Peter McWilliams, a best-selling author who advocated the medicinal use of marijuana, died Wednesday at his Laurel Canyon home after a long battle with AIDS and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. At his death, the 50-year-old McWilliams was awaiting sentencing in federal court on a charge of conspiring to possess, manufacture and sell marijuana. McWilliams and co-defendant Todd McCormick were arrested in 1997 after law enforcement officers raided a Bel-Air estate where the two men were allegedly growing more than 4,000 marijuana plants. [continues 290 words]
LOS ANGELES - Peter McWilliams, an outspoken proponent of medical marijuana use who was awaiting sentencing on drug charges, has died. He was 50. McWilliams, who died Wednesday in his Laurel Canyon home, had cancer and was suffering from AIDS, according to a statement from Libertarian Party supporters. An autopsy to determine the cause of death was incomplete pending results of toxicology tests, said Lt. Dan Aiken, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner's office. McWilliams was scheduled to be sentenced in August for conspiring to grow and sell marijuana to cannabis clubs. He pleaded guilty after a federal judge forbade him to use California's state medical marijuana law as a defense. [continues 129 words]
LOS ANGELES -- Peter McWilliams, a best-selling author who advocated the medicinal use of marijuana, died Wednesday at his Laurel Canyon home after a long battle with AIDS and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. At his death, the 50-year-old McWilliams was awaiting sentencing in federal court on a charge of conspiring to possess, manufacture and sell marijuana. McWilliams and co-defendant Todd McCormick were arrested in 1997 after law enforcement officers raided an estate where the two men allegedly were growing more than 4,000 marijuana plants. [continues 254 words]
Medical Marijuana Advocate LOS ANGELES - Bestselling self-help book author and medical marijuana advocate Peter McWilliams died at his Los Angeles home as he was awaiting sentencing on federal charges of growing the drug for sale, friends said yesterday. He was 50. Mr. McWilliams, author of "How to Survive the Loss of Love" and the "Life 101" series of self-help books, was found dead in his bathroom on Wednesday, the friends said. No cause of death was listed but he had both AIDS and cancer. He was scheduled for sentencing on Aug. 15 and faced five years in federal prison. [continues 115 words]
A Best-Selling Author, He Championed The Right To Heal Yourself Without Government Intervention LOS ANGELES - Bestselling self-help book author and medical marijuana advocate Peter McWilliams has died at his Los Angeles home as he was awaiting sentencing on federal charges of growing the drug for sale, friends said today. He was 50. McWilliams, author of ``How to Survive the Loss of Love'' and the ``Life 101'' series of self-help books, was found dead in his bathroom on Wednesday, the friends said. No cause of death was listed but he suffered from AIDS and Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was scheduled for sentencing on Aug. 15 and faced five years in federal prison. [continues 188 words]
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Bestselling self-help book author and medical marijuana advocate Peter McWilliams has died at his Los Angeles home as he was awaiting sentencing on federal charges of growing the drug for sale, friends said Friday. He was 50. McWilliams, author of "How to Survive the Loss of Love" and the "Life 101" series of self-help books, was found dead in his bathroom on Wednesday, the friends said. No cause of death was listed but he suffered from AIDS and Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was scheduled for sentencing on Aug. 15 and faced five years in federal prison. [continues 284 words]
Just mentioning the word "hemp" is enough to arouse knowing smirks. For filmmakers Jeff Jones and Jeff Meyers of Double J Films in Ventura, it gets doors slammed in their faces. "Forget about coverage in most mainstream publications," Meyers said. "We can't even get coverage in the alternative papers, where you think they'd be glomming all over," Jones interjected. Their "Emperor of Hemp" doesn't tout recreational marijuana use. It isn't a wild-eyed response to hemp's continued prohibition. It isn't even about pot. Really. [continues 1030 words]
As history illustrates, every war claims innocent casualties, pawns in a fight that are often spawned by government-vested interests. Renee Boje is a victim of the United States' War on Drugs -- a battle which has escalated from the early 1980s to a $20 billion a year witch-hunt, incarcerating more Americans than those charged with murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault combined, says Eugene Oscapella, director of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy. "The United States government has gone insane over drugs," says Oscapella. The War on Drugs "has nothing to do with sensible public policies; it's about witch-hunts and punishment." [continues 567 words]
Medical marijuana activist Todd McCormick,29,was sentenced to five years in prison for growing thousands of pot plants in a rented Bel-Air mansion.McCormick had pleaded guilty to federal drug charges. [end]
Peter McWilliams,the Los Angeles author, publisher and cancer survivor living with AIDS,faces sentencing March 27 on federal marijuana charges and has asked people to write letters to the judge pleading that he be allowed to serve his sentence under home detention. McWilliams was arrested in July 1998 on federal marijuana charges, after having given an advance to Todd McCormick, a medical marijuana patient, for a book (see www.petertrial.com for more details). Last November prosecutors got an order barring him from telling the jury that he has AIDS, that marijuana is medicine, that the federal government gives marijuana to eight patients, or that California passed Prop. 215. [continues 72 words]
