John Sinclair culture/people/john-sinclair.md
John Sinclair was a Detroit poet, jazz writercritic and political organiser whose prison sentence for two marijuana cigarettes made himmanager of the best-known cannabis prisoner[MC5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MC5) who became a national cause in the [United States](/country/us/) of the early 1970s. In 1969after a [Michigan judge gave](/country/us/mi/) court sentenced him to nine and a half to ten years for possessing two marijuana cigarettes. Two and a half years later fifteen thousand people came[@1,5] The campaign to an arenafree him filled Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor to demand hisin December 1971.[@2] The release, on bail and in March 1972 the Michigan Supreme Courtcourt that reversed his conviction were separate from the concert.[@1,2,4]
HisThe case belongs to the law as much as to the counterculture. It showed how heavily a state could punish possession of a small amount of cannabis, and it became the occasion for an annual gathering, the [Hash Bash](/culture/traditions/hash-bash/), that still meetsturned a private arrest into a public argument about prohibition.[@1,52] It also left a record of the punishment in the prison diary Sinclair wrote while inside.[@3]
## Poet, manager, Panther
Sinclair was born in Flint in, Michigan, on 2 October 1941.[@5] In Detroit in the mid-1960s he wrote poetry and jazz criticism, helped run the Artists' Workshop, and managedwrote for the underground paper [Fifth Estate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Estate_(periodical)).[@5,10] In 1966 he began managing the MC5, the Detroit rock band MC5 from 1966 towhose loud, politically charged shows made them a symbol of the city's counterculture; he managed them until 1969.[@5,10]
In 1968 he founded the [White Panther Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Panther_Party) with Pun Plamondon, a white radical group conceived as a counterpart to the Black Panther Party.[@45] He was also a targettreated the cannabis charges as political. In December 1966 he"I was arrested for giving two jointspart of the revolution," he said later, "and that's what authoritarian states do to an undercover police officerrevolutionaries. So it was part of my job."[@410]
## Ten years for two joints
At trialThe case began on 22 December 1966, in the charge of sellingflat above the Artists' Workshop in Detroit. Sinclair rolled two marijuana cigarettes and gave them to two undercover police officers who had been working their way into the Workshop.[@1] He was arrested on 24 January 1967 and charged with sale and possession.[@1]
The sale count was dismissed on entrapment grounds before trial. A jury convicted him of entrapmentpossession on 25 July 1969, and he was convicted of possessing the two cigarettes. Onon [28 July 1969](/history/us-sinclair-sentence-1969/) he wasJudge Robert Colombo sentenced him to nine and a half to ten years in prison.[@1]
The length of the sentence for so small an amount made him Michigan then classified marijuana as a causenarcotic, and Sinclair's lawyers had spent two and a half years challenging that classification while he was free on bond.[@1] He was taken to prison the same day.[@4]
In prison he kept writing. On 30 April 1971 the [Ann Arbor Sun](https://aadl.org/papers/aa_sun) printed excerpts from his prison diary, with a photograph by Craig Carrell of Sinclair at a typewriter in front of the bars.[@3]
"My mind is bursting with energy — 9 1/2 to 10 years will never be enough time!" he wrote in an entry dated 17 May.[@23] The page shows him as a writer inside the sentence, not only as a defendant outside it.[@3]
## The Freedom Rallyrally and the release
The campaign began before the concert. In January 1970 a Free John Sinclair rally at Detroit's Grand Ballroom featured the MC5, the Stooges and speakers including Abbie Hoffman.[@11]
On [10 December 1971](/history/us-john-sinclair-freedom-rally-1971/) the John Sinclair Freedom Rally filled the [Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisler_Center) for an eight-hour bill of music and speeches.[@2] [John Lennon](/culture/people/john-lennon/) and Yoko Ono headlined, with musiciansStevie Wonder, poetsPhil Ochs, Bob Seger, Archie Shepp, Bobby Seale, Allen Ginsberg and political speakersJerry Rubin.[@2] Lennon sang aperformed "John Sinclair", the song he had written for the occasion, "John Sinclair", and later released on [*Some Time in New York City*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some_Time_in_New_York_City).[@2,5] Sinclair spoke to the arena by telephone from Jackson prison.[@4]
