Notes: From MAP: Daily updates from the Journey by Kevin Zeese are being
posted at these sites: http://www.dpft.org/txj4jj.html and http://www.csdp.org/j4jtexas/

Bookmark: For Journey for Justice Protest news items: http://www.mapinc.org/journey.htm

Cited: Journey for Justice: http://www.JourneyForJustice.org/
Common Sense for Drug Policy: http://www.csdp.org/

VIGIL PROTESTS JAILINGS

A handful of demonstrators from across the nation gathered Sunday afternoon
for a vigil at the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan to protest the mass
incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders.

Kay Lee of Florida, founder of the group Journey for Justice, and others
paced in a grassy area across from the prison in black-and-white striped
prison costumes while passing out various marijuana literature.

Organizers of Journey for Justice said their goal is to stop the drug war,
in turn ending the mass incarceration of nonviolent drug users. Organizers
said they would like to put the money saved from releasing the offenders
toward drug treatment and after-school programs for children, such as band
and athletics. Legalization of marijuana for medical purposes and stopping
police brutality also are concerns for the group.

Lee's daughter, Tiffany Landreth of Grand Prairie, Texas, sat wearing
plastic handcuffs as she yelled to passing cars to stop the oppression.
Landreth said she smokes medicinal marijuana illegally because she has
arachnoiditis, a disease she contracted after receiving improper medical care.

After trying pain medications for seven years, she has found a combination
that works for her -- eight seizure pills a day and "lots of marijuana,"
Landreth said.

"I am very worried about going to prison," Landreth said. "I don't believe
that anyone who sits in their home and medicates themselves should go to
prison ... it's very scary."

Landreth said she receives her supply of marijuana illegally from a
physical therapist, but has occasionally had to buy it on the streets.

Ann McCormick of Rhode Island said she is also fighting the drug war, but
had a small reason to celebrate Saturday. Her son, Todd, 29, was released
from solitary confinement at Terminal Island Federal Prison in California,
where he is serving a five-year sentence for his dealings in marijuana,
McCormick said.

"My son is in a federal prison in California for gardening," she said.

Todd was diagnosed with childhood cancer at 2 years of age, she said. At 9
years old, while undergoing cancer treatments, she gave him his first dose
of marijuana after reading a Good Housekeeping article on the effects of
medical marijuana.

Todd smoked about a third of the cigarette and then ate dinner later that
night without feeling nauseated for the first time, she said.

"It was the doctors and the medicine that saved his life, but nobody cared
about the quality of it," she said. "It was that one ancient little herb
that saved his health."

Todd went into remission in 1990, but, because of skeletal problems he
suffered during his cancer treatments, he continued to smoke the illegal
drug, growing it and researching it for a book he was writing on the
medicinal uses of the drug, McCormick said.

In 1997, he and several others were arrested and charged with cultivation
of marijuana when police searched their homes and found 100 marijuana
plants. They were later also charged with conspiracy to sell the drug, she
said.

Kevin B. Zeese, president of Common Sense for Drug Policy, said Journey for
Justice is caravaning through Texas because the state leads the nation with
the largest inmate population.

He described Texas as "typical of the rest of the nation, but worst-case
scenario."

Journey for Justice will be on the Texas A&M University campus Monday to
meet students, hand out literature and discuss failed policies, organizers
said. On Monday night, the Student Libertarian Party will host an open
forum to debate the drug war issues with the group in the Koldus Building
on campus.

The group will make various stops in Texas this week before the final
prayer vigil at the Governor's Mansion in Austin on Friday.