Pubdate: Sun, 22 Oct 2000
Source: Ottawa Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2000, Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact:  380 Hunt Club Rd., Ottawa, Ontario, K1G 5H7
Website: http://www.canoe.ca/OttawaSun/
Forum: http://www.canoe.ca/Chat/home.html
Author: Darren Lum

HEMP FAN FIRED UP

Publisher Accuses Police Of Intimidation

TORONTO -- Hemp activist Marc Emery sat outside a Timmins police station 
yesterday baiting police to charge him for distributing his magazine.

But they didn't charge Emery, who sat at a desk and gave away more than 200 
copies of his magazine, Cannabis Culture.

Police told area store owners they would be charged if they sold Cannabis 
Culture, after a school principal laid a complaint after finding a Grade 7 
student reading it in school.

The police believed the magazine had objectionable magazine content because 
it included the "production (and) cultivation of a narcotic." Timmins 
Const. Gilles Carbonneau said the police "have no problems with the written 
word." The problem, he said, lies with the visual content of the magazine.

Carbonneau said one of the 14 Timmins' distributors for Cannabis Culture 
magazine called police and was told anyone selling magazines with pictures 
"real or fictitious" of illegal acts could be arrested under Section 163, 
of the criminal code.

Cops 'Invented Law'

But Emery, who travelled from his B.C. home to protest the ban, said police 
were just "intimidating local people."

"The police invented a law that is inapplicable to my magazine," said 
Emery, the magazine's publisher.

"It's a very serious situation ... there are implications for other 
magazines as well," he added.

He said magazines on motorcycles, tattoos, and horror movies could be 
targeted if the police responded to every complaint.
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