Pubdate: Mon, 08 Aug 2005
Source: Vancouver Courier (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 Vancouver Courier
Contact:  http://www.vancourier.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/474
Author: Geoff Olson
Alert: Is Canada a United States Puppet? www.mapinc.org/alert/0314.html
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Marc+Emery (Emery, Marc)

LONG ARM OF LAW REACHES PARANOID FANTASY LEVELS

Following news last week of the U.S.-orchestrated dope bust of Marc 
Emery's seed-shipping business on Hastings Street, I thought back to 
an earlier, stranger news item involving cross-border drug 
interdiction. In the spring of 2004, David Laing was on a highway 
near Hope when he was pulled over by two police officers. One of the 
officers, in a southern American accent, asked him for his vehicle 
license and registration. Laing, familiar with Canadian law, refused 
to allow his vehicle to be searched. According to the CBC news, the 
officer with the twang turned out to be a Texas state trooper working 
with a member of the Hope detachment of the RCMP. The cops issued 
Laing a ticket for having two different addresses for his insurance 
and his registration, and released him.

Compounding the weirdness, Laing was pulled over moments later by 
another RCMP officer, accompanied by another Texan-talking cop. 
Deciding the driver was under the influence of marijuana, they 
searched both his vehicle and his two-year-old son. Nothing was 
found, and he continued on his way. The twist: Laing is himself a 
Vancouver police officer. "They still, knowingly, had a Texas trooper 
escort me to the front of the vehicle," he told a CBC news reporter. 
"I'm a constable with the Vancouver police. He's a Texas trooper and 
yet I'm under his control."

Last January, Laing won an out of court settlement with the RCMP, who 
were taking part in a U.S.-Canada exchange program to spot and stop 
drug traffickers called "Pipeline Convoy." The Texan accent was not 
accidental; according to a document available online, Pipeline Convoy 
courses are offered in Canada by the RCMP, and in the United States 
by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the El Paso Intelligence Centre.

Officers straight out of Dubya's home state requesting U.S.-style 
vehicle searches in B.C., under the imprimatur of our own law 
enforcement? The U.S. DEA-with an office in Vancouver-directing our 
police in the arrest of Canadian citizens? It all sounds like a 
stoner's paranoid fantasy, or a plot from sci-fi writer Philip K. 
Dick. The only difference is that these are real-world events, rather 
than something from the head of a pot head or the pages of a novel.

This brings us back to Marc Emery and his two associates from the 
B.C. Marijuana Party who, if they are successfully extradited, face 
the possibility of life imprisonment in U.S. prison under federal 
mandatory minimum sentencing laws. The head of the party faces 
charges of conspiracy to distribute marijuana seeds and launder 
money. I long expected the long arm of American law would attempt to 
unseat the self-described "prince of pot." I just never expected the 
execution to be so blatant.

There are plenty of ironies in this story, including the fact that 
Health Canada has directed citizens seeking seeds for medicinal 
marijuana to the Internet, where they came upon Emery's business. So 
why is a Canadian being held to the standards of American justice, 
when local law enforcement has tolerated his Hastings Street business 
for years, and declined to prosecute? The U.S. may have the legal 
wherewithal to request extradition, in that selling marijuana seeds 
is technically a crime in both the U.S. and Canada. However, if Emery 
and his associates have been engaged in criminal activity, don't our 
domestic legal standards precede those of a foreign power? One hardly 
needs to agree with Emery's weed evangelism to see another angle here 
involving Canadian civil liberties and national sovereignty.

Canada has signed on to the so-called "Mutual Legal Assistance 
Treaty," which allows the U.S. to use foreign police to investigate 
and arrest foreign citizens. Dozens of nations have entered into 
MLATs with the U.S. since its inception in 1977. Critics say U.S.-led 
sweeps against foreigners violate international law, compromise human 
rights, and violate national sovereignty. Advocates might say 
something like "too bad, it's a borderless world and your government 
signed on the dotted line."

Yet given the our-law-is-your-law dealings with an off-duty Vancouver 
police officer and a local weed impresario, you have to wonder in 
what spirit the cross-border arrangements and agreements like MLAT 
and Pipeline Convoy were conceived. Partnerships among equals? Or 
bully-boy mechanisms for trumping the weaker member's judicial and 
constitutional mechanisms in a counterinsurgency against a phantom 
menace? It's ironic that Emery and his colleagues have been indicted 
on charges of conspiracy. That word has other dimensions in 
discussing the U.S.-led war on some drugs. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake