Pubdate: Thu, 19 Apr 2012
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Ian Mulgrew
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?196 (Emery, Marc)

EMERY'S PROSECUTOR WANTS POT LEGALIZED

The former U. S. attorney who prosecuted Marc Emery says he has "no 
regrets" about jailing the pot activist, yet he has embraced the 
cause of cannabis legalization.

In a fairly startling Saul-on-the-road-to- Damascus about face, John 
McKay says it's time to tax and regulate marijuana because it 
provides too much cash to gangsters and fuels too much violence.

"The criminal marijuana prohibition is a complete failure," said 
McKay, who became a high-profile federal prosecutor after his 2001 
appointment by president George W. Bush.

"The problem posed by the vast criminal marijuana black market is a 
threat to public safety both in the United States and Canada. It's 
time to rethink our criminalization and prohibition policy."

That's quite a change in tune from the man who vigorously went after 
the world's leading marijuana promoter as well as cross-border drug 
traffickers.

The 54- year-old Emery, who sold cannabis seeds globally through a 
Vancouver based catalogue company, was arrested in 2005; he was 
extradited to Seattle, convicted and imprisoned in 2010. He is 
serving a five-year sentence in Mississippi.

McKay said he prosecuted Emery because it was his job to uphold the 
law, but that he ceased being a federal attorney in 2007 and now is 
free to speak his mind.

"[ Emery's] decision and choice was to sell marijuana seeds, which we 
consider to be marijuana in the United States, to any individual who 
wanted to purchase them," McKay said. "I think that was a tremendous 
mistake ....

"If that was Mr. Emery's purpose - to change policy, I think he chose 
the wrong path. We do share, I think, a belief that the underlying 
policies are wrong."

The former prosecutor's change of heart doesn't help Emery, but his 
wife Jodie said she thought it would aid the burgeoning movement for 
drug-policy change.

She joined McKay, along with former B. C. attorney general Geoff 
Plant, at a media conference Tuesday to emphasize the abject failure 
of the present approach.

"When we think of using law enforcement as a tool, we usually think 
it's going to make the problem go away," Plant said.

"When we talk about cannabis, the effect of law enforcement is to 
make the problem worse in almost every respect."

He added that violence and organized crime concerns in the province 
have worsened since he left office in 2005.

The trio was brought together by Stop the Violence BC, a coalition of 
academic, legal, law enforcement and health experts out to overturn the law.

"The government's own data shows young people have easier access to 
marijuana than alcohol or tobacco," said Dr. Evan Wood, a founder of 
the group. If you doubt it, he suggested attending the annual 420 
smoke-in at the Vancouver Art Gallery, being held Friday afternoon.

Now a professor in the faculty of law at Seattle University, McKay is 
an avid supporter of a November U. S. election ballot initiative that 
would tax and regulate marijuana in Washington state.

He said the state taxman could harvest half- a-billion dollars in 
revenue, not to mention the millions reaped in enforcement savings.

That same point is emphasized in an online petition signed by 300 
economists, three of them Nobel laureates, calling attention to a 
recent research paper by Jeffrey Miron, The Budgetary Implications of 
Marijuana Prohibition.

The respected Harvard economist estimates the U. S. could save $ 7.7 
billion in law enforcement costs by legalizing pot and generate 
another $ 6 billion by taxing it at the same rate as alcohol and 
tobacco. Canada could experience a similar boon.

Yet Prime Minister Stephen Harper refuses to consider legalization in 
spite of conceding the war on drugs is lost.

The Tory plan is to continue pouring public money down the drain and 
branding thousands of teenagers annually with a criminal record.

It makes little sense when for more than 40 years smart people have 
urged an end to the near-century-old cannabis prohibition.

Today, there is a deafening chorus across the country demanding it, 
including the voices of politicians, public health officers, judges, 
police chiefs, four Vancouver mayors, four former B. C. provincial 
attorneys-general, and a majority of Canadians.

Washington state's Initiative 502 is only one of many U. S. 
indicators of how strong the winds of change are blowing - 16 states 
and the District of Columbia have medical marijuana laws and 14 have 
decriminalized possession.

McKay noted Canadians are foolish to fear a U. S. backlash if Ottawa 
liberalizes the drug laws - America is further ahead. Add to that the 
South American countries now calling for legalization and the 
experience in Europe, where Portugal legalized drugs a decade ago and 
other jurisdictions have moved to administrative regulatory regimes.

Harper would do well to read the writing on the wall and heed the 
graffiti: Free the Weed.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom