Pubdate: Sat, 29 Apr 2006
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2006 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: Jeremy Hainsworth
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Marc+Emery
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Paddy+Roberts
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Stephen+Harper
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Neil+Boyd
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Marijuana - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

'PRINCE OF POT' READY FOR MARTYRDOM IN MARIJUANA CAUSE

Marc Emery Faces Extradition to U.S. on Drug Charges

But Some Argue Emery Should Be Tried in Canada Instead

VANCOUVER--The B.C. man wanted in the United States to stand trial 
for selling marijuana seeds by mail thinks a jail term south of the 
border could be his springboard to a political career in Canada.

"I get elected to Parliament, I become the justice minister and 
finally get rid of these marijuana laws," is how Marc Emery sees his 
future on return from a prison term in the U.S. if convicted there on 
charges of conspiracy to distribute marijuana, distribute seeds and 
launder money.

"My personal feeling is, I do get taken away and kept in captivity 
for many years," he says. "Historically, that's a very good 
springboard to the governing party."

Next week, the B.C. Supreme Court is expected to set a date for the 
extradition hearing for Emery, 48, his co-accused, Greg Williams, 50, 
and Michelle Rainey, 34. However, the extradition hearing now hinges 
on other court proceedings in the B.C. Interior city of Nelson.

Patrick Roberts, chairman of the nationalist Bloc British Columbia 
party, has started a private prosecution in Nelson against Emery and 
the others, on the basis the accused should be accountable only to 
Canada because the alleged conspiracy took place here. It's a matter 
of sovereignty, Roberts says.

If the three face those charges in Canada, they cannot face them in the U.S.

Whatever the judicial outcome of the extradition case, it will then 
move into the political realm because the federal justice minister 
must sign the removal order. And that might not be good news for 
Emery and company.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been unequivocal in his get-tough 
stance on drug crimes, and has proposed mandatory minimum sentences. 
Earlier this month, Harper told the Canadian Professional Police 
Association that the Tories would not reintroduce legislation to 
legalize small amounts of marijuana.

Emery says that sends an ominous warning about future drug policies.

Simon Fraser University criminologist Neil Boyd says if drug 
sentences in the U.S. were much more severe than what Emery would 
face in Canada, the extradition request might be denied. Because they 
are not, Emery could well be extradited, he says.

In running his seed business, Emery "was being very blatant," Boyd 
says. "He knew that people who had sold seeds from Australia and 
Spain had been extradited to the United States to faces charges. He 
knew he was gambling that Canada would send him back to face the charges."

Rodney Benson, special agent with the Seattle office of the U.S. Drug 
Enforcement Administration (DEA), says the Emery case is not political.

"He's a drug trafficker, plain and simple," Benson says. "Marc Emery 
was violating United States law. Marc Emery is a significant threat 
to the United States."

The political and legal wrangling began July 29, 2005, when the RCMP 
and DEA officers nabbed Emery, Williams and Rainey. Emery, the 
so-called Prince of Pot was in Lawrencetown, N.S., when he was arrested.

Concurrently, the police raided Emery's Vancouver store, The Toker's 
Bowl, which doubles as the headquarters for Emery's British Columbia 
Marijuana Party.

It was the culmination of an 18-month investigation by American 
authorities into the sale of marijuana seeds on the Internet and by mail.

DEA administrator Karen Tandy said at the time that "Emery and his 
organization had been designated as one of the (U.S.) attorney 
general's most wanted international drug-trafficking targets -- one 
of only 46 in the world and the only one in Canada."

She claimed his business and his "propagandist" Cannabis Culture 
magazine generated $5 million a year to bolster his trafficking efforts.

Emery says he knew that he would eventually be arrested, but says 
it's the greatest platform he could have in his 16-year fight against 
the prohibition of marijuana in North America.

"I realized, 'okay, it's all happened, finally it's here. This is the 
big moment I've been waiting for,'" he says.

If he has to be the martyr for the movement, so be it, he says.

"If I go to jail, and I'm really well-known and, hopefully, get 
murdered in jail, that will serve as a form of martyrdom that every 
year, demonstrations, protests, bombing, various forms of violent and 
non-violent behaviour can be used to put forward our thing," he says.

But in the meantime, he's going to keep fighting.

"It's my job as leader of the cannabis culture to thwart the United 
States government," he says, calling the U.S. attitude toward 
marijuana "tyrannical."

"If my country allows me to get extradited, that is the biggest 
indictment against Canada that I could ever imagine," he says. "I'd 
rather be extradited and sit there in exile rejected by both my own 
countrymen and the Americans for doing something good, honest and 
necessary that I would never recant on.

"Canadians are cowardly," he says. "They're a wonderful people but 
they don't have the courage of their beliefs that we ought to have a 
free society in Canada."

Which brings us back to the private prosecution launched by Roberts.

The federal justice department has asked the B.C. Supreme Court to be 
allowed to intervene in the Roberts prosecution so that it can ask 
for a stay of the proceedings, which would then clear the way for the 
extradition hearing.

Roberts' lawyer, Don Skogstad, says research shows the conspiracy 
case could be dealt with in Canada.

"We never got an answer about why it's not done here," he says. "How 
many times does a citizen get to stand up and say: 'This is what's 
right for Canada?' That's what Mr. Roberts is doing."

The court heard arguments on the government's motion to take up the 
charges Monday and has reserved its decision.

While Emery has been in the marijuana business since he was selling 
High Times magazine on the streets of Vancouver, his political 
activism goes back to his time in London, Ont., where he used the 
proceeds of a comic book business to open City Lights Books, which he 
ran from 1975 to 1992.

There, he took issue with Sunday shopping laws by opening his store on Sundays.

Relocating to Vancouver in 1994, Emery began selling banned books and 
publishing High Times, quite determined, he says, to start a "hemp 
revolution business."

He soon opened Hemp B.C., a store in the firebombed shell of a former 
Communist bookshop on what has now been dubbed downtown Vancouver's Pot Block.

Shortly after, he began selling seeds, which, he says, contain no 
drug content but can be used to grow marijuana.

"It rapidly expedited cash flow. No one else in North America was 
doing it," he says.

But, he says, U.S. authorities are claiming those seeds are 
responsible for the production of $2.2 billion worth of pot.

All told, Emery has been arrested 21 times and jailed 17 times. In 
2004, he was convicted in Saskatoon for passing a joint and spent 
three months in jail.

He admits he's "a total, recidivist repeat offender."

He says Vancouver police have, for the most part, turned a blind eye 
to him for years. And, he says, federal officials have suggested 
people contact him to buy seeds for medical marijuana.

Further, Emery says, he's paid $578,000 in income tax since 1999. 
It's from the proceeds of the $2 million to $3 million worth of seed 
sales per year.

He says, his new fiancee, Cannabis Culture editor Jodie Geisz-Ramsay, 
supports him, and so does his family, including his brother, an 
Anglican minister whose son is serving with Canadian forces in Afghanistan.

At the end of the day, though, Emery says fights over principles keep 
him going.

"You have to focus on one thing and don't let go," he says. "Grip it 
like a lion and go right at it until you accomplish your goal." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake