Pubdate: Wed, 06 Aug 2014
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2014 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Kevin Brooker
Page: A12

MARC EMERY'S REEFER REVENGE JUST MIGHT WORK

"Revenge!" Now there's an anguished utterance you normally expect only
to hear in bad Shakespeare parodies. Not last week, however, when Marc
Emery, Canada's so-called Prince of Pot, dropped the R-bomb on no less
than the government itself.

Speaking to CBC Radio from a private deportation facility (whatever
the heck that is) in anticipation of finally being released from the
U.S. prison system, Emery said: "My own government betrayed me and I'm
going to wreak an appropriate amount of political revenge when I get
home and campaign against the Conservative government."

Emery served nearly five years for the crime of selling seeds,
"chained and shackled every inch of the way," and, obviously, he isn't
about to forgive and forget. But this is no routine - and therefore
hollow - act of fist-shaking by a jailbird. His threat is anything but
empty.

Emery is now poised to re-enter his chosen life's work of cannabis
activism in the most significant way possible, by threatening to turn
the next federal election into a single issue referendum on legalizing
cannabis. He and his many supporters are planning to campaign for the
Liberals and will thus hold Justin Trudeau's feet to the fire
regarding his pledge to end the legal morass that is cannabis
prohibition. Emery's team already has 30 rallies planned across the
country, surely with many more to come. His plan is to energize young
voters on what will be framed as a civil rights cause, irrespective of
their personal relationship to cannabis. The hand-wringers in Ottawa
don't know what to make of it. Many Liberals suggest Emery might be a
liability to the party by alienating centrists with his brash
rhetoric. The Tories, of course, will take every opportunity to
disparage him, as they already have, as "a drug dealer who just got
out of jail."

But as the next few months unfurl, I suspect we will see Emery quietly
absorbed into the Liberal fold. After all, he has buckets of money,
commitment and organization. The prospect of him stumping for their
brand could do the Liberals a huge favour, whether they admit it or
not. If nothing else, Emery will come home with a kind of street
gravitas, having openly flouted laws on principle, knowing that he
would someday do jail time, and doing a hard nickel to boot.

One strategist noted that, "political parties don't as a rule like to
be associated with controversial figures, especially those who have
served jail time," though the annals of politics are filled with
ex-cons. Nelson Mandela and Vaclav Havel come to mind.

Sure, Emery is no Mandela, but it is not difficult to argue that he
was in some sense a political prisoner. The Conservative government
acted vindictively, and politically, by bringing in U.S. drug warriors
and seeing to it that Emery was renditioned to a place where he would
serve a far harsher sentence than any Canadian court would deliver for
such an offence.

Now he has a story to tell, plus an aura of martyrdom, vis-a-vis, the
growing number of people who see cannabis prohibition as a colossal
failure whose social harms far outweigh those of personal abuse. It is
a tale with which many Canadians will empathize.

Much has changed since Emery's been away. I write today from
Washington state where, ironically, not far from the court that
convicted him, any adult can walk into a store and buy cannabis itself
- - and not merely seeds. Last week, Emery evinced pride that his long
career of activism helped influence such developments here and in
Colorado. Likewise, it has changed Canada. In his home province of
B.C., for example, medical cannabis dispensaries have made the
substance de facto legal.

The current patchwork of legality with respect to this ancient plant
is just one more reason why Canadian voters are likely to respond
positively to some form of blanket decriminalization. And, if they do,
Emery will have his revenge.
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MAP posted-by: Matt