Gary Grimshaw's poster put Sinclair's face between cannabis leaves and the names of the performers and speakers, with the words "Free John Sinclair and all political prisoners" above them.[@9]
The release had its own legal history. The Michigan Senate had voted on 9 December, the day before the concert did not overturn, to reduce penalties for possession, and on 13 December the convictionMichigan Court of Appeals granted bail pending appeal.[@2, but4] Sinclair was freedleft Jackson that evening, three days laterafter the concert, having served twenty-nine months. His conviction was still on appeal.[@4] The concert made the case visible; the release came through the courts.[@2,54]
## People v. SinclairThe ruling and Hash Bash
On [9 March 1972](/history/us-sinclair-conviction-reversed-1972/) the Michigan Supreme Court reversed and set aside the conviction and ordered his dischargeSinclair discharged. The justices wrote separate opinions rather than one, and[@1] Justice Swainson's opinion held that the case is cited as *People vstatute's classification of marijuana with hard narcotics violated the equal protection clauses of the state and federal constitutions. Sinclair*, 387 Mich. 91.[@1] The ruling is remembered as the decision that struck down Michiganat the classification, not at the prohibition. Prosecutions could continue under a misdemeanour statute until the state's marijuana statutesnew controlled-substances law took effect on 1 April 1972.[@41]
On 1 April 1972 the first [Hash Bash](/culture/traditions/hash-bash/) gathered on the University of Michigan's Diag in Ann Arbor. It began as a response to the ruling, on the day the new law took effect, and it has met every year since.[@6] Ann Arbor went further than the state. [In 1972 the city council set a $5 fine for use, onpossession or nearsale](/history/us-ann-arbor-five-dollar-fine-1972/), and in 1974 voters wrote the first Saturdaycivil-infraction penalty into the city charter.[@7] The campus remained under state law, which is why open smoking at Hash Bash was a deliberate act of Aprilcivil disobedience.[@56]
## Later life
Sinclair returned to Ann Arbor, chaired the Rainbow People's Party, and went on writing, performing poetry with musicians, and broadcastingperforming.[@4,5] He moved to Amsterdam, founded the John Sinclair Foundation in 2004, and hosted a radio show there; he also worked as a disc jockey in New Orleans, lived for years.[@5]
Michigan changed its law slowly. Voters approved [medical cannabis in Amsterdam, where he founded a foundation in 20042008](/history/us-michigan-medical-cannabis-2008/) and from 2005 ran a radio show, and kept campaigning for [adult use in 2018](/history/us-michigan-adult-cannabis. On 1 December 2019-2018/), whenand legal sales began in Michigan, heon 1 December 2019.[@8] Sinclair was among the first customers.[@5]
He died in Detroit on 2 April 2024, and that year's.[@5] The Hash Bash that year was held in his memory, and its speakers still called for legalisation at the federal level.[@4,5,6]
us-sinclair-sentence-1969, us-john-sinclair-freedom-rally-1971, us-sinclair-conviction-reversed-1972, us-ann-arbor-five-dollar-fine-1972, us-michigan-medical-cannabis-2008, us-michigan-adult-cannabis-2018
Ann Arbor District Library — Rob Hoffman, Freeing John Sinclair, the day legends came to town
Ann Arbor District Library — Excerpts From The Prison Diary Of John Sinclair, Ann Arbor Sun (30 April 1971)
Ann Arbor District Library — John Sinclair, Back in the Day, an abbreviated memoir of Ann Arbor 1968–1975
Wikipedia — Cannabis laws in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Wikipedia — Cannabis in Michigan
The Henry Ford — Advertising poster, John Sinclair Freedom Rally, 10 December 1971, object 2009.193.1
The Guardian — Sean O'Hagan, John Sinclair, "We wanted to kick ass – and raise consciousness" (3 March 2014)
University of Delaware — John Sinclair Guitar Army manuscript, collection finding aid
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src ../../src/assets/culture/john-sinclair-arrest-1969.jpg · fit contain · alt Black-and-white photograph of John Sinclair, bearded and wearing glasses, raising two fingers in a peace sign from the back seat of an Oakland County sheriff's patrol car. · caption John Sinclair gives a peace sign after an arrest in 1969. Photograph by Leni Sinclair, Labadie Photograph Collection, University of Michigan Library. · credit Leni Sinclair / Fifth Estate, University of Michigan Library · credit url https://michmemories.org/records/sinclair-john-9