Pubdate: Sun, 13 Jun 2010 Source: Winnipeg Free Press (CN MB) Copyright: 2010 Winnipeg Free Press Contact: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/send_a_letter Website: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/502 Page: A20 Author: Kim Murphy PRISONER OF POT Canada's Marijuana Crusader Caught In U.S. War On Drugs VANCOUVER -- For years, his seed catalogs were scrutinized by discerning cannabis cultivators across the U.S. and Canada. There was Blue Heaven pot, capable of producing a "euphoric, anti-anxiety high," or Crown Royal, whose "flower tops come to a flat golden crown, sparkling with gems of THC." The difference between Marc Emery's pot seeds and countless others on the market was that if you bought Emery's, he'd use the money to launch a cannabis tsunami across North America that would set the war on drugs adrift like a cork on a massive sea of weed. "Plant the seeds of freedom, overgrow the government," Emery urged his clients. With a pot plant on every patio, he declared, violent drug gangs would see their livelihoods disappear and police would be reduced to "running around... chasing all these marijuana plants." Sooner or later, he promised, "they will simply give up and change the laws." Well, not yet. Emery, who U.S. authorities fingered in 2005 as one of the top 46 international drug-trafficking targets, was ordered extradited by the Canadian minister of justice last month and relinquished to federal marshals in Seattle. He now faces a likely five years in U.S. federal prison. "In fact I have done these things, so I admit my guilt," Emery said in an e-mail after pleading guilty in U.S. District Court to one count of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana. "We are winning, especially in the United States, and I can take a lot of credit for that.... When I am gone, or even locked up here in the U.S., my historical legacy is secure." Here in "Vansterdam," where cannabis cafes, head shops and even a supervised needle-injection site are prominent features of downtown, pot is a multibillion-dollar industry. And Emery, a longtime fixture at political forums and downtown rallies, is widely seen as one of its titans. The extradition of the 52-year-old self-proclaimed Prince of Pot has sparked a sovereignty outcry across Canada, where supporters, civil rights advocates and even several members of Parliament have demanded to know why he was handed over to the U.S. for an offense that Canada seldom prosecutes. "It seems like the American war on drugs is just reaching its arm into Canada and saying, 'We're going to scoop you up,'" said Vancouver MP Libby Davies. "The whole thing has struck people as being over the top, harsh, unwarranted -- and at the end of the day, what are they trying to prove?" Emery became a target for police in both nations -- in Canada because his appearances on international television shows was an irritant to police; in America because his seed business, which at one point reached revenues of $3 million a year, was supplying marijuana-growing operations in at least nine states. "Marc Emery happened to be the largest supplier of marijuana seeds into the United States," said Todd Greenberg, the assistant U.S. attorney in Seattle who is prosecuting Emery's case. Emery believes he caught the eye of the Drug Enforcement Administration not because of his seeds but because of what he did with his revenue. Emery channeled most of the millions he earned into marijuana legalization and defence efforts across North America. The Prince of Pot's seed money has helped start "compassion clubs" for medical-marijuana users across Canada, launch the Pot-TV Internet network, and fund lobbying organizations and political parties in North America, Israel and New Zealand. The Prince of Pot's blog posts from the SeaTac detention centre go out regularly on the Internet to his supporters. What he wants to do next, though his attempt to get a recorded phone call out has so far only gotten him stuck in solitary confinement: Potcasts. - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart