LIFE IMITATES POLITICS FOR MARIJUANA PARTY LEADER

St-Maurice appears in court for pot possession, rallies against
Canada's illicit substances act

Having to appear in court mid-way through a campaign would strike a
fatal blow to the prospects of your average election hopeful, but
brushes with the law are what inspired Marc-Boris St-Maurice to become
politically active in the first place.

In fact, the Marijuana Party of Canada leader easily transformed a
cluster of benches in a crowded courthouse corridor into makeshift
hustings yesterday.

If he couldn't be out campaigning, he could still discuss the issue at
the core of both his election bid and his court case: the legalization
of pot.

Yesterday is not the first time the worlds of politics and pot
activism have collided spectacularly for the 35-year-old.

The latest charge St-Maurice faces for possessing three grams of
marijuana stems from his arrest March 4 while he was visiting the
Rachel St. headquarters of the provincial Bloc Pot, a party he founded
in 1997.

St-Maurice said he is eager to use his most recent arrest as a
platform from which to launch a constitutional challenge of Canada's
illicit substances act.

He's tried it before and lost, taking his case all the way to the
Supreme Court of Canada. But St-Maurice served notice yesterday he
plans to take another crack at it.

"It will be a pleasure to attack the law again," St-Maurice said
cheerfully.

But chasing his dream down legal avenues is on hold until after the
election.

His next court appearance (to set a date for a trial this winter) is
not until July 7. The vote will take place June 28.

The federal Marijuana Party is running 71 candidates across the
country and St-Maurice is taking on Prime Minister Paul Martin in the
riding of LaSalle-Emard.

Martin isn't the first party leader St-Maurice has faced directly. In
September, 2000, he challenged Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day
in a federal by-election in B.C. Then in the 2000 campaign, he fought
Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe on his home turf, garnering 4 per
cent of the vote.

It was in a jail cell after his third arrest for marijuana possession
in 1991 that St-Maurice said he had the epiphany that changed his
life: he didn't just want to beat the law, he wanted to change it.

When he told his lawyer at the time, his advice was: get elected. He
took those words to heart, helping found first the Bloc Pot, which ran
a slate of 24 candidates in Quebec in 1998, then the Marijuana Party.

"What pushed me to become an activist is when I was arrested in (1991)
and they left me in jail for 24 hours," he said yesterday. "It was
only 24 hours, but it was 24 hours too long. And I promised myself
that day that I would fight to change the law. And here I am."