A blow for the 'Prince of Pot'

The possible extradition to the US of a prominent marijuana enthusiast has sparked anger in Canada, reports Anne McIlroy

Tuesday August 16, 2005

For years, Canadian authorities ignored the lucrative mail-order marijuana business run by Marc Emery, Canada's most prominent proponent for legalising weed. The self-styled "Prince of Pot" sold cannabis seeds via the internet to customers all over the world, including the United States.

But the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was far less tolerant, and, during an 18-month investigation, sent undercover agents to pose as customers. They asked that Mr Emery be arrested for selling to Americans, and, earlier this summer, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police picked him up. Now he is facing extradition to the United States, where he could be sentenced to at least 10 years and possibly life in prison if he is convicted on a number of drug-related charges.

This has angered many Canadians, who even if they don't approve of Mr Emery's activities, fear that the long arm of the law in the US is now reaching across the border. They say it is wrong for a Canadian to be tried in the United State for selling marijuana seeds from his Vancouver base. The US has far harsher penalties.

"I'm deeply concerned about subjecting a Canadian citizen to the draconian laws of a foreign nation when we don't bother charging this person for violating our laws," Alan Young, an associate professor of law at Osgoode Hall, wrote in the Globe and Mail newspaper.

"A Canadian citizen is now exposed to US drug sentences which border on cruel and unusual punishment - for violating a law we rarely enforce in Canada," said Mr Young, who in the past has done legal work for Mr Emery.

Mr Emery, the head of the British Columbia Marijuana party, has been arrested 11 times for offences related to smoking pot or selling it over the counter at a Vancouver store, but he was usually fined or imprisoned for short periods. He says the police did not bother him once he began selling seeds exclusively through his mail-order business. But it was that business that led a federal grand jury in the United States to indict him on charges of distributing marijuana seeds, marijuana and of money laundering. The DEA says he was bringing in about $2.5m a year and that many of his customers were in the US.

He says he never tried to hide what he was doing.

"Unlike most other seed dealers, I use my real name and I'm easy to find," he said in a media interview in 2002.

The case highlights the dramatically different approaches to marijuana in Canada and the United States. Using the drug for medical purposes is legal in Canada, and the federal government is planning to decriminalise the possession of small amounts of the drug. Earlier this summer, an appeal court in British Columbia ruled that a two-year jail term for growing marijuana was excessive.

But that doesn't mean that a Canadian court - or ultimately the federal justice minister - will refuse to extradite Mr Emery to the US under the mutual legal assistance treaty, someone can be sent the United States to be tried for acts that are considered an offence in both countries. Selling marijuana seeds in Canada is still illegal, even if the law is rarely enforced.

If the courts rule in favour of extradition, Mr Emery's supporters say Irwin Cotler, the federal justice minister, should intervene and refuse to extradite the pot activist on the grounds that he faces cruel and unusual punishment. At the very least, they say he should get a guarantee from the US that the minimum 10-year sentence will not be enforced.

While the DEA portrays him as a wealthy drug trafficker, his supporters say Mr Emery is primarily an activist, who uses the money from his cannabis business to finance political activities. After getting out of jail on bail earlier this month, he compared himself to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King and said he was prepared to serve time to help his crusade to legalise pot. "If I thought my death or my lifetime in prison - even with great suffering - would bring about the liberation of the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who are oppressed, I am looking forward to that," he told reporters.


Email
edna.mcilroy@sympatico.ca

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