Enough already! That was the message Olympia, Washington, resident Dana Walker sent to the Thurston County Superior Court last Friday when, in an act of civil disobedience, he refused to pay fines for past marijuana offenses and demanded to be sent to jail instead. He got his wish and is currently behind bars awaiting sentencing, but the local criminal justice system is going to be out several thousand dollars, and Walker is going to be able to look himself in the eye and know he didn't back down before the pot prohibition laws.





Could this man be the Rosa Parks of the marijuana legalization movement? (Image: Dana Walker)

Dana Walker outside the Thurston County Jail wearing a "Stop Snitchin'" shirt. (Image: Dana Walker)

Walker has been arrested on marijuana charges on numerous occasions and has served time in the federal prison system for pot. After finally being freed from the feds' leash, he told supporters on a Dana Goes to Jail! Facebook page he set up for the event that he had had enough."Have you ever wanted to go into a courtroom and honestly tell the judge and prosecutor what you think of their marijuana laws?" Walker wrote. "I have a golden opportunity to do just that and I plan to take full advantage. Those of you who personally know me know I am fully capable of turning righteous indignation into an entertaining show, and I plan to pull out all stops on this one," he explained."I owe Thurston County over $3,000 for a marijuana charge from back in 1997," he said. "I am currently unemployed, I am not a fan of hot weather, and I wouldn't mind at all spending a few weeks in jail just for the opportunity to tell a court where they can stick their laws."Walker said that if enough other people followed his example, they could clog the gears of the drug war punishment apparatus."If everyone throws a few shovels full of dirt into the cogs of the Machine then the Machine can't function," he explained. "If even a relatively insignificant number of criminal defendants demanded full jury trials and court-appointed attorneys and then refused to pay any fines then the entire prison-industrial complex would implode.His action was also for his own good, he said."I am also fulfilling a psychological need to take back control of my life," Walker said. "I highly resent the fact that I have been forced by circumstance to kiss their evil asses for over a decade and I will now have my say. I am a keen patron of irony and I LOVE the fact that I am going to reclaim my freedom by going to jail."Last Friday morning, Walker did have his say. Here is his statement, which was read into the record, in its entirety:"I am an active and contributing member of my community and I have earned the respect and admiration of large numbers of the people in my community and I hate to admit it as it goes against my 'outlaw' image, but I even obey the traffic laws."In spite of all this I now have four felony convictions and three misdemeanor convictions, all for marijuana; I have spent over six years of my life incarcerated in a federal prison and four years on federal probation over marijuana, and Thurston County now wants me to pay a fine of $2,010 for marijuana plus $1,754 in interest on that fine that was accrued as I sat in a federal prison all those years."Since I have been smoking marijuana on a regular basis for over 40 years now and suffered no ill effects of any kind whatsoever that I am aware of, since I consider this state's marijuana laws to be an unacceptable, unconstitutional, and outrageous infringement upon my personal liberty, since I love smoking marijuana and I intend to continue smoking marijuana at any time that I darned well please, and since making someone like me into a criminal over marijuana is insane and stupid; then today I am placing the State of Washington on notice that from this point forward I will not only never again pay the state to prosecute me for marijuana but that I intend to make it as expensive to prosecute me for marijuana as I possibly can -- and since I have been in the system for a long time I know how to do that."I would also like to point out that the feds had me under their thumb for over 10 years and they did not break me -- and as of a few days ago I am no longer under that thumb. And so today I am celebrating and reclaiming my freedom by informing the state that since I will no longer pay your fines and since I no longer fear your jails then -- as far as marijuana goes -- you no longer have any power over me and that in fact the stick is now in my hand."Thurston County Superior Court Judge Gary Tabor was not amused. "If I had known what you were going to say, I wouldn't have let you make the statement," he said. "Once you got started I didn't want to be rude and interrupt you."He then ordered Walker handcuffed and sent to jail pending sentencing. That was supposed to happen this week, but there is no word yet.Thanks to Toke of the Town for the heads up.