POTHEAD IN HOT PURSUIT OF JUSTICE

Marc Emery is standing behind the counter at his former business, the
City Lights bookstore on Richmond Street, talking about his quixotic
quest to end society's prohibition on marijuana.

"My argument for marijuana is not that it's good for you and not that
it's safe," he says. "It's that any law that punishes peaceful and
honest behaviour is an unjust law and must be struck down."

Canada's self-proclaimed "prince of pot" - the man whose ongoing legal
battle with the U.S. government has prompted profiles by the Wall
Street Journal, Rolling Stone magazine, 60 Minutes, CNN and CBC - is
in London to visit his ailing mother.

But Emery rarely passes up a chance to proselytize.

And so, he talks.

"The contributions made to life on this planet in the past 40 years by
people who smoke marijuana is unparalleled," he says. "There is no
other sub-culture that has given so much to the world as have the
potheads, yet we're hunted down like dogs."

It strikes me that much of what Emery says (well, maybe not the part
about being hunted down like dogs, but certainly his view that
marijuana is less destructive than alcohol) makes some sense.

Couple that with a UN report showing nearly one in five Canadians
between 15 and 64 had smoked pot the previous year, a report from
Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health showing cannabis is
becoming more acceptable for adults and the big-time box-office
success of a stoner comedy called Harold and Kumar Escape from
Guantanamo Bay, and it seems peculiar more people don't embrace
Emery's message.

So I ask him: Why do so many people dislike you so
much?

"I'm an arrogant loudmouth and I'm always speaking my mind," he
says.

Well, that's true.

It's also true Emery upset the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration,
which wants him prosecuted in the U.S. for selling marijuana seeds to
Americans through his Vancouver-based mail-order business. Emery is
now awaiting an extradition hearing scheduled for February 2009. Emery
figures he'll be "at large" for another two years; if the hearing
doesn't go his way, his lawyer can still appeal.

So, Emery continues to publish his Cannabis Culture magazine, oversee
his online Pot TV video site and operate a new Vancouver convenience
store which, he says, is "run by stoners, for stoners." Authorities
have shut down his seed-selling business, which he estimates pulled in
$15 million over 10 years.

But Emery insists the pot prohibition isn't really about
marijuana.

"The real reason we (cannabis users) are hunted down is because pot
makes people critical thinkers," he says. "We question authority and
don't accept existing dogmas and that's the biggest threat to any
government."

He says pot isn't the problem. "There are 165 million marijuana
smokers in the world. If we were a big problem, you'd have noticed by
now."