Marc Emery, "Prince of Pot"

[Tom]

Marc Emery is not your average international drug kingpin. The man described by the American Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) as Canada's biggest trafficker and self-styled "Prince of Pot", who faces the death penalty if convicted in the United States, freely admits to having made millions from marijuana. He ensures as many people as possible know about it and even listing his profession as "marijuana seed vendor" on his tax returns.

 

In Canada, possession of less than 30g of marijuana or seeds carries a 12-month prison sentence and a $1 000 fine, but the law is almost never enforced, making marijuana all but legal.

 

The proof of this is everywhere. Cafés in a Vancouver district known as "Vansterdam" allow customers to bring their own marijuana and smoke it at their leisure, often testing out a variety of bongs and vaporisers.

 

Emery's influence has reached well beyond Canada. In the past decade he has sold more than five million seeds over the internet and, via mail order, at least three million to the US. Though locally the authorities were willing to turn a blind eye, the DEA saw things differently.

 

After repeatedly finding his seeds at the heart of illegal growing operations throughout the US, it made Emery its sole Canadian target and launched an 18-month investigation that ended in his arrest last July.

 

On Thursday, Emery will appear at a preliminary hearing before his trial for extradition to the US for selling marijuana seeds -- a crime for which no Canadian has even been jailed.

 

Under American law, selling more than 60 000 seeds qualifies for the death penalty. Emery is the first person to be arrested with enough seeds to qualify. In the basement of the shop that doubles as the headquarters for the pro-legalisation party he founded, Emery is the first to admit that, in many ways, he has brought his troubles on himself.

 

"I guess I've spent the last few years undermining the DEA and mocking their war on drugs. They are the ones with the guns; the only thing we had on our side was the plant. The only thing we could do to win was to spread the plant.

 

"I wanted to increase the number of people growing it, lower the price and spread it throughout the world. I wanted to start a self-financed capitalist revolution. A revolution through retail."

 

The business made C$4-million profit, but Emery gave it away to pro-cannabis causes. He makes no secret of his vision -- to "overgrow" the governments of the world by spreading marijuana faster than anti-drug agents can eradicate it.

 

"They call me a drug kingpin and say that I am bigger than any other gang in Canada, yet when they raided me they found no drugs, no sports cars, no palaces, no money. I have spent it all on supporting the cause."

 

Emery believes the DEA is politically motivated. In a hastily withdrawn official statement issued on the day of his arrest, attributed to Karen Tandy, head of the DEA, his arrest was described as "a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the US and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalisation movement ... Drug legalisation lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on."

 

Emery describes his arrest as "the greatest battle of my illustrious career" and compares himself to Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. Becoming a martyr -- preferably a living one -- for the legalisation movement is the quickest way to achieve his goal of seeing marijuana legalised. "The war on marijuana is the most important issue of our time. I want to see drug-peace in my lifetime."

 

Author:Guardian Unlimited

Date:30 April 2006

Source:Guardian Unlimited

Copyright:© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

 

[stonedstump]

BLOODY GOOD ON HIM!!!!!!!

 

I mean it, GOOD ON HIM!!!

 

If only he had been abit more careful so he wasn't caught!

 

Hopefully he will not be extridited, to be put to death just for dealing seeds etc is absolutely pathetic on americas part

 

Fuck the DEA. Fuck America. Fuck Bush and his wars

 

We need to organise a helicopter drop over Australia of millions of seeds.

imagine all the plants that would be growing wild!!

 

Someone needs to do that!

[nirvana]

BLOODY GOOD ON HIM!!!!!!!

 

I mean it, GOOD ON HIM!!!

 

If only he had been abit more careful so he wasn't caught!

 

Hopefully he will not be extridited, to be put to death just for dealing seeds etc is absolutely pathetic on americas part

 

Fuck the DEA. Fuck America. Fuck Bush and his wars

 

We need to organise a helicopter drop over Australia of millions of seeds.

imagine all the plants that would be growing wild!!

 

Someone needs to do that!

 

 

I meet Marc emery about 5 year's back and he seemed like a nice guy to me,It's a pity to see the DEA with the power to walk into someone else's country and tell them what to do.

[dude007]

It's all true, Marc has done so much for Canada and the pot laws there, and i'm proud of him and respect him very much as a model human being. there should be a lot more people like him, so we can finally bring down the walls of babylon (the system) and finally live free.

I'm sure canada won't agree to his extradition, just wait and see, Peace Marc,

 

dude007

[Bubble Bags Australia]

I worked for marc for several years at the BCMP and Pot-TV and some other projects and am a freind of his, I can personally testify that while Marc had a nice aparment, car and always had lots of good weed, he didnt have hardly any money. Most of what he did have (the car, always dressing in a sharp suit, etc... were part of his public image to look like a businessman and professional politician, so he could win the election and so people woulndt be able to say that all pot smokers are just hippy stoner losers, as here was a guy who proved that wrong by the way he looked and by running a succesfull magaizine, website, company, and political party.

 

I really hope things work out for him and the cause. I cant beleive that among all the crap that is going down in the world with America that they have time to fight their war on drugs. You would think that someone intellgent in the americant government (hah) would say "well were in the middle of a war right now, we have a massive homelessness, unemployment, drugs, aids, murder, violent crime problem going on and we have a multi trillion dollar debt...... maybe arresting some canadian for selling seeds is not so important and the best use of our resources"

 

But of course thats just common logical sence and using your brain, so of course they wouldnt think that way.

