CONCERNED BY POLICE GROUP'S ACTIONS

Editor:

On March 14, I responded to RCMP Sgt Ed Hill's open invitation in his
March 4 letter to the editor, and attended the Police-Community
Consultative Group meeting held at City Hall. I went because I wanted
to discuss ongoing acts of criminal violence by certain well-known
members of the community, and the apparent lack of police response.

Although Sgt Hill portrayed the Group as eager to accept public
input, the meetings are held at 8am on weekdays, hardly an easy time
for most people to attend.

When I saw the minutes from the previous meeting I was surprised to
see that well-known Sunshine Coast resident Marc Emery had been a big
part of their recent agenda. Group members had busied themselves in
writing letters to the SCRD, Revenue Canada and other organizations,
informing them that Marc Emery "continued to promote his business of
selling marijuana seeds over the Internet."

Do the members of this supposedly public committee feel that this
kind of petty finking really represents the majority view of Sunshine
Coast residents? In the three years that I have lived on the Coast I
have yet to hear a complaint about Marc's presence and influence in
the area. Not a single negative letter appeared in local papers after
articles about the BC Marijuana Party convention held in his home, or
the Pot-TV studio he built in his basement.

Marc is publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine and producer of the
Pot-TV Internetwork, which together employ over a dozen Coast
residents in full and part-time work. He has also contributed
generously to the cause of Renee Boje, the US drug war refugee who
has found sanctuary on the Sunshine Coast and been accepted as a
valued member of our community.

I do not believe that the comittee members are acting in the best
interests of their community when they surreptitiously write
defamatory letters against local residents, hoping to find someone
else to do their dirty work.

When I brought up my original reason for attending the meeting -
ongoing acts of intimidation, theft and violence imposed upon Coast
residents by the family and friends of a well-known local business -
I was told that nothing could be done without risk of becoming a
"police state." I find this double-standard shocking and
disappointing in the extreme.

The next Police-Community Consultative Group meeting is scheduled for
8-9am, April 17, at Gibsons City Hall. I encourage all residents who
want to discuss local policing and community issues to attend.

Dana Larsen
BC Marijuana Party Candidate
Powell River - Sunshine Coast
604-886-1731