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.
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