Pubdate: Fri, 07 Sep 2012
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Jon Ferry
Page: 8

EMERYS CONTINUE TO HAMMER U.S. ON DRUG WAR

Four years ago, the election of Barack Obama, now battling hard for
his second term as U.S. president, gave the drug-legalization movement
in B.C. and else-where great hope for enlightened change in U.S. and
Canadian government policy on illegal drug use.

Now, high-profile Vancouver activist Marc Emery says Obama has proven
a major disappointment.

Indeed, the Prince of Pot has accused the president of aggravating the
so-called war on drugs, under which scores of Americans languish in
jail, serving what appear to be excessively long sentences, even for
seemingly minor drug offences.

"Barack Obama has done nothing to alleviate this prohibition
punishment system, despite having smoked marijuana and used cocaine,"
Emery wrote in a piece posted this week in the New-York-based
Huffington Post. "He has made the drug war even worse."

How has Obama done this? "Of his many damning failings in ignoring the
cruelty of the drug war is that he has issued the fewest pardons
(under 25) of any full-term president of this century, and just 10 for
drug offences - and one sentence commutation in his four years," Emery
said.

Emery, 54, remains in prison in Yazoo City, Miss., serving a five-year
term for selling marijuana seeds to Americans from his West Hastings
hemp shop.

He says several fellow offenders are serving life terms: "One received
life without parole for a mere 99 grams of crack cocaine!"

Emery calls the current U.S. presidential race another big letdown.
The only high-profile politician he really likes is Republican primary
presidential candidate Ron Paul, an unabashed libertarian who
questions why Americans can't put any-thing they want into their bodies.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Emery's rant, however, is the bit
he says the Huffington Post left out because it was "uncomfortable"
with it.

In it, Emery questions how, despite the mass incarceration of
African-Americans in U.S. jails, so few blacks have taken up the
anti-drug-prohibition cause.

He believes it's because black Americans, "in an almost inexplicably
self-destructive cultural behaviour," support the drug war. And that
might be because many blacks profit from it, both through the illegal
drug market . . . and through employment in the government
prison/punishment system itself.

I believe Emery treads in murky racial waters with these kinds of
musings.

I suggest, in fact, there might be another reason why socially
conservative black Americans largely remain silent on the drug war.
And that's because they've seen first-hand the misery widespread drug
abuse causes - and fear drug legalization could make matters even worse.

Why should we in B.C. care? Well, at the time of the November
presidential vote, three U.S. states - Washington, Oregon and Colorado
- - will vote on whether to legalize adult marijuana use.

"I think the one in Washington does have a hope of passing," Emery's
wife, Jodie, told me Thursday. "And what happens in Washington, our
neighbouring state, will definitely have a big impact on B.C."

Now, I don't agree with everything Marc and Jodie say. But I have to
admire the way they keep hammering away at this issue. And I respect
the price they continue to pay for doing so.
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MAP posted-by: Matt