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Video: Canada AM:
Marc Emery, activist
charged by U.S. 4:50
Pot crusader facing life in
prison, but 'blessed'
Updated Mon. Mar. 6 2006 9:57 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Marc Emery speaks with
Canada AM on Monday
from CTV's bureau in
Vancouver.
B.C. pot activist Marc Emery, facing
a life sentence in a U.S. prison for selling marijuana seeds, says
he is blessed by his international fame.
"I'm right at the point in my career where I expected to be, if I
was successful …. That's what I want to do, I've always wanted to be
the marijuana representative for people around the world," he told
CTV's Canada AM Monday from Vancouver.
"And now I've got this international audience and this international
stage to explain to people why prohibition is wrong and why I'm the
person to lead us into an enlightened era of tax and regulated
distribution of marijuana."
Emery, 48, the leader of B.C.'s Marijuana Party, doesn't deny the
charges against him. He is facing an extradition hearing later this
year.
Emery says he isn't afraid of being incarcerated.
"I've had a great life and I've anticipated this all my life," he
said.
In fact, he says he is "flattered" U.S. drug enforcement officers
have paid so much attention to him and called him Canada's biggest
trafficking kingpin because it further highlights his crusade.
Emery feels he is being rewarded for his life's work, and told CBS's
60 Minutes on Sunday: "I'd rather see marijuana legalized than me
being saved from a U.S. jail."
Emery, the founder of Cannabis Culture magazine and Internet-based
Pot-TV, has been arrested 21 times in the past. He has been mostly
fined, but in 2004 spent 62 days in a Saskatoon jail for trafficking
after passing a joint.
He says it has all been worth it, considering what marijuana
advocates have been able to accomplish.
"Ten years ago there was no legal medical marijuana, no legal and
thriving hemp industry, no hemp stores across Canada. Even books and
magazines about marijuana ten years ago were banned in this country
and so we've come a great deal," he said.
"In 10 years we've seen Canadians embrace and support a tax and
regulated medical marijuana regime, as well as a retail and
recreational marijuana regime. The Senate found and recommended that
marijuana should be legalized in 2002. We're making tremendous
progress."
In addition to selling millions of marijuana seeds, Emery readily
admits spending millions of dollars from sales of the seeds on
"democratic change" by supporting marijuana parties in several U.S.
states, constituting money laundering.
"I've definitely tried to thwart the DEA and the U.S. government's
war on marijuana and I like to think I've been very successful," he
said.
Larry Campbell, a Canadian senator and former RCMP drug squad
officer, told 60 Minutes he doesn't think Emery is a major drug
trafficker. When asked what the public reaction would be if Emery is
extradited, he replied: "I think there'd be outrage."
The outrage would be focused on the long arm of the U.S. law
reaching up into Canada to charge someone many Canadians consider
harmless.
No Canadian has ever gone to jail for selling seeds and only two
people in 35 years have even been charged, Emery said.
"The most recent person fined for selling seeds in the year 2000
received a $200 fine."
The Canadian courts will decide whether or not to hand Emery over to
the U.S. With a newly elected Conservative government, Emery fears
that's likely to happen.
But he isn't changing his stance. Instead, he draws parallels to
historic civil battles, and to the words of former peace activists.
"Martin Luther King said we are obligated to disobey unjust law,"
Emery said.
"This is a terribly unjust law. Nobody should go to jail for
marijuana."
BC3 Extradition
articles (click on the titles!)
January & February 2006
Note: The html links for January and
February 2006
will be deleted in 48 hours. Copy and paste the titles you wish as a
"draft" email to save them.
BC: Up in smoke (Feds stay
charges against 'Prince of Pot / The Edmonton Sun)
BC: Canada acting as arm of U.S. drug war by staying charges,
lawyer says (AM 940 Montreal)
Protest the Incursion of the U.S. Drug War Into Canada (Vive le
Canada)
Emery lawyer blasts Ottawa over charges (The London Free Press)
BC: Emery Urges Pot Party To Pull Out, Back NDP (The Vancouver
Sun)
BC: 'Prince of Pot' claims he's being investigated (cnews)
BC Bud Video (From: Current Studio)
BC: Pot crusader faces probe over election advertising (The
Globe and Mail)
He's no stranger to trouble (24 Hours Vancouver)
BC: Is the Marijuana Party going up in smoke? (WestEnder)
ON: Be informed before casting your vote (Woodstock Sentinel
Review)
ON: Prince Of Pot (The London Free Press)
The return of Sir Talk-A-Lot (The London Free Press)
Tory win has `King of Pot' worrying about his fate (The Toronto
Star)
Column: The Three Witches (Western Standard)
QC: Taking flight (Hour.ca)
Potheads show you’re not anonymous online (Muskogee Phoenix)
BC: Canadian sovereignty at issue in war on pot growers (The
Vancouver Sun)
October to December 2005
Note: The html links for October to
December 2005
will be deleted in 24 hours. Copy and paste the titles you wish as a
"draft" email to save them.
ON: Play profiles marijuana crusader Marc Emery
(The London Free Press)
Is the glass half full or half empty for Canada's Jews? (The
Globe and Mail)
US takes the war on drugs to Canada's Prince of Pot (The
Guardian, UK)
Toking Diplomacy (Mother Jones)
150 PEOPLE WHO DEFINE LONDON (The London Free Press)
Prince of Pot' fights extradition on drug charges (Seattle
Times)
Extradition Blues (CC Magazine)
This bud's for all of us (Ottawa X-Press)
Pot activist Marc Emery deconstructs his drug kingpin status
(Manitoban Online)
BC: The budding tycoon of pot (The Vancouver Sun)
Canada: One big grow-op (The Toronto Star)
Victims of the Drug War (BlueOregon)
BC: Pot crusader allowed to campaign during election (CTV.ca)
BC: Emery Set To Endorse NDP's Svend Robinson (Metro)
AB: Book Review: Gone To Seed (See Magazine)
AB: Editorial: Sovereign in name only (The Calgary Herald)
From Australia:
Video links:
US/Canada Drug Wars
Synopsis of US/Canada differences in
recreational/medical cannabis laws and regulations: Marc Emery, MMAR
etc...
Realplayer broadband:
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2006...a_dope_200k.ram
Realplayer dial-up
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2006...da_dope_34k.ram
Windows media broadband
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2006...a_dope_200k.asx
Windows media dial-up
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2006...da_dope_34k.asx
All video links are at bottom of this page:
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2006/s1587037.htm
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