U.S. AGENTS RUN FOR THE BORDER

DEA Tramples Canada's Sovereignty By Demanding Pot Seller Be Tried In
U.S.

Attention, concerned citizens of the United States of America: It is now
safe to unlock your doors and let your children back out onto the streets to
play hopscotch and jump rope. Yes, the long and terrible reign of the Prince
of Pot is over. No longer will this menacing merchant of the devil's weed
terrorize and addict our innocent youth to his mind-destroying plants.

For those of you who don't have the slightest clue what I'm talking
about, Marc Emery, a longtime outspoken advocate for the legalization
of marijuana has agreed to a plea bargain under which he will serve
five years for money laundering and selling of marijuana seeds.

When Emery was originally arrested in 2005, Special Agent in Charge
Rodney G. Benson of the Drug Enforcement Agency said, "The tentacles
of the Mark Emery criminal enterprise reached out across North America
to include all 50 United States and Canada."

There's just one little problem with all of this. Emery is a Canadian
citizen living in Vancouver, British Columbia.

There are some who might argue Emery was begging to be arrested, and
indeed, he has never shied away from talking openly about his feelings
on marijuana legislation. He has been an outspoken advocate for the
decriminalization of marijuana and, to further that end, he also
publishes Cannabis Culture, a bimonthly magazine focused on, to quote
directly from its Web site, "bringing an end to the vicious worldwide
war on drugs." Emery also sold seeds through his magazine, more than
500 varieties of pot, grass, reefer . you get the idea. It is this
seed-selling enterprise that has drawn the wrath of the American
authorities.

Is Emery guilty? Hell yes, and proud of it. During a phone interview
with AlterNet, an award-winning news magazine, Emery said, "The idea
is that we'd sell seeds, people would grow lots of pot, empower
themselves by not needing to buy on the black market, by being
self-sufficient in marijuana and medical marijuana. Hopefully, people
would grow so much pot that the DEA could never eradicate it all, and
it would be futile spending all that money. Then Americans would
simply say, 'Well, why should we spend all this money when it's
impossible to stop? We should legalize it.'"

While we all no doubt have opinions about the issues of marijuana
legalization/decriminalization, that is not the real issue. The real
issue here is the idea of national sovereignty and of the U.S.
government's desperate, flailing attempts to make headway in its War
on Drugs, which is going about as well as our War on Poverty, the War
on Terror and President Bush's own private War on Syntax and Grammar.

While Emery does not attempt to deny that his company has no doubt
sold seeds to Americans, he has always done so from north of the
border, where he is a tax-paying citizen of Canada. He has even served
jail time in Canada for his fondness for the herb. But Canada is
becoming increasingly tolerant of marijuana, much to the chagrin of
U.S. officials, with the major Canadian political parties such as the
NDP, Bloc and the Liberal Party of Canada all adopting a more
green-friendly stance. While marijuana is still technically illegal in
Canada, there is growing public support for its decriminalization, and
cannabis culture (both the magazine and the lifestyle) are generally
tolerated by the authorities. This increasingly liberal ideology
directly contrasts with the $12.7 billion War on Drugs being waged by
the U.S.

As much as DEA officials might loathe the inaction of the Canadian
officials' failure to adequately prosecute Emery, their violation of
national sovereignty by demanding that he be tried in American courts
and incarcerated in our (already over-crowded) prison system is a
blatant attempt to police the world. Given that Emery's actions
occurred well within the confines of the Canadian borders and that he
is a Canadian citizen, it would seem only logical that he be tried in
the Canadian legal system after being charged with violating Canadian
law, but that's not what's happening.

American officials continue to adopt an increasingly invasive stance
regarding other nations' sovereignty, handing out regime changes and
prosecuting their criminals for them, all while proclaiming they don't
want to police the world. Well, it sure doesn't look that way from
where I'm sitting.

- - Quincy Miller is a senior in English from Altoona.