'regoing to take a green ribbon and
put a red cross on it.
(13:25):
And so we sat down and we weremeeting pretty regularly
generally at my place, but therewere other people that we would
sometimes go to, and so webought some art supplies and we
got our scissors and our glueguns and one of our members had
this cricket machine and itworked once, I think and they
(13:45):
made a bunch of these littlefoam crosses and that's where we
started out and we werehand-cutting these ribbons and
the first ones were very awkwardand clumsy, but we put them
together and we stuck littlestick pins on them.
And I remember my first courtappearance and it was called a
(14:07):
preliminary hearing.
I mean, at my arraignment therewas nothing, but then there was
a preliminary hearing wherethey determine if the case has
merit to go forward.
And I remember walking into thecourt for the first time and I
was just, you know, terrifiedand I was all alone, just me and
the attorney, and and I plednot guilty and whatnot, and and,
(14:30):
um, the second time we had Idon't know, maybe a dozen people
with us and we went into court.
We were all there and we hadour ribbons on and we had a
woman in a wheelchair who waspart of Asa and and her husband,
and we had a woman in awheelchair who was part of Asa
and her husband and we had a.
You know just these people thatwere willing to take time off
(14:50):
of their day and go to courtwith us, and it was an amazing
shift.
I felt the difference in thecourtroom when we were there and
I said, whoa, there's somethinghere.
This being in the courtroomtogether matters.
And, frankly, that turned intothe key pillar of what the human
(15:14):
solution became and ultimately,these ribbons got refined and
turned into a really beautifulpiece of work and over many
years, thousands of ribbons weremade and and distributed and
the human solution turned intoan amazing group.
It went through a lot of changesand, and you know, what I
(15:37):
learned about advocates andactivists was that it's a lot of
really broken people and a lotof difficult problems people
with mental problems, peoplewith physical problems, people
just with every kind of problembut for whatever reason, they
were moved to help and they were.
(15:57):
None of them ever had money.
We never raised any money, butwe always could pull people
together and I had the abilityto rally people together for a
cause and, you know, createenough incentive and enough
magic that people would want tocome and ultimately, you know,
(16:18):
this case drug on and wentthrough all these different
prosecutors and and appearanceafter appearance, and and we I
realized that it was difficult.
You couldn't ask everybody toshow up every time, because it's
a lot of work to take your dayoff and go to court and be there
for somebody else and it's ascrewed up place to be and it's
(16:39):
just a terrible spot.
And so, you know, over time welearned about, you know,
managing resources and all ofthis.
But meanwhile, you know I'mback to the dispensary, still
working and I'm going throughthis and every day, of course,
worried that you know the fedsare going to come raid us.
I've still got this case andeventually, after I think it was
(17:03):
about nine months it's been awhile now so the very specifics
of this sometimes are getting alittle fuzzy, but that's not too
bad.
They end up dropping the caseand it was sort of unexpectedly.
We've gone through, I think,three prosecutors and it was
sort of unexpectedly.
We had gone through, I think,three prosecutors and, for
whatever reason, the fourthprosecutor actually wanted to
(17:24):
look at our evidence and I canremember the attorney saying you
got all those records?
I go, I sure do.
And he says, well, we're goingto take them to the court.
So I literally we had I don'tremember how many boxes, but it
was probably.
There was thousands of recordswe had from the patients that we
served, the, the clients, andit validated everything we did.
(17:46):
And I literally I had a truckand I showed up with a dolly and
I don't know it was at leasteight or ten cases of records.
And I said I showed up at theda's office and I says I've got
this discovery to turn over toyou guys.
Where do you want it?
And I had a dolly with three orfour cases of records and I
(18:10):
remember them looking at youlike, whoa well, put it over
here.
I said so, there's more.
And so I went back and forth, Ibrought it in there and we had
this pre-trial hearing and thiswas the last hearing before the
judge was going to push thisthing to trial.
And I can remember going inthere and it was just me and my
(18:39):
attorney into his chambers and Ididn't know what was going on.
And I remember they came outand the judge dismissed the case
with prejudice and I was likewhat the heck?
And I walked out of there andwe celebrated Eventually I even
(19:01):
got my evidence back, all thepot that they seized, all this
stuff.
I got it back in evidence bagsand it was just amazing, a giant
victory.
And through this time, you know,now we have this group, the
Human Solution, and we had thehub at the dispensary and we had
(19:22):
a lot of people that weresupporting.
But the part that I didn'treally pay attention to and I
was always the optimist, I wasalways the one that would see
the good in everybody and makeexcuses and what I didn't pay
attention to and maybe I shouldhave was the amount of people
that walked away, the amount ofpeople that were afraid, the
(19:44):
amount of people that would notcome to court, the amount of
people that said they wouldsupport me but didn't.
I didn't want to see that butnonetheless, enough people were
there and enough people didsupport and we were able to get
this victory.
And I realized this thing thatwe were doing worked Well, we
celebrated and within I believeit was less than a month, I was
(20:07):
raided and that was where thereal nightmare began.
So I can remember showing up atthe dispensary and getting set
up and then all of a suddenlooking up in the cameras and
seeing all these cars descendingon us and boom, they come in
Next thing.
I know I'm staring down thebarrel of a weapon and I don't
(20:32):
know if you've ever stared downthe barrel of a weapon before
that's being pointed at you bylaw enforcement with the finger
on the trigger, but you canactually see the tip of the
bullet inside the weapon.
And that was quite anexperience and scared the shit
out of me.
Get locked up again.
(20:53):
And when I got out I realized mywife had been raided, my whole
property, my daughter had gunsstuck in her head.
They had simultaneouslydescended on multiple places and
took everybody.
They thought we were El Chapo.
They thought we were this bigold thing.
(21:14):
But the thing they didn't find.
They didn't find any weapons.
They didn't find any drugs.
They didn't find any weapons.
They didn't find any drugs.
They didn't find any money.
I mean, relatively speaking,they didn't have shit.
They had a bunch of plants, uh,at our grows, but they're
really there.
There was no evidence of thisgigantic um thing, but they took
everything and they spentalmost a year building a case
(21:36):
and when, when they finallyfiled their charges and took me
into custody, they hit me withthis $125,000 bail and the real
nightmare began.
Well, meanwhile, the humansolution has grown and I
realized that it was going to beimportant to start helping more
(21:57):
people, that it was going to beimportant to start helping more
people and you know, every timeI went to court I found people
that needed help too.
And of course, you know peopleask about this ribbon and you
know this is really starting tobecome a thing and other
advocacy groups are connectingwith this.
More and more people arereaching out, are connecting
(22:19):
with us.
More and more people arereaching out, and you know it
really, I became stronger andstronger in this role and I
became more resolved because, asI'm meeting more and more
people, going through more andmore stories, I'm realizing that
people are getting arrested andthey're not.
They haven't done anythingother than grow a plant or
(22:43):
provide medicine.
And you know, for me it wasn'teven so much about the plant.
It was about the idea that wein America are not allowed to
put any substance we want in ourbody for any reason.
We get told what we can do andwhat we can't do, and that we
can't grow a fucking plant.
(23:04):
Are you kidding me?
And that really just reallyburned me to my core.
And I was willing many yearsago to, you know, hike miles
into the mountains and find asecret water and go through
endless hardship to go and growthese plants so that I could
have them for my own enjoymentand ultimately for people's
(23:26):
medicine.
I was willing to take that riskand I just deepened my resolve
and we would meet more and morepeople and eventually we met a
person who had a prison outreach.
And I come to discover thatthere were all these people
locked up in prison, mostlyfederal, but then we find out
(23:48):
they're state prisoners.
So this human solution expandedand we began to do prison
outreach.
And meanwhile, you know, we'regrowing prison outreach and
meanwhile you know we're growing, and eventually I had somebody
from Northern California withthe case and they reached out
and all of a sudden we startedsprouting chapters and next
(24:12):
thing, you know, we've got aNorCal chapter and an Arizona
chapter and then a San Diegochapter.
And then all of a sudden, knownactivists are connecting to us
and we had an activist down inSan Diego and then this activist
from LA.
We ended up joining with them,we absorbed them is how it
(24:35):
turned out.
We took their prison outreachprogram and made it our own.
So then Human Solution now hasthis prison outreach program
evolving out of this otherprogram.
Well, all these people that werecoming to us, I believed that
they were genuine and I thinkthey were.
To some degree they hadeverybody's best interest in
(24:57):
mind.
But what I didn't see was theagenda.
I didn't see the drivers behindit.
We ended up supporting casesall around the country.
Eventually, my case drug on forover six years I got locked up
(25:18):
multiple times one time formonths they did everything they
could to keep me from being ableto fight my case and through
this, people came and went.
The drama began.
Oh my God, I had no idea thedrama that could ensue.
And so these people that wouldcome in and be volunteers and be
(25:41):
so adamantly supportive.
I didn't really want to see it,but we were given a medicine
and providing and supportingthem and going to court.
I was traveling around.
I didn't have any money, but Ialways found a way to sacrifice
myself and go out and be therefor them, with them.
I understood the importance ofthese people coming to me.
(26:09):
So when my trial finally came up, we had organized, we had
coordinated with everyconnection.
I had the biggest network I'veever had.
We had thousands of peopleinvolved and we had leaders from
other groups.
I mean, we had standing in thecommunity and when my trial
began, we had a rally, a protest, we had courtroom full of
(26:33):
supporters and it was a powerfuldemonstration and I believed it
took all of that to ultimatelymake the change we did.
But I can remember how muchwork it was.
I had people that were willingto bring food, people willing to
donate rides, people donatedsome gas money.
We had whatever medicine I had,I gave it to people.
(26:58):
We even paid people sometimesto, you know, just so they could
take off work to come.
We did everything we could doto get people to come.
It did not happen without ahuge, huge, huge effort and that
was when everybody was reallycohesive, the most cohesive.
At the same time the Occupymovement was going on and I can
(27:19):
remember my trial and the Occupymovement happening at the same
time and there were times whenwe actually would leave the
trial and we'd go down todowntown LA and I got up on the
courthouse steps in there andwith my bullhorn and I would,
you know, speak out there andand and somewhere.
There's some recordings of that.
But you know, I was, I wastruly an activist and I was, I
(27:43):
was, I was the tip of the spear,I was willing to, I was willing
to do what I believed anybodyshould be willing to do and they
just kept beating me down and Ikept getting back up and it was
quite an experience and one daymaybe we'll tell that whole
(28:03):
story.
But through this whole storythere were all kinds of
betrayals and all kinds ofdramas, and that's when I
started becoming accused.
Now, remember, the biggestproblem here was that I was
accused by the government ofdoing something that shouldn't
have been a crime and I didn'trealize it at the time.
(28:24):
But even activists werestarting to accuse me of things,
and that's when I realized atone point that I was actually
having an impact.
And when I really got my firsthaters, I became aware wow, I'm
actually making a difference outhere, and these people that I
thought were my friends, theyturned on me, sometimes in
(28:45):
horrible ways.
I got accused of stealing money, I was accused of stealing
electricity, I got accused oftaking advantage of patients and
just doing shit that wasn'teven ever remotely true or real,
and that was always the thingthat got me.
You know and I believe that'sthat contributed to the cancer
that I currently am dealing withis all the betrayal and all the
(29:09):
hurt and all the you know, it'slike man.
I'm spending my time trying tohelp all these people.
And I'm being attacked by them.
Well, so be it.
I kept going and ultimately weoverturned it and this story had
(29:33):
I don't know how many miraclesthat happened.
I think there were sevenmiracles over six years things
that could never happen, butbecause of the amazing effort
and will and the love and thesupport that we had, just the
balance tipped over and Ibelieve the hand of God was
right there guiding andsupporting me.
(29:55):
I was righteous, I was doinggood work and eventually fast
forward.
I ended up beating the case andwhen it was over, I realized
that, you know, I was free, muchbecause of all the support I
had.
Again, ignoring all the dramaand all the chaos and all the
(30:18):
horrors, I mean, we went up onthis bus trip up to Montana.
It was the most hellishexperience of my life.
Some good things happened onthe trip and we connected with
the NorCal chapter and met someamazing people and all of that.
But I saw the dark side ofactivism in this and these
(30:39):
people ended up turning on usand accusing us of taking gas
money.
I mean, it's just, it's thecraziest shit.
And you know, we went on thisweek-long 10-day trip on a bus,
in this freezing cold bus withthese people, that ultimately,
all of them ended up not beingsupportive, and what a
(31:03):
life-changing experience, and Ishould have learned.
You know, the craziest thing waswe went up there to help this
guy named Chris Williams and hewas a righteous guy.
We thought and we went andsupported him as he was about to
be potentially sentenced to 100years, 99 years in prison, and
(31:24):
we had an influence on thesituation and ultimately he got
10 years in a camp and throughthe time that we were supporting
him and he knew what we did andall the good things, somewhere
in the middle of it, somebody'saccusations trickled down to him
and he severed ties with us andit began to happen these people
(31:47):
in prison that we weresupporting, people's cases that
we were supporting, we'd gospend days in court.
I visited people in jail, inprison.
We did all these things and,one by one, these people, after
we were done, they justvaporized and I always thought,
(32:08):
man, we could build this amazingworld, this amazing community,
and we did, but instead of it,growing and building because
these people were grateful andwere wanting to give back and
true and committed, one by one,not only did they not do that,
(32:35):
except for rare occasions, therewas just a handful.
Sometimes they'd turn on us andyou know, if I had three cases,
what happened at one time, andI could be at one of them and
I'd choose the one I could go to.
You know, if I had theresources, I had the time and
the ability, the ones that madesense to go to whatever and I
(32:58):
would get attacked by the one Ididn't go to.
It just was the craziest thingand I navigated it.
But that was really the storyof my activism and we'll get to
the heartbreak of it all as westart looking at it, and I want
to highlight this becausethere's a lot of heartbreak that
(33:20):
we're going to get to.
But some of the most incrediblepeople emerged out of this.
Emerged out of this A womannamed Kathy Z, my friend Laura,
a handful of people that cametogether in critical times when
I really needed it, people thatvisited me in jail, and some of
them ended up turning on me inthe end, but there was
(33:45):
demonstrations, people who werewilling to testify, tracy and
Charles and some of the peoplethat you know, really stood up
and really sacrificed and someof these, sandra, you know, gave
us money when we didn't haveany money and I didn't have any
way to pay the lawyer and she, Ican remember she called me up
(34:06):
one day and says I heard yourstory and I just want to meet
you.
And I drove down to HuntingtonBeach and I remember her husband
going into his safe and hepulls out money and he handed it
to me.
He says I just want you to havethis.
And Kathy Z my God, she tookher retirement and got me out of
(34:28):
jail so that I could fight andsome amazing, amazing, wonderful
, wonderful people came out ofit.
But you know, the percentage ofthose people was so small and
had I been mindful of that, Iwould have maybe done things
different.
And I think we're going to capit on this note.
This is probably going to endup going to five episodes, but
(34:51):
this is just the tip of thestory, the bullet points.
I've got a YouTube channel thatactually documented a lot of
this.
If you go back into thearchives of that, there's a lot
of information about this wholeactivism and the human solution
and all of it.
But this really was howimportant this plant was to me
(35:14):
and the people that wereinvolved and I had dedicated my
life to it at this point.
So I really thank everybodywho's been supporting this and
if you want to learn more aboutthe story, there's more
information coming and if youwant to support the show, you
know there's a subscriber optionand you can get support the
(35:36):
show and become more of it.
If you want to be a guest, hitme up and otherwise, I hope you
have a great day and thank youfor being a part of the Healthy
Living podcast by Willow CreekSprings.
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