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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
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Today in psychedelic history (09/26) 2
#13248817 - 09/26/10 11:12 AM (13 years, 4 months ago) |
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- 1996: Nick Sand is arrested after 20 years on the run
Quote:
Nick then spent a while in Mexico and Central America. Returning to Canada he set up a small lab to distill the oil from cannabis that he grew. By 1995, Nick was working on organizing a lab in Port Coquitlam near Vancouver to make LSD, DMT, MDMA, and MDA on a large scale.
In 1996, Nick became lovers with Usha (Gina Raetze), who remained his partner until his death. On September 26, 1996, Nick was arrested at the Port Coquitlam lab with 5 kg of DMT, 3.5 kg of MDMA, 5 kg of MDA, 43 grams of LSD and 2.5 kilos of ergotamine tartrate. By December of 1996, the RCMP had figured out that the man they'd arrested was Nick Sand, who had been a fugitive for 20 years. In February of 1998, Nick pled guilty to manufacturing drugs in Canada. He was given a nine-year sentence, which the Canadian authorities agreed to let run concurrently with his US sentence. Nick's lawyer eventually made a deal with the American authorities to allow him to be transported to the United States in return for credit for time served in Canada toward his 15-year American sentence. In San Francisco, Nick was tried for bail jumping and found guilty by Judge Conti on October 15, 1998. He was sentenced to an additional consecutive five-year term on January 22, 1999.
(https://www.erowid.org)
Drug lord sentenced after 20-year flight Eric Brazil, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF Published 4:00 am, Friday, January 22, 1999
1999-01-22 04:00:00 PDT CANADA; UNITED STATES -- One September day in 1976, Nicholas Sand quietly slipped out of his Sausalito houseboat and vanished, leaving behind a 15-year prison sentence, frustrated FBI agents, a probation officer and a whiff of mystery that lingered for 20 years.
On Friday, Sand's run for daylight ended. He's going to prison for 20 years.
Throughout the halcyon hippie days of the '60s and early '70s, Sand, a disciple of Augustus Owsley Stanley, grand master of the LSD culture, had been one of the Bay Area's leading manufacturers and distributors of the hallucinogenic drug. His escape was an embarrassment to law enforcement.
Indicted in 1973 for manufacturing LSD and income-tax evasion, Sand was convicted by a federal jury in 1974 and sentenced to 15 years in prison by Judge Samuel Conti.
An appellate court subsequently freed Sand on $50,000 bail.
On Sept. 11, 1976, two FBI agents who had been conducting surveillance and a probation officer who had arrived to give Sand the news that his appeal had failed converged on Sand's Sausalito houseboat, only to find that he had skipped out.
On Sept. 26, 1996, the law caught up with Sand in Canada. He has been behind bars since.
Justice was delayed, but Friday, Sand, 58, appeared again before Judge Conti, who threw the book at him.
In addition to his original 15-year sentence, the judge tacked on five more years, to be served consecutively - that is, after he has completed the longer sentence.
"The defendant was a serious drug manufacturer when he was last before this court in 1974," Conti said. "He continued in that business and committed other serious crimes on his 20-year odyssey."
When Sand appeared before Conti at his original sentencing, the judge reproached him for having
"contributed to the degradation of mankind."
As Sand stood before him again, Conti recalled, "He told me, "Your honor, I'm very sorry for what I've done. I would never do anything like that again' and that he had reformed (his) ideas and goals," Conti said.
In fact, Sand never gave up manufacturing LSD and dealing drugs. He simply moved his operation to Canada, where, living under false names with false identities taken from dead Canadian citizens, he created an LSD lab that flabbergasted Canadian Royal Mounted police when they busted it in 1996.
Street value of the drugs found in Sand's Vancouver-area laboratory was $6.5 million. "The LSD alone had a value of $3.2 million," the Supreme Court of British Columbia found when it sentenced him to nine years in prison last February.
Sand, the Canadian court said, "was the head of the organization that manufactured these drugs and received 75 percent of the profits. This was an expensive, sophisticated laboratory . . . on a par with one that would be found in a university."
Mountie Staff Sgt. Kenneth Ross told The Examiner that at the time of his arrest, Sand's lab "was literally better than the Health Canada lab" and produced extremely high-quality LSD. Sand "is an icon in the world of illicit drugs," he said.
Sand's drug organization is believed to have had operations in Belgium, Mexico and Honduras, as well as the Bay Area. Its distribution network included Hells Angels and the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a cult founded by the late LSD guru Timothy Leary.
In arguing for his innocence on the bail-jumping charge, Sand said that he had never been formally notified that he should appear for sentencing in 1976. Judge Conti found him guilty of the charge in October.
(http://www.sfgate.com/)
- 2009: Brenice Lee Smith is arrested after nearly 40 years on the run
Quote:
On September 26, 2009 Brenice Lee Smith, a suspected member of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love was arrested in California after nearly four decades on the lam. The 64-year-old Smith was taken into custody at San Francisco International Airport after arriving from Nepal. He was arrested on two, nearly 40-year-old warrants issued in Orange County related to the sale and possession of drugs. On November 20 Smith, after serving two months in jail, pleaded guilty to a single charge of smuggling hashish. Released the next morning, he immediately got back on a plane to live with his wife and daughter in Nepal.
(wikipedia)
A man accused of of membership in the so-called "Hippie Mafia"--and who has spent the past three decades living a peaceful, possession-free life in a Nepalese monastery--has now been languishing in jail for more than a month.
Brenice Lee Smith was arrested at San Francisco International Airport on Sept. 26 after four decades on the run. A founding member of the Orange County-based Brotherhood of Eternal Love, which formed in 1966 with the intention of promoting peaceful transformation of self and society through consciousness expanding drug experimentation, Smith now stands charged with smuggling 100 pounds of hashish from Afghanistan to California in 1968. After returning from overseas with the intention of moving his Nepalese wife and daughter to the United States, he was extradited from the Bay Area to Orange County's Main Jail.
Many observers who commented on the Weekly's initial blog post, which was picked up by the OC Register, Associated Press and UPI, have expressed shock and amazement that authorities have the time and resources to punish a man who clearly returned to US soil voluntarily and who by all accounts has dedicated himself to peace. Part of the explanation may be that the prosecutor handling the case, Jim Hicks, is the son of DA Cecil Hicks, who presided over the 1972 conspiracy case against the Brotherhood, and who is said to be retiring next March, meaning this case could be his last hurrah.
In the latest developments, Smith had an October 23 hearing in front of Orange County Superior Court Judge William Froeberg, who happens to be married to the chief of the District Attorney's sex crimes unit. Froeberg denied a request by Gerardo Gutierrez, Smith's Chicago-based attorney, to reduce Smith's bail from $1.1 million to $50,000, thus ensuring that his client will remain behind bars for the time being. The next hearings in the case are set for November 7 and December 7. The latter date, Gutierrez said, represents his "drop-dead" deadline for filing a motion to have the case dismissed in the interest of justice.
"Come hell or high water, by December 7, I am going to push this for trial," Gutierrez said. "It will become very apparent that they can't play a shell game anymore." Gutierrez added that the original conspiracy indictment against the Brotherhood was "immaturely drafted," noting that one of the counts actually charged Smith and other Brotherhood members with the supposed crime of living in Laguna Beach. Although Gutierrez has yet to file a motion to dismiss the case, his unsuccessful motion to reduce bail lays out a detailed argument for why that should happen.
First there's the question of whether Smith poses any threat to society.
Here's the answer:
"During his years in exile from these charges, Mr. Smith has lived a sedentary life in the mountainous terrain of Kathmandu, Nepal, where he was carrying on a meager existence as a practicing Buddhist monk, under the tutelage of Kalu Rinpoche, a meditation master, scholar and teacher, one of the first Tibet masters to teach in the West," the motion states. "Smith, remaining in Kathmandu for the petter part of the 80s, 90s, and the first decade of the 21st century, lived a monastic existence where he learned the teachings of Vishnu, the Buddhist practice of philosophical actualization and thee teachings of the Bodhisvatta path, became reborn as a spritual Yogi, or teacher of the path of enlightenment. For our purposes, he became a different person, making correct decisions about his life, marrying a Nepalese woman and fathering a child who is now in her 20s and more importantly, prompting him to return to his home town in California, where authorities were waiting to arrest him."
Second, there's the question of how serious Smith's alleged crimes really were.
On that note, consider the fact that, at the time, smuggling hash could actually get you a life sentence in prison. Possessing merely a joint or two could get you a year in jail. As Gutierrez argues, however, things have changed a bit since then. Nowadays, you can be busted with up to an ounce of marijuana and face no stiffer penalty than a $100 fine--and that's assuming you're one of the dwindling numbers of people who don't have a doctor's note and a state ID card telling the cops to keep their hands off your weed.
Finally there's the question of whether justice would actually be served by punishing Smith, who is now 64 years old.
"Mr. Smith has no ties to any drug activity or any former members in this case," Gutierrez wrote. "Indeed, of the 29 other defendants named in the indictment, ore more precisely the 12 or so individuals specifically alleged to have directly participated with Mr. Smith, all of [them] had their cases dismissed--with prejudice," meaning they can never be recharged.
For his part, Smith had this to say at his Oct. 23 hearing, speaking over the objections of Gutierrez, directly to the judge, apparently hoping he could somehow break the spell of inanity that has pervaded this case since it escaped from the ashbin of history a month ago. "Well," he said. "I've been living in a monastery for the past 30 years. Ten years with in the Lama's house and 20 years in the monastery...I just can't wait to get back to my family."
(http://blogs.ocweekly.com/)
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
Edited by Learyfan (09/26/17 05:38 AM)
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saxx
Stranger


Registered: 02/08/10
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: Learyfan] 1
#13248906 - 09/26/10 11:40 AM (13 years, 4 months ago) |
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Hah. I bet that guy has some stories. I envy him.
-------------------- sucking dick for drink tickets at the free bar at my cousin's bat mitzvah zappateer said: I'm not wasting time at school. I'm gaining hella knowledge and life experience, not trying to use my degree for financial gain.
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,083
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: saxx]
#13250633 - 09/26/10 07:01 PM (13 years, 4 months ago) |
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Oh yeah, The Brotherhood Of Eternal Love had some wonderful times. There are books about them out there. Actually, I want to see the documentary called "Orange Sunshine" about the Brotherhood. I guess it's not out yet, but it's been in the works for 3 years or more. Here are some short clips from it.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
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saxx
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: Learyfan]
#13250967 - 09/26/10 08:09 PM (13 years, 4 months ago) |
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Yeah i read that book.
That's the only reason i can keep up with the articles you post ^^. That and PIHKAL.
That second clip made me happy.
-------------------- sucking dick for drink tickets at the free bar at my cousin's bat mitzvah zappateer said: I'm not wasting time at school. I'm gaining hella knowledge and life experience, not trying to use my degree for financial gain.
Edited by saxx (09/26/10 08:11 PM)
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: saxx]
#13251253 - 09/26/10 09:02 PM (13 years, 4 months ago) |
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Did you read "Orange Sunshine"? There are a couple of other BEL books out there. I'll bet they're all great reads.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
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saxx
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: Learyfan] 1
#13251870 - 09/26/10 11:43 PM (13 years, 4 months ago) |
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I only read this one out BEL specifically.
Edited by saxx (09/26/10 11:44 PM)
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: saxx]
#13251891 - 09/26/10 11:50 PM (13 years, 4 months ago) |
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Far out. What was the most memorable story in the book? BTW, you can buy a book called Orange Sunshine also. This one looks pretty good as well.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
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saxx
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: Learyfan] 1
#13251915 - 09/26/10 11:59 PM (13 years, 4 months ago) |
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Yeah i could probably rent that book 
I probably enjoyed reading about owsley and his proteges the most, but really just the general theme of complete drug-entrepreneurship.
Also reading about how the government dealt with the explosion of drugs and 'radicals' from BEL's point of view was enlightening. Talking about taunting DEA agents that were suppose to be shadowing them etc.
-------------------- sucking dick for drink tickets at the free bar at my cousin's bat mitzvah zappateer said: I'm not wasting time at school. I'm gaining hella knowledge and life experience, not trying to use my degree for financial gain.
Edited by saxx (09/26/10 11:59 PM)
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,083
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: saxx]
#13251928 - 09/27/10 12:04 AM (13 years, 4 months ago) |
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I can imagine! I would love to hear the stories. But I guess I'll wait for the "Orange Sunshine" documentary. Here's another clip from it. This is one of the police who was after the BEL.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: saxx]
#15135589 - 09/26/11 05:52 AM (12 years, 4 months ago) |
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15th anniversary of Nick Sand's capture today.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
Edited by Learyfan (09/25/13 10:48 PM)
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saxx
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: Learyfan] 1
#15135681 - 09/26/11 07:00 AM (12 years, 4 months ago) |
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It's been a year has it. Bump
-------------------- sucking dick for drink tickets at the free bar at my cousin's bat mitzvah zappateer said: I'm not wasting time at school. I'm gaining hella knowledge and life experience, not trying to use my degree for financial gain.
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volare
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: Learyfan] 2
#15135704 - 09/26/11 07:13 AM (12 years, 4 months ago) |
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Log in to view attachment
Here is a pdf of that book....enjoy.
The Brotherhood of Eternal Love: From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia.
-------------------- snakes are symbols
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,083
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: saxx]
#16913101 - 09/26/12 05:48 AM (11 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
saxx said: It's been a year has it. Bump
Yes it has. 
volare, thanks for the upload! 
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,083
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: Learyfan]
#18891790 - 09/25/13 10:51 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Here's a random Nick Sand speech. Thank you for your immense sacrifice, Nick.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: Learyfan] 1
#20620257 - 09/26/14 05:36 AM (9 years, 4 months ago) |
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5th anniversary of the Brenice Lee Smith arrest today.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: Learyfan]
#22293704 - 09/26/15 01:37 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Annual bump.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,083
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: Learyfan]
#23678817 - 09/26/16 05:40 AM (7 years, 4 months ago) |
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20th anniversary of Nick Sand being apprehended after 20 years of being a fugitive from justice.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: Learyfan]
#24660729 - 09/26/17 05:41 AM (6 years, 4 months ago) |
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Two Brotherhood Of Eternal Love members caught after years on the run, on the same day, except in different decades. Pretty strange coincidence.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,083
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: Learyfan]
#25489801 - 09/26/18 06:27 AM (5 years, 4 months ago) |
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Annual bump.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,083
Loc: High pride!
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (09/26) [Re: Learyfan]
#26210197 - 09/26/19 06:35 AM (4 years, 4 months ago) |
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10th anniversary of Brotherhood of Eternal Love member Brenice Lee Smith being arrested after around 37 years on the run.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
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