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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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US IL: Marijuana Advocate Sentenced To Prison
ccguide Thursday 08 Mar 2001 Pubdate: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 Source: Rockford Register Star (IL) Copyright: 2001 Rockford Register Star Contact: Website: http://www.rrstar.com/ Section: Front Page Author: Rachel Cunningham, Rockford Register Star MARIJUANA ADVOCATE SENTENCED TO PRISON ROCKFORD A longtime advocate of legalizing marijuana for medicinal use in Illinois was sentenced Monday to five years in state prison by Winnebago County Associate Judge Rosemary Collins. Now he wants Gov. George Ryan to hear his case for clemency. E.J. Pagel of Rockford was arrested and charged with felony possession of a controlled substance and illegal drug possession with the intent to sell. He was arrested for selling six pounds of pot to police informants on three separate occasions in less than a month, Winnebago County State's Attorney Paul Logli said. Pagel could have faced 15 years in prison but was sentenced to five, Logli said. Pagel, who went to jail in 1977 for previous drug charges, said he wants to have his sentence commuted by Ryan at a June hearing because Pagel thought he was selling the pot to someone who would give it to "a few rural folks who needed it to get them through the winter," Pagel said in a phone interview from his home Tuesday. "It's all out of compassion that I did this." Pagel's notion that his drug trafficking was for a higher good rang hollow with Logli. "We don't know where and in whose hands it (Pagel's pot) is going to land ... and neither does Pagel," Logli said. Asked whether Pagel was treated any differently from other defendants with a history of drug arrests, Logli said Pagel was given opportunities to change his behavior. "He's gotten some breaks along the way," Logli said. "He had the opportunity to alter his behavior, to discontinue his trafficking in marijuana, go on probation and go into therapy." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake
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