A few weeks ago, reports surfaced that the FBI seized approximately 10,000 DVD copies of the SXSW 2006 documentary, a/k/a Tommy Chong in a raid on Ohio-based Spectrum Labs. Spectrum established itself by marketing a detoxification product endorsed by Tommy Chong and had more recently become a partner in the documentary about the US Justice Department’s post 9/11 crackdown on Chong’s glass pipe business. The doc chronicles the lead-up to Chong’s prison term and reveals the questionable legal tactics employed by the government to secure their high-profile indictment.
We spoke to filmmaker Josh Gilbert and Tommy Chong about this most recent incident. Information from the FBI is scarce (it’s a sealed indictment) but neither seem too surprised by the recent raids. Gilbert writes:
This story is a scary lens into a long term, right wing conspiracy to stack the courts and the entire judicial system with Republican zealots, who will determine the Rule of Law in the United States for many years to come.
Mary Beth Buchanan is an over-reaching government prosecutor from Western Pennsylvania who was promoted to the office of US Attorney 3 days after United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field within her State Attorney jurisdiction.
She is a publicity crazed, baldly partisan, right wing Bush appointee, who targeted Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong in her first, highly publicized, Constitution annihilating, 12 million dollar sting operation for selling bongs over the internet. Up In Smoke was actually used as evidence during Chong’s sentencing hearing on the 2nd anniversary of 9/11.
During her tenure as Executive Director of the office of all US Attorneys, Buchanan played a key role in the illegal firings of 8 US attorneys under former Attorney General, Roberto Gonzales.
Now, five years after prosecuting Cheech and Chong, Buchanan has launched another nation-wide sting against an industry that sells products to help the culture of pot (and nicotine) smokers people who must submit to government mandated urine tests – promoted legislatively by the 5.9 billion dollar, Glaxo-Smith-Kline lead drug testing industry – in order to hold on to government jobs, find or keep their private sector jobs, and stay out the increasingly privatized, over-flowing prison system.
The primary target of Buchanan’s latest prosecution is a prosthetic penis called the Whizzinator. Another target of this sting is the investor behind the documentary, a/k/a Tommy Chong, who established his business by selling a detoxifying agent called “Tommy Chong’s Urine Luck.”
Bush may be out of office in January, 2009, but the prosecutors and judges are all in place and determined to annihilate the counter-culture. How long will these judicial appointees out-live Bush’s horror-filled term in the Oval Office? It will take a generation to weed these people out. Who’s generation will it be?
Tommy Chong warns against taking the matter lightly. “It’s just a joke to most people, ‘Pothead Tommy Chong went to jail. Ha ha ha.’
But we’re losing our freedoms–giving them away–in the name of war on drugs. We’re losing what makes us great as a country.”
Well, that’s not funny at all.
As for the seized DVDs, they’ll be kept until the sealed indictment concludes which could take up to fifteen years. DVDs of the film are still available on the official website but they were pulled from Amazon just after the raid. Chong and Gilbert believe that Amazon received pressure to remove the listing.
Hmmm… Sounds like they might have a sequel on their hands.
Original post by charlie
Posted: June 6th, 2008 under Film News.
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