10 of the Harshest Sentences for Pot in the U.S.

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Most Americans want pot to be legal, and as many as 70% of Americans want to legalize it for medical use. Nonetheless, the war on pot rages on. The Obama administration has actually increased raids on state-sanctioned medical pot programs, prosecuting both patients and their providers. Medical pot defendants have little protection in the justice system, which denies as evidence mention of their marijuana prescription or state-sanctioned use. A review of some of the sentences over the past few decades -- punishments that plague individuals for decades, even after release -- reveals the injustice of the drug war. Here's a rundown of the people who received the harshest penalties handed down for pot in recent history.

1. Christopher Williams

A Montana medical marijuana provider is facing 82 to 85 years behind bars, due to mandatory minimum laws linked to some of his charges. Convicted of crimes like manufacturing marijuana, intent to distribute and possession of a firearm during a drug trafficking offense, Christopher Williams appeared to be in the for the worst. But in a rare move this September, U.S. Attorney Michael Cotter offered to drop four of Williams’ charges and bring his sentencing down to “as little as 10 years,” so long as Williams waived his right to appeal.

Williams refused the offer on moral grounds. The case isn’t about medical pot, says Williams, whose judge prohibited discussion of Montana’s medical marijuana program at trial. Rather, he says, it is about government abuse of power. “I have decided to fight the federal government, because for me not defending the things that I know are right is dishonorable,” Williams wrote to the Independent Record, “Every citizen has a responsibility to fight for what is right, even if it seems like the struggle will be lost.”

Michael Donahoe, Williams’ attorney, said that federal prosecutors often bring gun charges against medical marijuana defendants without the intent to prosecute them. Rather, they are hoping for a plea bargain -- one Williams is not willing to take.

“We know this for two reasons,” Donahoe told the Missoulan, “First, because the government readily agreed to dismiss the firearms counts for virtually every other medical marijuana defendant in those cases where firearms violations had been charged. And second, because insofar as [Williams’] ‘conspiracy’ is concerned, every other defendant had no real choice but to plead guilty in exchange for the firearms charges being dropped.”

He added, “Given the government’s conduct here that was a false choice inspired by an abusive exercise of government power, considering that it was the government’s reckless decision to change its medical marijuana policy that was the first cause of all these problems.”

Jonathan Magbie's story is a stunning example of the cruelty that can accompany an arrest for medical marijuana. Paralyzed from the neck down after being hit by a drunk driver at the age of four, Magpie was charged with marijuana possession in 2004 after cops found a joint and a loaded gun in a vehicle in which he was the passenger. Though he had never been convicted of a criminal offense and required medical assistance 20 hours a day, he was given a 10-day sentence in a DC jail. With no ventilator to sustain his breathing, he died in jail four days later.

Magbie’s marijuana punishment was a death sentence. Without their medication behind bars, pot patients who make it out alive have endured days, weeks or years without their medication. Even after release, conditions of parole, including urine tests, may prevent patients from accessing their medicine.

Now almost 70 years old, Platshorn is a marijuana activist who has managed to stay in the public eye. He recently toured America with the Silver Tour, speaking with seniors about medical marijuana. His most recent brush with law enforcement went down this summer. In May 2011, Platshorn received a letter from the parole board apparently releasing him from service. But this July, after his parole officer had passed away and two days before he was to speak before the American Bar Association, a new parole officer named Scott Kirsche showed up at his door and demanded he give a urine sample. Platshorn -- who says his former parole officer allowed him to travel to pot-related events and also approved his use of cannabis oil for skin cancer -- failed the test and was ordered to immediately stop treating his cancer with cannabis oil.

Then, in one of the most shocking elements of Platshorn’s life story, he received what is effectively a gag order: Platshorn told South Florida’s Sun Sentenial that he is banned from travel “to promote the legalization of marijuana without the express permission of the U.S. Parole Commission.” Platshorn was specifically toldnot to appear at an upcoming High Times medical event in San Francisco, and to cut ties with patient and fellow Silver Tour board member Irvin Rosenfeld. In July, U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks ordered Platshorn to remain under parole supervision, while claiming his request for freedom to speak at marijuana-related events conflicts with his criminal record.

5. Will Foster

US Army veteran and business-owner Will Foster was suffering from widespread rheumatoid arthritis when he started growing marijuana. In 1997, Oklahoma police discovered his marijuana garden and just $28 cash after a “confidential informant” helped them procure a “John Doe” search warrant for methamphetamine. His sentence was reduced to 20 years and he was paroled to California in 2001. The Oklahoma Department of Corrections was unhappy when Foster completed parole, and attempted to extradite him back to Oklahoma -- a fight Foster won.

But in 2008, Foster’s marijuana grow, legal by California standards, was raided. Foster sat in a California jail for a year before local authorities dropped the charges. Unfortunately for Foster, Oklahoma officials showed up at the Calif. jail, shackled Foster and drove him back to Oklahoma, where he remained until he was released in late November 2009.

6. John Avery

In 1994, more than 50 DEA agents, local police and sheriffs raided wheelchair-bound John Avery’s 50-acre property. They discovered 1,250 pot plants in an underground marijuana garden. Police arrested Avery's son-law, Ricky Daniels, and a friend, David Tapley. Collectively, the two implicated Daniels’ wife Michele, John Avery, Avery’s deceased son, and his daughter Sheri. The five names were enough to charge John Avery with “continuing a criminal enterprise.”

John Knock received two life sentences plus 20 years behind bars for his alleged involvement in marijuana trafficking from Pakistan and Lebanon to the United States and Canada in the mid-'90s. Knock was living in Hawaii when he was extradited to Florida, a state in which he had never lived, to face charges related to a reverse sting because of his connection to an indicted San Francisco smuggler. The only evidence against him was the testimony of informants, and yet Knock is on track to die behind bars.

While a life sentence for marijuana may seem incredibly rare, it has been handed to multiple nonviolent offenders. (For more information, visit www.lifeforpot.com.) In 1992, Mark Young received a life sentence for playing the role of middleman in a large pot sale. That same year, Larry Jackson, a man with a long rap sheet of small-time, nonviolent offenses, received a life sentence for a minuscule amount of pot -- 1/100th of a gram -- and a tiny bit of cocaine. As Eric Schlosser wrote in Reefer Madness, Oklahoma has some of the harshest punishments for pot, but it is not the only state handing down life sentences for the plant: