THE WEED REPORT - WORDS FROM THE FRONT

On Dec. 17, at about 4:00 p.m, an undercover officer entered 'The Cannabis
Café' a Vancouver vegetarian restaurant affiliated with 'Hemp BC'. He asked
for a vapourizer so that he could consume some bud and then sat down at a
table. Several minutes later, teams of uniformed thieves swarmed the place
and removed the inventory of 'Hemp BC' and the adjoining 'Little Grow
Shop'. 'Hemp BC' staff watched a couple of hundred thousand dollars worth
of pipes, paraphernalia, hydroponic equipment and seeds go out the door.
Several hundred supporters remained in the streets until well past midnight
belabouring the point with Vancouver police. There were several arrests
including that of 'Hemp BC' proprietor Marc Emery and colourful Vancouver
pot activist David Malmo-Levine. Oddly enough, the 'Hemp BC' warehouse was
not raided and the whole operation was up and running again the next day.

In spite of the fact that Hemp BC operates in open defiance of the law, the
whole thing came as a bit of a surprise. While charges of seed trafficking
have loomed over Emery's head for the past two years, it was generally
assumed that he was being left alone until a decision was reached
concerning those initial charges. Perhaps his full-page ads in the city's
two largest daily newspapers during the recent APEC conference rubbed
somebody's feathers the wrong way. The ads asked world leaders to end the
war on cannabis and were placed smack dab in the middle of the special APEC
supplements. It cost over $15,000 to run these but Emery figured it was
money well spent. Prior to the last major raid on 'Hemp BC', Marc had
appeared on the front page of 'The Wall Street Journal'.

On Jan 7 in Kingston, Ontario, a team of city police, OPP and RCMP officers
converged on three stores in a valiant effort to save that city from
acrylic tubing and images of pot leaves. 'Erehwon Trading', 'Off The Wall'
and 'Western Rock' were relieved of a good deal of their inventories.
Seized items included pipes, growers' guides, 'Cannabis Canada' magazines,
hemp wallets, hemp handbags, keychains, trading cards and a whole bunch of
other legal merchandise. 'Erehwon' owner Bill Stevenson questioned police
as they were trashing his store, explaining that the books and literature
were legal since the literature provision of section 462.2 of the Canadian
Criminal Code had been overturned a few years ago. Police did not appear to
be interested in the law and continued to rob Mr. Stevenson of his
inventory. The local media also showed a lack of interest given their
complete lack of coverage of the police raids. Legal experts have suggested
that this most recent police overreaction may be the kiss of death for what
remains of Canada's tattered paraphernalia law. The first court appearance
is Feb. 24.

The Kingston police force has a history of intolerance towards pot puffers.
In 1994, Kingston police raided '100% Hemp Co', seizing their inventory yet
failing to lay charges. This exercise in economic terrorism forced them to
close their doors.

When I lived in Kingston back in the seventies, the local drug squad used
to raid our house on a regular basis. We'd move, they'd find us. They were
a joke. We weren't criminals, just a bunch of kids who smoked pot. I
honestly don't know how they kept getting warrants but I guess that on a
slow night we were an easy hit for a few free tokes. During one visitation,
officer 'Kojak' (pet name) ordered a friend to empty his pockets 'right
there', pointing to a space on a counter beside a five gram vial of gooey
black hash oil. My friend complied, the cops continued to look around,
found nothing, taunted us and left. They didn't know what hash oil was yet!
We howled like lunatics about that one and spent the rest of the night
getting pleasantly toasted.