Pubdate: June 1999
Source: High Times (US)
Copyright: 1999 by Trans-High Corporation.
Contact:  http://www.hightimes.com/
Author:    Steven Wishnia

THE JAILING OF AMERICA - SHATTERED LIVES

In Drug War America, more people live in prisons and jails than in
Philadelphia, Detroit or Houston. Shattered Lives: Portraits from America's
Drug War (Creative Xpressions, PO Box 1716, El Cerrito, CA 94530), by Mikki
Norris, Chris Conrad and Virginia Resner, shows the human faces behind the
bars of Incarceration Nation. 

Many are familiar Drug War POWs, like Will Foster (serving 20 years for
growing pot) 
and Kemba Smith (24 years for minor links to her
ex-boyfriend's crack syndicate), but the lesser-knowns
have equally outrageous stories: 

James Geddes, doing 90 years for five plants; 
Melinda George, sentenced to 99 years for selling a $10 bag of coke;
James Cox, an emaciated cancer patient who served five years for medical
marijuana;
John Avery and his daughters Sheri and Michele, ratted out by
Michele's husband after he got busted growing on John's land. Shattered
Lives also includes a brief analysis of the Drug War and activist-group
listings.
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