The fate of a California woman trapped in a legal quagmire over the medical use of marijuana is in the hands of Justice Minister Anne McLellan. A B.C. Supreme Court judge yesterday signed an order to have Renee Danielle Boje extradited to Los Angeles, where a conviction on one of three drug charges would land her a minimum of 10 years in jail. The justice minister must now decide whether there are compassionate reasons not to send the 30-year-old artist, who has lived in Roberts Creek since coming to Canada on a visitor's permit in May 1998, back home to stand trial in the U.S. [continues 200 words]
An American woman living on the Sunshine Coast was ordered extradited to the United States Wednesday to face charges in connection with growing marijuana, but she is vowing to fight the order all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Renee Danielle Boje, 30, was released on bail after an uncontested continuance of her previously posted $5,000 bond. She can remain in Canada during what could be a lengthy appeal process lasting several months. Her lawyer, John Conroy, said it could be "quite some considerable time" before Boje would be sent back to California. [continues 375 words]
One Woman's Flight From Injustice One spring afternoon in 1998, Renee Boje arrived at a Canadian checkpoint just over the border from Bellingham, Washington. She had only $50 cash and a backpack filled with her belongings. The canadian border guard asked her name, then typed it into a computer, which promptly produced an official record. It indicated that Boje had been accused of a crime in the U.S. but that the charges had been dropped. The computer didn't provide specifics, so the guard asked Boje what the crime had been. Murder? Armed robbery? Kidnapping? [continues 712 words]
Flight: A California woman claims refugee status in Canada, seeking to avoid drug charges in the United States. Renee Boje is a minor character in a major California marijuana case -- "a very small fish," as she says. Yet the 30-year-old free-lance artist has managed to create an international stir in her battle to avoid trial on U.S. drug charges. In essence, Boje claims she is among the thousands of refugees seeking protection in Canada from rogue governments and dictatorships. [continues 1113 words]
A federal magistrate revoked bail for medical marijuana advocate Todd McCormick on Wednesday, citing what he said was "clear and convincing evidence" that McCormick was smoking pot when he allegedly led a CHP officer on a 90-mph chase in November. But Judge James W. McMahon said he had no authority to rule on a prosecutor's motion to forfeit part of the $500,000 bail posted on behalf of McCormick by actor Woody Harrelson. He said that question must be decided by U.S. District Judge George H. King, who is scheduled to sentence McCormick Feb. 28 on a separate drug conspiracy charge. [continues 319 words]
Medical marijuana advocate Todd McCormick, who is awaiting sentencing for a federal drug conspiracy conviction, was jailed Monday pending the outcome of a hearing on whether he violated the terms of his bail. The U.S. attorney's office filed papers in Los Angeles federal court seeking to revoke McCormick's bond because of his arrest in November after a 90-mph freeway chase in Orange County. A California Highway Patrol officer testified during a hearing before federal magistrate James W. McMahon that McCormick, 29, threw a small item out of his car before stopping. [continues 253 words]
VANCOUVER - An American woman fighting extradition to California to face drug charges stemming from a medical-marijuana grow operation was in court briefly Wednesday. Final arguments began in the extradition hearing for Renee Boje, 30. The New York artist faces drug manufacturing, distribution and conspiracy charges, which carry a minimum 10-year sentence. But Boje's lawyer, John Conroy, argued Wednesday that there was no proof his client was involved in a conspiracy to traffic the drugs. [continues 339 words]
An American woman fighting extradition to California to face drug charges stemming from a medical-marijuana grow operation was in court briefly Wednesday. Final arguments began in the extradition hearing for Renee Boje, 30. The New York artist faces drug manufacturing, distribution and conspiracy charges, which carry a minimum 10-year sentence. But Boje's lawyer, John Conroy, argued Wednesday that there was no proof his client was involved in a conspiracy to traffic the drugs. "There's no evidence she's the member of a conspiracy," Conroy argued. [continues 326 words]
In the Nov. 26 Daily News story "Battling from the fringe," an Alaska state legislator said he was dismayed because we are again facing the issue of decriminalizing cannabis. Many of his fellow Alaskans have been dismayed because Alaska state legislators often bring up the same issues again and again. Key issues of "decriminalization" should be: Does it have safeguards against children and other unauthorized people getting possession of cannabis, and, as important, does it protect the privacy rights of Alaskans as cited in the court case Ravin and reaffirmed in McNeil? [continues 181 words]
Editor -- The latest conviction of medical marijuana users Todd McCormick and Peter McWilliams should serve as a wake-up call to all Americans. The federal government has become so insane with power that serves special-interest groups that they jail sick people who are trying to preserve what health they have left. To coerce guilty pleas, by disallowing a medical defense, in a state where citizens have voted for medical marijuana is fascism. Marijuana is a powerful immune modulator, pain and stress reliever, and appetite stimulant. We, the people, cannot let our federal government deny these scientifically proven facts while they destroy the Constitution and destroy peoples' lives. BOB MELAMEDE, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Dept. of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics University of Vermont Burlington, Vt. [end]
