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RCMP Ignore Pot-Smoking Stunt
Pubdate: Sun, 17 Aug 2003
Source: Prince George Free Press (CN BC)
Copyright: 2003 BC Newspaper Group
Contact: http://www.pgfreepress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2135
RCMP IGNORE POT-SMOKING STUNT
The Prince Of Pot Was In Town Last Week - Tokin' Up Out Front Of The Local
RCMP Detachment - In An Effort To Get Arrested. He Failed.
At 4:20 p.m. on Thursday, Marc Emery, leader of the Marijuana Party of
Canada, lit up a joint the size of a frozen hotdog outside the RCMP station
on Brunswick Street and waited to be arrested. A crowd of around 50
supporters applauded and joined Emery in the singing of O Canada.
"I normally smoke out of a bong I bought locally," Emery said. "But I
wasn't able to get a local bong, so I made a classic B.C. bomb out of B.C.
bud."
Local RCMP, while aware of Emery and his supporters gathered on a small
piece of lawn between the station and the parking lot, did not attempt to
arrest the pot politician. Emery, calling himself a patriot, is travelling
across the country - in what he calls the Summer of Legalization Tour 2003
- - smoking joints and trying to be arrested and charged because he believes
marijuana is already legal under Canadian law.
"It's not that I'm breaking the law, I'm celebrating our freedom - that the
courts have given us under the Charter of Rights - that every last one of
us here has a right to possess it like lemons, tomatoes, or lettuce."
Emery claims marijuana has been legal in this country for over two years.
"Cannabis was suspended from the schedule of Controlled Drugs and
Substances [Act] over two years ago," Emery said. "And consequently that
makes marijuana legal and unregulated."
In a handout written by Emery, he says marijuana is legal because of a July
2000, decision by the Ontario Court of Appeal, which ordered the Canadian
Parliament to change or amend existing legislation. Emery says Parliament's
failure to enact a new law, resulted in the removal of cannabis from the
Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, in August 2001.
Emery says that even though the drug is legal, "over 50,000 Canadians were
charged with a cannabis offence." Emery claims a "staggering number" of
people receive marijuana convictions annually - 30,000 to 35,000 a year for
the past 35 years. And that over one million Canadians have criminal
records from marijuana-related offences.
"If you're a young person and you get a conviction you can not go to an
American university, you won't be able to see family in the United States,
you won't be able to work for a transnational company. . . a marijuana
conviction is a particularly damaging thing to have on your record."
He began his nine-province tour June 19, in Toronto and ended it Thursday
in Prince George.
Emery was arrested in five of the nine provinces he visited, most recently
in Edmonton, Alberta. He claims he was held in "leg irons" in Regina,
Saskatchewan. He has court dates in Regina and Edmonton on the charge of
possession of marijuana.
Emery was not charged in Ontario, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, or
British Columbia.
Emery was hoping to get arrested because he says he needs to come before a
B.C. court, and he didn't want to do it in Vancouver or Victoria, where
"they have smoke-outs 24 hours a day."
"I didn't think it would be fair to try and do something there, where
they're all used to it." Emery said the Prince George crowd was the second
largest, after St. John's, Newfoundland.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart