Common Sense, Courage, and Compassion

PINE BOX MEDICINE

Bruce Throckmorton
#78808-012
3150 Horton Road - Austin Unit
Fort Worth, TX 76119

This story is sketchy, I don't yet have all the details, but Bruce is sick enough for us to be concerned with time.

Bruce is in the Federal medical prison in Fort Worth, Texas: Yes, the infamous 'Pine Box Medical Prison.' This is the same prison that refused PODW McClemore his legal medicine, Marinol; the same prison that aided Jim McDougal's death from a heart attack in the hole, and the same prison that locked Crohn's patient, T.J. Lowe, in the hole for nine long months.

Bruce is dying of terminal cancer, and is sick enough to qualify for the compassionate release program. Indeed, the papers had been approved. However, he was caught with 1/10 of a gram of cannabis this week, which he was using for nausea. The counselors say that he is now disqualified for early release. He has been sent to the hole.

They say they would have released him since he was dying, but because of this charge for possessing cannabis, his release has been withdrawn. They mean it when they said, "You can just die here."

His friends in prison are writing, begging for help for Bruce.

Will someone to go to bat for Bruce, or will he lay curled in pain on a hard bunk in a crowded cell while guards look on without mercy and his friends watch helplessly? While his family mourns the inhumanity of our system?  I do not know.  But, I do know that just because 'men die in prison all the time' is not a good enough reason for a non-violent person to die more alone than a sick dog under the porch.

I do cannot stomach these things continuing in the face of the Institute of Medicine Report which dispels all the myths that have kept marijuana in Schedule One. The JAMA report, the New England Journal, the voters; don't any of these count?  Should the DEA and NIDA and the FDA continue to arrest people and incarcerate them for life destroying lengths of time?  Should a marijuana offender be given a life sentence?  Well, Bruce is most certainly sentenced to death for no better reason than that he needs to feel better.

I don't see how this prison and all the others keep getting away with these horrors. Medicine is being used as a weapon inside these walls, forcing people into poor health and death. To use the art of healing in that manner is inhuman, immoral, and unGodly: The acts of beasts and murders

This is still America. Where is our decency, our honor, our common sense? What do you want for the future of our Nation? How low are you willing to stoop to have it?

In Shame,
Kay Lee

T. J. writes, "If he could get out, he might be able to find holistic or alternative healings that could prolong his life. Who knows, he might even survive. In here, he will surely die and very soon. At least he should be able to die with dignity with his family."

END THIS DRUG WAR NOW!

Nine Months in the Hole

Return to Prison