Pubdate: Thu, 11 Aug 2005
Source: Creston Valley Advance (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 Sterling Newspapers Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.crestonvalley.com/advance/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1413
Author: Paul Willcocks
Alert: Is Canada a United States Puppet? www.mapinc.org/alert/0314.html
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Marc+Emery (Emery, Marc)

U.S. DRUG WAR SHOULD STAY IN U.S.

VICTORIA - Do the crime, do the time.

That's a fair starting point for looking at the plight of Marc Emery, 
Vancouver's high-profile marijuana activist. The Americans have come 
gunning for Emery - with the help of Canadian police and prosecutors 
- - and want to take him across the border and lock him up for a long time.

Look a little harder at the issues, and the picture changes.

Emery has been running a big marijuana seed business, with a 
catalogue that reads like a brochure for an upscale wine shop. His 
business is effectively legal in Canada. The law banning the sale of 
seeds hasn't been enforced since 1968, and Emery has been selling at 
his store and through multi-page magazine ads without any police action.

But Emery has also been selling seeds to customers in the U.S., and 
the Americans have spent years - and a pile of money - building a 
case against him.

On one hand Emery apparently made the decision to send seeds into the 
U.S., despite the obvious risks. (None of this has been proven, but 
there haven't been a lot of denials.) Decisions, especially bad ones, 
have consequences.

But the case isn't quite so simple.

Start with the legal issues. Canada and the U.S. have extradition 
treaties that make it easy to yank people across the border to face 
charges. Prosecutors just have to show is that there is enough 
evidence to justify a trial - whether a conviction is likely or not - 
and the suspect is on his way.

But the treaties say that people can't be extradited for offences 
that aren't considered crimes in their own country.

That raises one likely argument. The law against selling seeds is on 
the books in Canada, but unenforced. Prime Minister Paul Martin has 
promised to remove marijuana possession from the Criminal Code. Emery 
can make a good case that what he has been doing is no longer illegal 
in Canada, and he shouldn't face extradition. In Canada, there is no 
effective penalty for selling seeds. In the U.S., Emery and the two 
other people charged face a minimum term of 10 years, and the 
possibility of life behind bars. It's the kind of disparity that 
should raise doubts about the extradition request.

There are other questions.

While Canada has a legal obligation to respond to extradition 
applications once the U.S. has gathered the evidence, Canadian police 
and prosecutors still have the right to decide how much time they're 
prepared to devote to helping make the case.

When the U.S. police and prosecutors asked for help in investigating 
Emery, their Canadian counterparts could have politely declined. That 
would have been a legitimate response. When DEA officers want to 
operate in Canada, they first need RCMP consent, and are shadowed by 
Canadian officers. It's time-consuming and diverts effort from other 
priorities. In the past Canadian police have just said no when the 
targets didn't justify the commitment.

Common sense says they should have said no this time, rather than 
spending almost a year working with American officers. After all, 
they hadn't considered the seed sales a priority for the last decade. 
The public, based on most polls, doesn't consider it important. And 
there are a lot of crime problems that do need tackling, from meth 
labs to gang activity to violent assaults.

The U.S. government has been waging a costly, ineffective war on 
drugs for decades. The approach - trying to reduce supply, and lock 
up offenders - has accomplished nothing. Twenty years ago there were 
about 80,000 drug offenders in U.S. jails; now there are 400,000, at 
a cost of $16 billion a year.

Addiction, death, crime and prisoners have all increased. The 
Americans are, of course, free to choose their response to drug use, 
no matter how irrational.

But the Canadian government doesn't have to sign on as partners 
helping bring a ineffective, destructive war on drugs across the 
border. Footnote: One reason for Canadian police co-operation with 
the DEA is their belief that if they don't agree, the U.S. officers 
will go ahead illegally. The BC Supreme Court tossed out an 
extradition request in 2002 because of DEA wrongdoing in Canada. "The 
illegal conduct is extremely offensive because of the violation of 
Canadian sovereignty without explanation or apology," the court found.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake