Nothing intimidates Barry, LC elder
Nothing intimidates Barry, LC elder
by Jeremy Brown
Many Lewis & Clark students wear hemp necklaces or bracelets. Junior Barry Joe Stull puts them to shame. He wore a 100% hemp suit to his jazz band performance last Tuesday. The next day, he wore jeans made of hemp and a tee-shirt with "hemp" emblazoned across it. He then proceeded to help distribute posters printed on hemp paper to advertise the LC Hemp Club's first event. Stull, a music and pre-law major and recipient of a Dean's Scholarship, is the coordinator and founder of the club.
More than just his passion for hemp advocacy sets Stull apart from his LC classmates. Stull, 39 years old with a bald crown and long hair, served almost 18 months of a five-year prison sentence in the Oregon State Penitentiary for manufacturing and possession of a controlled substance. He is also a singer and songwriter and performs the mandolin once a week at the It's a Beautiful Pizza restaurant in Portland.
Stull began his college career at age 34 in prison through a Chemeketa Community College Satellite program and continued at Portland Community College before transferring to LC.
Stull asserts that the crime that landed him in prison was non-violent and victimless. "Sometimes you have to break the law if the law's a fraud," he said, and added that the $50,000 the state spent on him as a prisoner could have been better used to send him to LC for two years. His parole will end in mid-November, he said.
Stull's time behind bars failed to discourage his willingness to speak out and act on a wide range of issues. "They put the wrong guy in prison," he said. "You shouldn't put somebody with my skills and drive in prison."
Now Stull is determined to make the best of his time at LC before he moves on to law school, a plan he says will further his mission to challenge double standards and break down prejudices.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro," he said of his desire to get a law degree. Stull, who said he's been to the Library of Congress four times to research legal issues, urged everyone to learn about the law. "Everyone should know how laws are made and know how to conduct legal research," he said. "People shouldn't be intimidated."
Not much seems to intimidate Stull, who was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Oregon when he was 19. He said his father's work-related injury just before Stull's high school graduation sparked his drive to fight injustice. "I saw that the American dream my parents had worked for had some nightmarish characteristics," he said. "It caused me to question the sanity of it all."
Now, he said, "If I perceive an injustice I'll address it." This mindset led to his activist involvement on many fronts, including community service with organizations such as Visions in Action, a group that helps Portland's homeless, student government at PCC, and of course cannabis hemp advocacy.
He has helped to organize Portland's Hemp Fests and wrote a lengthy article for the most recent issue of PDXS about shady police tactics at the Hemp Fests.
Stull said that as an older student with diverse and unique life experiences, LC is still a challenging place—especially because he's tried to maintain involvement in his pre-LC activities.
While all indications suggest that Stull will keep up the feverish and impassioned pace, he mentioned some cardinal rules he'll follow no matter what. "I just want to set a good example and be polite and likable," he said.
