'BUDDING' OUT NOT AN OPTION

According to Michael (Mike) Hansen, the South Delta candidate running
in this year's provincial election, our society has its priorities all
wrong.

Millions of dollars are spent going after the "harmless herb farmers"
in Delta, while cocaine and heroin continue to kill too many. While
sex offenders are let out of jail, says Hansen, 73-year-old logging
protestors are wheeled in. And in B.C., where revenues from hemp
cultivation are huge, there is no taxation flowing in to government
coffers, because the drug is still an illegal substance.

This is why 46-year-old Hansen - a career activist by trade and
Tsawwassen resident - is running on a B.C. Marijuana Party platform of
"Choices, Options and Tolerance."

"There are no career politicians in this party," said Hansen, "only
concerned citizens. We are the government. Politicians are only our
public servants, but if we keep referring to them as the government,
their heads start to swell."

Aside from pushing for the legalization of marijuana, Hansen promises
- -- if elected in South Delta -- that he will address the "untreated
sewage outflow" on the Tsawwassen First Nation reservation, the
dangers of heroin and cocaine in Delta schools and general advocacy of
natural hemp for use in clothing, oils and for medicinal purposes.

He is also vehemently opposed to any free trade agreements, such as
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General
Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and believes Canada should not
be "sold out" through trade liberalization any longer.

How have South Deltans taken to this platform?

"People here in Tsawwassen have actually been really nice," said
Hansen. "They're all in favour of it. They say 'Pot? Great!'"