Marc Emery

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Marc Emery wearing his 420 jersey.
Marc Emery wearing his 420 jersey.

Marc Scott Emery (born February 13, 1958) is a Canadian cannabis activist. He is the publisher of Cannabis Culture magazine. He also ran for mayor of the city of Vancouver in 1996 and 2002 and came in fifth the second time. He is sometimes called by the media the Prince of Pot. On July 23, 2006; Emery married Jodie Joanna Giesz-Ramsay.

He is formerly a retailer of Cannabis seeds for cultivation, having started Marc Emery Direct Marijuana Seeds in 1995, which he ran until it was closed by a raid by Vancouver police acting on the request of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on July 29, 2005.

He currently faces extradition to the United States where he faces a possible life sentence for selling seeds and "laundering" the profits into pro-cannabis legalization activities. His outspoken advocacy in favor of legalizing cannabis led the media, beginning with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (later picked up by Bernard Shaw of CNN), to dub him "The Prince of Pot", a nickname he embraces heartily.

On March 5, 2006, 60 Minutes did a piece on Marc and his struggles against the United States DEA.

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[edit] Early career

Emery was born and raised in London, Ontario. Marc bought and sold comics in a mail-order business from his parent's home from the time he was 14. He dropped out of high school in 1975 at age 17 to purchase a downtown used book store with mortgage funds from his parent's home, to rename and open City Lights Book Store on Richmond Street. Shortly thereafter, he began a three-year fight against the London Downtown Business Association for extracting mandatory fees from all core-area shops for beautification and other programs.

He first became politically active with the Libertarian Party of Canada, and ran for the Canadian House of Commons under that party's banner in the 1980 federal election. He received 197 votes in London East, finishing fourth. The winner was Liberal Charles Turner.

Emery later left the Libertarians and became an organizer for the Unparty. On January 1, 1984, he and Robert Metz broke from the Unparty to form the Freedom Party of Ontario, which still exists. Although the Freedom Party rejects the term "libertarian" for philosophical reasons, it is generally considered to be a party of the libertarian right.

In 1984, Emery also successfully campaigned against London's bid for the 1991 Pan American Games, saying the city would lose millions. Emery ran as a candidate of the Freedom Party in the rural constituency of Middlesex, near London, in the 1987 provincial election. He received 499 votes for a distant fifth-place finish. The winner was Doug Reycraft of the Ontario Liberal Party.

In 1990, Emery rented the London Regional Art & Historical Museum (now called Museum London) for his first pro-pot rally.

In 1991, Emery defied the province's Sunday shopping laws, spending time in jail. He also campaigned against London's by-law prohibiting sidewalk signs.

In 1992, he was convicted for selling copies of 2 Live Crew's rap music video which was deemed obscene. This period of Emery's life is featured in the 1992 documentary film by Chris Doty called Marc Emery: Messing Up the System and the play, Citizen Marc: The Adventures of Marc Emery, scripted by London writers Chris Doty (who committed suicide at age 39 on February 2, 2006, two days before the play's final performance on February 4) and Jason Rip; the play was directed by John Gerry which opened in London on January 27, 2006. Emery was in attendance for the premiere.

In July, 1992, Emery sold City Lights Book Store and moved to Sumatra with his wife and two children.

[edit] Cannabis Party activist

Emery moved back to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in 1993, and founded a store called Hemp BC. His store played a major part in expanding Canada's semi-underground industry in cannabis-related paraphernalia. The Vancouver police conducted a major raid on Emery's store in 1996, and seized his entire stock in 1998. After this, he switched his seed business to a mail order basis, and began publishing Cannabis Culture Magazine. In 2000, he established Pot TV on the internet. Emery has described himself as a "major financial backer of almost every pro-pot effort in North America and many more around the world" [1]

He was an active member the Marijuana Party of Canada, a political party running to fully legalize (not just decriminalize) cannabis. He also helped found the British Columbia Marijuana Party, which he currently leads. Emery ran for the Canadian House of Commons for a second time in the 2000 federal election, and finished sixth out of ten candidates in Vancouver Centre with 1,116 votes. Liberal Hedy Fry won the riding.

The BCMP placed fifth in the 2001 provincial election and was only a few hundred votes short of 4th place. Emery himself received 905 votes in Vancouver-Burrard, finishing fourth against BC Liberal Lorne Mayencourt.

Emery has been the BC Marijuana Party's president since its founding, and also became party leader after the 2001 election, when Brian Taylor resigned to protest what he described as Emery's control over the party. Taylor said that Emery's personal management of the Marijuana Party was "appropriate for [the] election because it was an emergency, but it is no way to run a political party". [2]

In 2003, when the prohibition of cannabis in Ontario was in limbo, Emery launched "the Summer of Legalization" a national campaign to legalize cannabis, as featured in the documentary Escape to Canada.

On October 18, 2004, he was released from the Saskatoon correctional centre in Saskatoon after serving his 90 day sentence for passing a joint. Shortly after this arrest, he made the following comments about Canada's Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler: "Cotler was a life-long human rights advocate, and as Justice Minister, he has presided over a record number of prosecutions of marijuana possession, prosecutions of marijuana cultivation, and marijuana selling. I thought the term Jewish-Nazi, or Nazi-Jew, was an oxymoron until Cotler became the Injustice Minister. What a disgrace he is to his Jewish roots."[3] These controversial comments were given national prominence thanks in part to repeated stories by Globe and Mail columnist Norman Spector, who has also had problems with controversial comments, among them calling Liberal MP Belinda Stronach a bitch [4] on live radio in October 2006.

In the 2005 British Columbia election, Emery ran in Fort Langley-Aldergrove against provincial Solicitor General Rich Coleman, but was defeated.

[edit] Libertarian

While Emery's support for marijuana reform has won him the support from the left, his political views on most issues are closer to libertarianism. He favours the abolition of public education in favour of private tutorship, and is against spending tax revenues on health-care for persons over the age of seventy. On the latter subject, Emery has said, "We spend far too much of our taxpayers' money on a rapidly growing population of old people. We're spending lots of money keeping _ many many millions of old people _ alive when it would be much more honourable to let them die in a dignified way". [5] He claims that those over seventy should be responsible for their own health care, and should not receive state funding. Emery has also argued that many senior citizens are being kept alive against their wishes, citing his own father as an example.

During the 2005 provincial campaign, Emery attracted controversy for his comments about Langley residents, referring to many in the riding as "old people who are intolerant and bigoted and hate young people".

[edit] Federal NDP supporter

In federal politics, Emery has been a public supporter of the New Democratic Party since 2003 as a result of Jack Layton's support for the decriminalization of marijuana. In November 2003, Layton was a guest on Emery's Pot TV program. During the 20-minute interview, Emery urged marijuana activists to support the party in the 2004 federal election.[6]

He endorsed Svend Robinson's candidacy in Vancouver Centre during the 2006 federal election campaign, and obtained permission from a judge to have his bail conditions varied so that he could campaign for the NDP candidate.[7]

[edit] 2005 arrest

On July 29, 2005, Canadian police, acting on a request from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, raided the BC Marijuana Party Bookstore and Headquarters in Vancouver and arrested Emery for extradition to the United States outside a local storefront in the community of Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia where he was attending a HempFest. Emery and co-defendants Gregory Keith Williams, 50, of Vancouver, BC and Michelle Rainey-Fenkarek, 34, of Vancouver, BC are charged with "'Conspiracy to Distribute Marijuana", "Conspiracy to Distribute Marijuana Seeds" and "Conspiracy to Engage in Money Laundering". The charges carry penalties of 10 years to life in prison (technically, selling 60,000 or more seeds — considered to be seedlings under the law — constitutes "king-pin" status and can carry the death penalty, though this would make impossible any extradition from Canada). Canadian police have not laid charges.

Emery is currently free on a $50,000 bail and preparing to fight extradition in the courts. There are many possible avenues of defense available to Emery. It can be alleged that the DEA's extradition request is politically motivated and that he would suffer cruel and unusual punishment if extradited and sentenced according to the charges on him. Another possibility is that the primary offense for which extradition is sought, conspiracy to distribute marijuana seeds, is not currently considered an offense in Canada because the law is rarely enforced. The latter may be a weak avenue, as laws prohibiting sales of viable marijuana seeds remain on the books in Canada. If the Canadian courts agree with Emery's arguments, they could declare him not extraditable.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links


[edit] Related video

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