FREE WILL

Helping Drug War Victims

"A lot of people tell me I give them hope" says Will Foster, "because I did
have 93 years in prison, and now I'm free" Arrested in 1995 for growing
marijuana in the basement of his Tulsa home, Foster received a sentence so
onerous that it attracted international attention. (See "Pot of Trouble" May
1997.) [http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v97/n161/a06.html] Now he spends much
of his time trying to help people in similar situations.

Foster was sentenced to 93 years even though there was no evidence he sold
marijuana, which he used to treat the symptoms of his rheumatoid arthritis.
In August 1998 a state appeals court said the sentence "shocks our
conscience" and reduced it to 20 years, making Foster eligible for parole.
Days later, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted unanimously to
release him, but Republican Gov. Frank Keating refused to sign the order. He
turned down a second recommendation the following year before finally
agreeing to release Foster in April 2001.

Foster, who served four and a half years, says Oklahoma's budget crunch and
overcrowded prisons help explain Keating's decision. The governor "signed
more paroles in one month than he did his first six years in office, because
[the legislature] just would not give him any more money," he says. "My
parole happened to be on his desk when they did a mass release of almost
2,300 people."

Foster, who now lives in California, also credits all the people who helped
publicize his case, setting up Web sites, publishing articles, and writing
letters to the governor and the parole board on his behalf. Through the
Adopt a Green Prisoner Project ( www.adoptagreenprisoner.org ), which seeks
volunteers to help nonviolent marijuana offenders gain their freedom, he
tries to bring the same sort of attention to other drug war victims. Foster
started the site last August with James Dawson, a Florida man who was one of
his earliest supporters and who, like Foster, served time for growing
marijuana he used as a medicine.

One of the first prisoners Foster and Dawson assisted was James Geddes, who
received two 45-year sentences for growing five plants in Oklahoma ("Where
else?" says Foster). Geddes, who has served nine years so far, has already
won parole on one of his sentences and faces a decision on the other this
spring.

For those who doubt that letters, petitions, and rallies make a difference,
Foster says he's confident that officials take notice. "Here are people
writing letters from Holland, from England, from France, from Thailand" he
says, all with the same basic message: "This person had marijuana, and
you're putting him in prison for 90 years? What's up with that?"