[RobbieGanjaSeed]

I don't want to dissent on the run of popular images on Marc Emery, but when he was in that blaze a few years ago, and made that awful threat (those who know what I'm talking about need no more info) I've bought elsewhere and steered clear.

 

Although I realise he was baited and harrased and just snapped and would very unlikely ever do anything so pathetic, it was enough to put me off. Call me paranoid, but there you go.

 

But that doesn't mean he deserves anything like what's happened to him.

 

Mike Devine of the DEA has written several books on the way the American government has used agents of both the CIA, and the DEA to not stop drugs in Afghanistan, but to help the afghan people with the movement of opium and swapping of arms to fight the Russians.

 

Mike Devine was once a body gaurd to the president or some such crap, but ultimately he was a high ranking DEA officer, and when posted to Afghanistan, was shocked to find every report of inteilligence he offered to his superiors, resulted in him being lectrued that "larger issues" were at hand.

 

Those larger issues were simply hat it turned the yanks on during the cold war, to see Russia use so much of it's reources locked into a fight with the TAliban. So they encouraged them in all ways they could, including the growing, transporting and selling/swapping of the product into Pakistan, for a deal on weapons to continue the fight with Russia. The Americans have since admitted this entire scenario by putting it this way.

 

"When faced with conflicting priorities, we have to choose the better one direction for the fate of their country (USA). If that meant "ignoring" the drug trade so they could better distract the Russians, then that was the price they were prepaired to pay". Of course, they did more than "ignore" the trade, but it's best perhaps people read it all for themselves.

 

Before his own brother died in prison while on charges of heroin possesion, causing him to quit the DEA and come out as a wistle blower, he'd been posted to every major opium/heroin hot spot in the Asian region, and proves how the Golden Triangle was as much invented by the American gov. (again to help them finance a war against communism; this time in Laos) as the full Afghnan economy was also coerced into existence.

 

While Mike Devine was vexed with what his role in all this was, the American gov. fully aware the opium they helped safe gaurd was ending up in the veins of American kids. At the very same time all this was taking place, we were all listening to Ronald Regan give his "getting tough on drugs" speaches, and begun the modern day war on drugs as we know it. Being responsible for the very drugs entering the country, they were arresting unprecedented amounts for possesing.

 

The very words "death penalty" and "Marijauan seeds" appearing in the same paragraph, let alone sentence, with these facts in mind is the ultimate insult to intellect of the citizens of this world, and evidence that morality within the American gov. physce is tandamount to humor.

 

The DEA is a power gone mad, it's left unchecked in the belief it can do no wrong, and is the tool of clever politicians who use it as subterfuge for illegal activies around the world. I mentioned I'm no huge fan of Marc Emery simply so I couldn't be dismissed as a faithful customer being disgruntled. But something has to be done about this DEA, the stories that have come in regarding their activities makes the CIA look like boy scouts.

 

I don't know what the Canadian laws are like at saving him in this. I believe they won't allow extradition whilever he faces death penalties. They've refused to extradite before on those grounds, and I admire them greatly for that, so I believe and sincerely hope it won't go that far.. But if he's able to be captured within his own borders by a foreign government, than are any of us safe?

 

This isn't the first time they've done this kind of thing either, it's just that Marc is the most innocent of them. Mr. Nice spent years in an Ameircan cell, and so did an associate of his. They were extradited from Sicily I think.

 

Anyway, I've ranted enough. But it does burn in the guts to see this kind of behaviour from the yanks again.

 

rob

[raverspec]

MARC EMERY, YOU LEGEND.

 

SAY NO TO THE US - OZ FREE TRADE AGREEMENT PPL!!!

 

 

THIS WILL BE THE OUTCOME.

[BentBuddha]

Man I"m sick of America. What a ridiculous macdonalds culture we have continuosly imposed upon us. When will the governments of the world put decency before the dollar and tell the u.s to get fuct. Or even better, the world put trade sanctions on the u.s for once, in order to get them to behave. George W Bush has fucked every single professional adventure he has ever been involved with. I long for the day when he's finished doing it to his entire country, and the rest of the world doesn't have to suck up their arse simply because they have the most money. Or even better, if Bushes little brain and big ego gets into a a REAL war with China over Taiwon and get's their ass kicked. That country is in desperate need of a lesson in humility. I mean, being extradited to the u.s to face the death penalty over selling cannabis seeds seems to be almost the most rediculous thing i've ever heard. Pffft Edited September 5, 2006 by BentBuddha

[Bundy]

being extradited to the u.s to face the death penalty over selling cannabis seeds seems to be almost the most rediculous thing i've ever heard.

fucken disgraceful more like

[Nooby]

Thought it was worth bumping this thread as this issue is something that I have just become aware of. I think this is obscene.

 

The extradition hearing has been scheduled for November this year. I will be sending (polite) letters of disgust to the relevant politicians and newspapers in Canada in an attempt to have this farce overturned.

 

If you are as concerned about this as i am and realise the wider implications if a precedent is set in this case then you might consider doing the same. Contact details can be found here.

 

http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/4471.html

 

(Mods, hope you dont mind the link to the other site. ;-) )