HEMP FAN FIRED UP

Publisher Accuses Police Of Intimidation

TORONTO -- Hemp activist Marc Emery sat outside a Timmins police station
yesterday baiting police to charge him for distributing his magazine.

But they didn't charge Emery, who sat at a desk and gave away more than 200
copies of his magazine, Cannabis Culture.

Police told area store owners they would be charged if they sold Cannabis
Culture, after a school principal laid a complaint after finding a Grade 7
student reading it in school.

The police believed the magazine had objectionable magazine content because
it included the "production (and) cultivation of a narcotic." Timmins
Const. Gilles Carbonneau said the police "have no problems with the written
word." The problem, he said, lies with the visual content of the magazine.

Carbonneau said one of the 14 Timmins' distributors for Cannabis Culture
magazine called police and was told anyone selling magazines with pictures
"real or fictitious" of illegal acts could be arrested under Section 163,
of the criminal code.

Cops 'Invented Law'

But Emery, who travelled from his B.C. home to protest the ban, said police
were just "intimidating local people."

"The police invented a law that is inapplicable to my magazine," said
Emery, the magazine's publisher.

"It's a very serious situation ... there are implications for other
magazines as well," he added.

He said magazines on motorcycles, tattoos, and horror movies could be
targeted if the police responded to every complaint.