Twenty-eight-year-old Vaughn Barnett from Colorado got lucky (enlightened?) yesterday when a judge handed him a sentencing break: just 30 more days in jail. His crime? Possessing 11 pounds of marijuana and attempting to mail it to a post office in Snowmass in 2010. His good behavior? Yoga.
Though he said he was a licensed medical-marijuana distributor and that the pot was “all trim from a legal marijuana grow in California,” Barnett plead guilty to the charges and has already served 130 days in jail.
Before the judge yesterday, his public defender defended the transformation Barnett gleaned from a regular practice of jailhouse yoga, “(Barnett) said to me that after taking yoga for three months, he had never felt this clear in the head. I think he feels so much better that he has purged his mind through the use of yoga.” And the yoga shall set you free!
So a Colorado stoner gave up pot for a yoga high? There’s a punch line in there somewhere. No comment from the pot-smoking yogis.
Prison yoga is a real thing and a growing number of facilities and volunteers are using it to help inmates calm aggression and aid rehabilitation in a therapeutic way. A positive shift overall.
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