Pubdate: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 Source: Province, The (CN BC) Copyright: 2004 The Province Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/theprovince/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476 Author: Jon Ferry Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?196 (Emery, Marc) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/kine+cafe VOLUNTEER HARASSED AFTER OBJECTING TO DOPE SALES NEAR SCHOOL It struck me as I was reading the vitriol emanating from B.C. Marijuana Party president Marc Emery that they don't make jails like they used to. I mean, why is a chronic drug offender serving time in a Saskatchewan prison permitted to shower vicious, inflammatory, public abuse on people he dislikes on the outside, using a computer and something called a "jail blog"? I mean, aren't there rules against such juvenile behaviour? Well, clearly there are not, as east Vancouver commercial artist Eileen Mosca, a mother of three college-age sons, has found to her cost. Mosca, volunteer president of the Grandview-Woodlands Community Policing Centre, told me yesterday she's been harassed unmercifully since complaining to a Vancouver TV reporter that the city was allowing the Da Kine cafe to sell pot a block away from a local elementary school. And it's little wonder this is happening, given the bullying e-blast she received soon after on the Marijuana Party's website from the blogging Emery (who got her first name wrong). "I noted that there is a person called Irene, of the Grandview/Woodlands community policing centre, and she must be picketed at that policing centre," Emery wrote. "Two people should be there with signs every day, saying that she is a Nazi, or having a swastika by her name, or some kind of strong, anti-prohibitionist sentiment, as she is clearly trying to shut down one of our temples for the cannabis culture, with absolutely no grounds or basis whatsoever other than her hatred . . ." So, since Da Kine is a pot temple, it's OK to incite folks to label Mosca a Nazi? "I find it just appalling," Mosca said, adding she's worked on community issues for 24 years and has never been subjected to such hostility. "And I think Marc Emery putting that out to all and sundry is just completely unacceptable," she said, adding she's been harassed on the street, and by phone and e-mail, and even had one of her van tires punctured. Mosca is as shocked as I am why a prisoner in a Canadian jail "is allowed access to a computer and allowed to write that kind of stuff about a private citizen and put out those kind of instructions to his followers." Yesterday, I tried to get an answer from the Saskatchewan correctional service -- to no avail. Mind you, nothing about our jails surprises me any more. Nor does Emery's outrageous slagging, in another jail blog, of various B.C. politicians . . . and little old me. In the past, I've tended to write nice things about Emery, seeing him as a colourful guy in a sea of grey. Sadly, though, jail seems to have turned him into an example of that all-too-common Lower Mainland phenomenon -- someone with a cause but no class. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin