Pubdate: Sun, 07 Aug 2005 Source: Kamloops This Week (CN BC) Copyright: 2005 Kamloops This Week Contact: http://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1271 Author: Jim Harrison Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization) Note: Jim Harrison is news director at 'NL Radio WHY DO YOU THINK THEY CALL IT DOPE? The politically correct term that's being used to describe Marc Emery is "pot activist." It's curious why he's being put up on some kind of pedestal, because he seems to be little more than a law-breaking dope smoker whothinks his drug of choiceshould be legal. In Canada, with its milquetoast approach to enforcement of laws that prohibit the cultivation, production and distribution of marijuana, the law has for too long turned a blind eye as Emery thumbed his nose at the set of rules and regulations that govern the rest of society. Now that the U.S. has stepped up and requested his arrest, some left-leaning bleeding hearts are objecting to what they see as some heavy-handed intrusion into our sovereignty. That misses the point. Emery has raked in big dollars through the years selling marijuana seeds over the Internet to customers everywhere, including the United States - and allegedly to U.S. undercover officers who say he also told them how to get the seeds across the border without being detected. His lawyer admits his client has sold seeds over the Internet for years. Whether any of that is true, and whether laws have been broken, will be up to a court of law to decide. But if Emery is not guilty, he has nothing to fear. If he is guilty, then that's the price to pay for sending marijuana into a jurisdiction that still takes its law enforcement seriously. After being arrested on the East Coast, a B.C. judge granted Emery bail, freeing him to go back to his store in Vancouver from which he sellsmarijuana seeds, and granted him the freedom to continue to crusade for the legalization of the drug. If Emery is convicted in the U.S., he faces 10 years behind bars, in a prison system that will be his worst nightmare. That's the difference in our respective approach to what is still regarded as an illegal drug: In Canada, it's a pat on the head for someone who is a pot activist; in the U.S., where they more accurately see a pot purveyor as just another crook, it's long-term jail time. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth