We lost a "cannabis warrior" today. Pot POW Eddy Lepp Passes from Cancer at 69 Charles Eddy Lepp 1952-2021 Like many Americans, Charles Eddy Lepp, who passed away from cancer this morning in California at age 69, did serious jail time for cannabis. On August 18, 2004, DEA agents raided Eddy’s Medicinal Gardens and Multi-Denominational Chapel of Cannabis and Rastafari in Upper Lake, California. Lepp had been allowing patients to cultivate cannabis for medical purposes on his property; many of the 24,784 plants confiscated on the 20 acres were clearly visible from State Highway 20. Lepp was convicted of federal drug felonies in 2007 and sentenced in 2009 to a 10-year mandatory-minimum. He was released in 2016. Lepp was raided, arrested, charged and acquitted by local and state authorities for doing the same thing in 1997. "I hope to go back to doing what I’ve been doing for 20 years mostly, which is being an advocate for the full legalization of hemp as an industrial product," Lepp told Freedom Leaf after his release. "Jack Herer and I seldom talked about the uses of cannabis - what we talked about mostly was industrial hemp and why it wasn’t being used for the purposes that God intended it." "Today, the most-used commodity in products is sea kelp. It’s used in 1,200 to 1,500 products, everything from shoe polish to toothpaste. It’s been estimated that if they had the same freedom to experiment with hemp like they do with sea kelp, that hemp would be in 5,000 to 10,000 products within two years, and in over 25,000 within five. Hemp is truly God’s gift to his children, not just for spiritual use and medicinal use, but as an industrial product, second to none. Marijuana should be treated the same as any other agricultural product." Best Buds: Eddy Lepp and Jack Herer According to Freedom Leaf, Lepp was "born on May 14, 1952 in La Harpe, Illinois and raised in Reno, Nevada. He served in the U.S. Army’s military intelligence unit in Vietnam from 1969–1972, where he discovered cannabis. "Lepp’s medical-marijuana epiphany came in 1987 when his father used it to battle cancer. Lepp rose in prominence as a cannabis activist in the early '90s. He and his late wife, Linda Senti, gathered signatures for California’s Proposition 215, and soon after its passage in 1996, Lepp formed the Medicinal Gardens that earned him his first arrest. Eddy Lepp: "Hemp is truly God’s gift to his children. Marijuana should be treated the same as any other agricultural product." (snipped) Granny
Anybody who was brave enough to publicity contest pot laws in the 80s-90s is a true hero in my book. I have never and will never understand how people growing this harmless plant could get punished so severely.