Pubdate: Tue, 12 Aug 2014
Source: Regina Leader-Post (CN SN)
Copyright: 2014 The Leader-Post Ltd.
Contact: http://www.leaderpost.com/opinion/letters/letters-to-the-editor.html
Website: http://www.leaderpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/361
Author: Nick Eagland
Page: A7

POT ACTIVIST RETURNS TO B.C. AFTER SERVING TIME IN U.S. JAILS

He's back. Pot activist Marc Emery returns to Canada on Tuesday 
morning after a four-and-a-half-year stint in American prisons for 
selling marijuana seeds to a U.S. buyer. Postmedia phoned him at a 
Louisiana detention centre to learn more about his return.

Q: What's the plan for today?

A: I get put on a plane ... in the morning and arrive in Detroit 
around three. At that point, U.S. marshals deliver me under the 
tunnel to the Canadian border point and Jodie and some friends of 
mine should meet me there.

Q: How does it feel to be coming home?

A: People ask me if I'm excited and I'm not really excited because 
I've been here so long, I really don't know any other life other than 
being behind bars in these dirtbag prison cells and dormitories. If I 
look outside there's always razor wire. If I get taken anywhere 
outside of prison I'm shackled up ... handcuffed and leg-ironed and a 
waist belt of chains around me. When they finally deliver me to 
Windsor and I see a sunset without razor wire and I don't have any 
shackles on me, then I guess I'll kind of believe it.

Q: What are your expectations for when you return to B.C.?

A: They tell me that they've got 35 dispensaries in Vancouver - I 
find that phenomenal. That's almost like it's legal without being 
legal and that's a very peculiar kind of Twilight Zone to find myself 
in. The way technology has influenced people - my wife says, "People 
look at their screens everywhere they go, Marc." She said no one 
makes eye contact in lineups any more.

Q: What do you think of Jodie's political plans?

A: My deep-seated feeling is that Liberals are so nervous about me, 
they'll probably do anything to derail her successfully getting the 
nomination in Vancouver East because otherwise, if she gets the 
nomination, the brain trust of the Liberals will be worried about 
what I might say over the next year. She's a terrific speaker, she's 
a terrific mind, she's got amazing compassion and she's a terrific 
Canadian who would make a great representative, but she's saddled 
with me and I don't have the same reverence for the process that she's showing.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom