Freedom. Americans dedicate an entire day to celebrating it, yet our country is home to the world’s largest population of prisoners. Several of these men and women are serving time for medical marijuana, even though they were following state law allowing their activities.

In a recent New York Times article entitled Lock ‘Em Up Nation: Mandatory Sentencing for Medical Marijuana, Timothy Egan writes, “if Larry Harvey, at the age of 70, with his gout and high blood pressure and bum knee, gets the mandatory 10-year term, he’s likely to die in prison, certainly not the last casualty of the assault on our citizens known as the War on Drugs. For him, freedom is just another word his congresswoman likes to throw around on the Fourth of July.”

Like so many others before him, Larry Harvey is staring down the barrel of a federal prosecution for growing less than 70 plants on his 34-acre property, along with four other authorized patients. U.S. Attorney’s have also indicted Larry’s wife, his son and daughter in law, and a family friend. Together, they are known as the “Kettle Falls Five.” If trial proceeds on July 28, defense attorneys will not be allowed to argue the cannabis was being grown for medical purposes. Just the opposite, a federal judge recently granted a continuance to allow prosecutors to alter video evidence in order to edit out doctors’ recommendations and a large sign with a green cross, so as not to “confuse the jury.”