June 18, 1996

                                     Rev. Tom Brown
                                     04808-010
                                     P.0.B0X 4000
                                     Springfield, Mo. 65801

Dear Friends,

     Well, I got good news, and bad news, and lets get to the bad 
news first.  On April 29, 1996 the Supreme Court of the United 
States refused to certify my petition for review of my 
conviction.  That means that as far as the court system in the 
United States, there is nothing wrong with my conviction and that 
no change will be made in the near future.  As you can imagine, 
when I learned this on May 3, 1996, I felt like I had been kicked 
in the stomach.  As much as I had tried to prepare myself for 
this eventuality, the reality of it almost beat me into the 
ground.  The fact that I had taken the position that the court 
system could be trusted to follow the Constitution and the Law, 
that the corruption of Judge Waters and his involvement with Don 
Tyson in smuggling cocaine into this country to finance Tyson 
Corporate expansion, Waters’ corruption in covering up the CIA 
drug smuggling and assassination programs at the Mena, Arkansas 
airport would be uncovered and dealt with, and that the system 
just needed an honest opportunity to work on this, put me in the 
position to be deeply hurt and disappointed by the courts refusal 
to even review the case.

     Now to the good news.  One of the best things about my 
experience here has been that the Truth of the holy teachings of 
a dozen cultures is real and available to those who seek it.  
This Truth is that God is real, that we can reach out in our 
lives and bear incredible pain and sorrow - not through our own 
strength, but through the intercession of something beyond us, 
something that leads us to a higher understanding of life, a 
better way of knowing it.  Unfortunately, one must climb the 
mountain in order to see from the heights, and that climb is 
often uncomfortable and inconvenient.  But the view from the 
heights is not just of a pretty sunset.  From the heights I have 
seen vision and realized a plan of which we are a small but vital 
part.  Let me explain.

     Each of you receiving this letter knows of the persecution 
of those of us who use herbs and plants to better know and 
understand God.  Each of you knows something of how those herbs 
and plants are also food for our body and medicine for our 
illness.  Each of you knows how much pain and suffering have been 
caused by the government’s refusal to obey the laws of God and 
man, and why and how they profit from their corruption.  Now I 
see more clearly than before how my life fits into war, and how 
to take the next steps in this particular battle.  Enclosed with 
this letter is a copy of a photo-item from the New York Times.  
It is of a Catholic nun who was beaten, tortured and raped by 
Guatemalan military personal acting under advise of U.S. CIA 
operatives.  She is picketing the White House, trying to get the 
government to admit to and stop this despotic activity on the 
part of the CIA and military intelligence operatives.  Of course 
we know of Mena, Arkansas and how the drugs smuggled into Mena 
went to pay for these same murders and tortures.  Our Church is 
deeply involved in pulling down these rogue operations.  My place 
here is simply not comparable to this nun’s service to the poor 
of central america, and the torture it cost her.  We are however 
waging the same war, and with God's help we will prevail.  Every 
time I think of her, of Archbishop Romero murdered in his Church, 
the Jesuit Priests of the University in El Salvador murdered 
along with their housekeeper in their front yard, I realize how 
small a price I have to pay to place myself on the path of Truth 
along with them.  Please offer a special ceremony and prayers, 
each in your own tradition, in the memory of these martyrs and in 
hopes that our fight against this EVIL may change the balance 
enough to end it.

     It is true that I have been beaten up pretty badly so far.  
The corruption of the Federal Judge Waters in Fayetteville, 
Arkansas, has poisoned the possibility of defense to these 
charges, and his corruption is covered by Reagan/Bush appointees 
to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and now by the Supreme 
Court itself.  All is not lost however.  I am now preparing a 
motion to the court to overturn my conviction due to a lack of 
Federal jurisdiction under the Commerce Clause of the 
Constitution.  Congress has the power to regulate commerce 
between the states and between this nation and other countries.  
Commerce within a state is under state control, and non-
commercial activities are exempt entirely from Federal Controls.  
I have been convicted of growing plants in violation of federal 
law.  I have not been accused of engaging in any commerce 
whatsoever, and Hemp is not an item of interstate or intrastate 
commerce at this time at all.  Therefore the Federal government 
lacks jurisdiction to enforce a prohibition law forbidding my 
growing of a plant.  In addition, The very first line of the 
Declaration of Independence invokes Natural Law, the law given to 
us by God as a part of our creation.  "When in the course of 
human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the 
political bonds which have connected them to another, and to 
assume, among the powers of the Earth, the separate and equal 
station to Which the laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle 
them. . ."  So here in the first official document of our nation, 
the document which explains why our forefathers had to murder the 
legal representatives of their King, in order to end his despotic 
reign over them, this document begins by invoking and declaring 
the Natural Law of God.  This is the same Natural Law that Judge 
Waters would not allow me to present to the jury.  This Natural 
Law is not written down, it is the law which God made the 
Universe to operate under.  For instance if you take a green 
plant into a dark room, it will die, because it needs the Sun in 
order to live.  This is not a law passed by a congress and 
written down, it applies everywhere in the Universe, and all 
God's creation is subject to it.  Sometimes a man has understood 
this law, and has written it down to teach others.  One place we 
find this is in the Bible in Genesis - the teachings of the 
beginning.  In Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 29, God address Adam, 
the first man, and says, "Behold I have given you every herb 
bearing seed, which is upon the face of the Earth. . . and it 
shall be for your meat."  Today, of course, the Federal 
Government says it has the right to prohibit us from growing and 
using the plants God has given to us.  This was foretold in the 
first letter to Timothy written by St. Paul, Chapter 4, Verse 1, 
where Paul reports the only direct spirit teaching of all the 
epistles, saying, "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the 
latter times some shall depart from the faith, and giving heed to 
seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in 
hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; 
forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats which 
God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which 
believe and know the TRUTH."  We of Our Church know of the TRUTH 
of the food, medicine, the spiritual MEAT that Hemp Flowers are, 
that the peyote cactus is, and we know of the documents that show 
that the government knows this TRUTH also.  And we know how the 
government, in the form of Judge Waters and Prosecutor Bill 
Cromwell, have conspired in secret meetings to stop us from 
showing a jury these same government documents.  But while they 
exercise POWER, it is not their right, just their opportunity.  
They only have the right to exercise power within the confines of 
the Constitution and Federal Law.  They have the opportunity 
because they are presently government employees whose orders 
other agents are willing to follow and not question.  And we have 
stood up to them, we who have no power but the right of God and 
the recognition of the TRUTH we have forced them to flagrantly 
violate their own laws in order to defeat us.  This places us in 
a very strong position.  If we continue to persevere in this 
TRUTH, with our words and our lives, we will take the high 
ground, and our rule will be in Truth and not in their Lies.

     I am asking each of you to do a few things for me in the 
next month or so.  Write to your local paper and point out how 
our own government was founded on natural law, the Law of God, 
how this present government is violating that law of God by 
prohibiting any of us from growing the plants God has given to us 
all as our birth right.  Point out that whenever a government has 
gone against the laws of God, it has fallen.  There are some 
questions that may be arguable, but possession of the plants God 
created when He created us and gave them to us with a contract 
written down in the Bible, is not arguable.  Then send a copy of 
that letter to each of your congresspersons.  Tell them how we 
have gone forward in a non-violent way, notifying all responsible 
parties of our each and every move, and of how the court of Judge 
Waters has perverted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and is 
denying us our right to exercise our religion.  Remind them that 
Thomas Jefferson himself warned us that it might be necessary to 
spill the blood of tyrants to protect the Constitution and our 
rights from an abusive government.  Plead with them to reconsider 
their position of attempting to prohibit us from growing any 
plant given to us by God - as a matter of moral principle.  
Promise them that we will continue to attempt to inform them in a 
moral and non-violent manner.  Warn them that in light of Waco 
and Ruby Ridge, that obvious corruption like that of the plant 
prohibition laws and the drug smuggling at Mena by government 
agents, will act as a corrosive acid on the fabric of our nation 
and may end up burning those who try to wrap their corruption in 
the flag of our Nation.

     Keep up your praying and gathering in the Sight of God.  We 
are right, on the facts and the law.  We will prevail against 
this corruption in time.  We must be willing to invest that time 
in the fight.  I am, and I call on you to commit that investment 
also.  In February of this year, in U.S. v. Bauer, 75 F.3d 1366 
(available at your local law library), the Ninth Circuit 
overturned a conviction identical to mine.  The Supreme Court has 
refused to review my case, but I believe that they are reviewing 
Bauer, and that when they do I will be able to use it to overturn 
my own conviction.  If that happens all that I have lost will 
come back to me except the time I have spent in prison.  I may 
gain an equal amount of time to live just  because of the justice 
we will achieve and be able to live under.  I am now filing a 
lawsuit to get marijuana here for our Rastafarian Church.  More 
on that later.  Take care - - LOVE

Dear Carl,

     Thanks for Greg Peck’s appeal brief.  It made for 
interesting reading.  It looks pretty good.  I thought it was 
weak on the RFRA'93 issue, that there is a lot to be demanded in 
the way of the Yoder and Sherbert decisions being the examples of 
correct adjudication - as I attempted to do in my Supreme Court 
brief.  You got that didn't you?  But, it's all there, and any 
reasonable man must agree that Greg gets a new trial or whatever 
and a decision on the merits of the issue and not some judge’s 
fantasy of what he wants the issue to be.  I just got the 
decisions on the three civil rights lawsuits against the county 
jail and the civil forfeiture of the Our Church of Antioch 
property.  They turned then all down.  The civil rights issues 
included the right to religious services in the jail in the same 
manner as the other churches got, access to religious texts and 
documents which included the DEA rescheduling petition and the 
DOT reports on marijuana and driving, access to a law library for 
a pro per indigent defendant, and overcrowding.  All the case law 
both in and out of the circuit including Supreme Court said I had 
the law library, the documents and the church services for sure.  
The civil forfeiture issue was whether or not the State could 
deny a transfer of title to an unincorporated church, without 
consideration of the RFRA'93.  The court said no problem, the 
state could do anything it wanted, and the RFRA'93 wasn't worth 
shit.  Neither was any of the other Eighth Circuit precedent.  
Needless to say they have not published these decisions even 
though they are cases of first impression in the Circuit and the 
Country for that matter.  So this is the way they bury the death 
squad victims, no public notice, no public notices!  You warned 
me about the unlikelyhood that the court would do justice in this 
case.  You are right.  Next time be sure to advise the sucker 
that the circuits don't give a shit about what they have 
previously decided in the same issues and that they just don't 
publish the case so no ones the wiser.  I am real mad about this, 
I had no expectation that they would fix the game this way, what 
a fool I am.  Now, how the fuck am I going to pull this one out 
of the hat.  Well I already know that I won't, in all the cases 
where I have gotten myself into this kind of fix, God took a 
hand, or at least some force beyond my control.  Now let's watch, 
I got a feeling this is going to turn around, but for the life of 
me I don't know how.  They got all the advantage and I got 
nothing they seem to care about.  I am filing for rehearing and 
will go to Supreme.  Will it do any good?  I am also working on 
the jurisdiction issue, and got some good stuff.  Will send it to 
you soon.  Take care and remember your prayers, boy I got nothing 
else.