Pubdate: Tue, 25 May 2010
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2010 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Andrea Woo, Vancouver Sun
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Marc+Emery

EMERY PLEADS GUILTY TO CONSPIRACY TO MANUFACTURE MARIJUANA

Vancouver's Prince of Pot Marc Emery pleaded guilty in U.S. District
Court in Seattle Monday to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana.

As part of a plea bargain, Emery, 52, must serve five years in prison
for selling marijuana seeds to U.S. customers through his business,
Marc Emery Direct.

He will remain in custody at the Federal Detention Center at SeaTac
until sentencing on Aug. 27.

Emery's wife, Jodie, said the deal is the best of his limited
options.

"It's unfortunate that a five-year sentence is what we want for Marc,
but the alternative was at least 30 years and up to life if it went to
trial," she told The Vancouver Sun Monday. "But while he's gone, he'll
be there to demonstrate the insanity of this war on drugs."

U.S. lawyer Jenny Durkan said Emery is reaping what he
sowed.

"Today, Marc Emery acknowledged he broke the law," Durkan said in a
news release issued Monday. "Seeds from Marc Emery's business were
found at grow sites across the U.S. Mr. Emery made millions of dollars
promoting and facilitating marijuana grows in the U.S. with no regard
for the age or criminal activities of his customers. The rule of law
requires accountability. A five-year prison term will hold Emery
accountable for his choice to ignore the law."

Emery claimed to have made about $3 million a year selling seeds, with
much of it going to activist groups and political parties.

About 75 per cent of the four million seeds sold over the years went
to American residents.

On multiple occasions in 2004 and 2005, Emery sold seeds to an
undercover U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent at the shop and
elsewhere, the department of justice claimed.

Jodie Emery, and many of Emery's supporters, have called his
extradition an "outsourcing of justice."

"As a Canadian who has never left Canada ... he should have been
charged and punished here in Canada, where most of his activities took
place, where it's against the law and where we're fully capable of
going after him," she said.

Co-defendants Michelle Rainey and Gregory Keith Williams pleaded
guilty last year and were sentenced to two years of probation.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake