WEEDING OUT ANTI-DRUG ATTITUDES

Canada has 'unique opportunity to make a difference,' pro-marijuana
activist says

An estimated 10 million Canadians say they have used marijuana at
least once in their lives. (Tyler Ball)"Anyone who's going to read
your article has either used marijuana or knows someone who has, and
they know that person is not a criminal."

That's how cannabis legalization activist, co-founder of the British
Columbia Marijuana Party and former Vancouver NDP candidate Dana
Larsen ended our phone interview.

Larsen, who will speak tonight at the Grad Club, has been involved in
the cannabis anti-prohibition movement since his teenage days.

"When I was a student at Simon Fraser University, I started a club on
campus. I guess that was kind of my first activism," he said.

In 1994, shortly after he graduated, Larsen helped create Cannabis
Culture Magazine, where he was editor until 2005. Marc Emery, the
leader of the British Columbia Marijuana Party and so-called "Prince
of Pot," served as the publisher.

Larsen said that, because the magazine's office in Vancouver was close
to that of the Marijuana Party's which frequently experienced police
raids, running the publication was sometimes difficult.

"Working with Marc Emery I've seen lots of interesting things happen
over the years," he said. "We would all take pay cuts and the magazine
would get delayed."

Emery, who's facing extradition to the United States for conspiracy to
distribute marijuana and marijuana seeds, used to run a store called
Hemp BC, which played a major part in selling cannabis-related
paraphernalia. In 1998, police seized his entire stock.

"When Marc was running Hemp BC, the police would raid and take all the
bongs and pipes," Larsen said, adding that bongs and pipes are still
illegal in Canada, though the law is rarely enforced. The sale and
distribution of marijuana is illegal in Canada, but its use has been
permitted for medicinal purposes since 2001. In 2006, Larsen founded
the Vancouver Seed Bank, which sells seed varieties by mail-order,
including those for banned plants such as marijuana and coca, which is
used in the production of cocaine.

Larsen, who was invited to speak at Queen's by the Students for
Sensible Drug Policy and the Young New Democrats, said his talk
tonight will centre on the plant origins of four prohibited drugs:
marijuana, coca leaf, opium poppy and psilocybe mushrooms.

"My goal is to realign peoples' thinking," he said. "We think of drugs
as white powders and chemical labs in people's basements, but at its
origin it's really a war on plants."

Larsen said he'll speak about the industrial uses of hemp, the coca
plant's benefits and the use of opium poppies for pain relief. He's
also speaking at the University of Toronto and Wilfred Laurier University.

Larsen said he has managed to steer clear of police action so
far.

"I've never been arrested or charged with anything or done any time,"
he said.

Aside from the police, Larsen said public response to his work has
generally been supportive.

"Usually people . see what we're doing as a useful thing," he
said.

Cannabis Culture Magazine circulates most of its 75,000 printed copies
in the United States, but Canada is its second-largest market, Larsen
said. When he was the editor, he said, the magazine sometimes faced
legal troubles. Police in Timmins, Ontario forced the removal of the
magazine from shelves on the grounds that it was a "crime comic."

Larsen said the magazine is banned in Australia and New Zealand, as
well as other countries.

While working at the magazine, Larsen co-founded the British Columbia
Marijuana Party and the Canadian Marijuana Party. He ran as a
candidate for the Canadian Marijuana Party in the 2000 federal
election, receiving three per cent of the vote in the West
Vancouver-Sunshine Coast riding. In 2001, he ran in the British
Columbia provincial election, receiving 3.5 per cent of the vote.

For a one-issue party, Larsen said, the results were surprisingly
high.

"We weren't expected to elect anybody. Our goal was to show the other
parties there was a movement and a voice for this. We received three
per cent of the vote our first election, which for a single-issue
party is fairly substantial I think-it shows for three per cent of
people it's the number one issue."

In September 2003, Pot.TV, an online source for videos related to
marijuana culture and another Emery-led initiative, featured the
federal New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton as its guest.

Layton, who had been party leader for nine months at the time, came to
Emery's home courting the anti-prohibitionist vote in an anticipated
upcoming election.

Larsen said he already supported NDP philosophy and ideas in other
areas, but Layton's appearance marked a political turning point for
him.

"When Jack Layton came on Pot.TV I joined the NDP," he
said.

Leaving the Canadian Marijuana Party in Emery's hands, Larsen set to
work on reforming the NDP's drug policy.

"When I joined the NDP I always found a lot of grassroots support for
drug reform. What the party was lacking was a comprehensive statement
that puts all the drug policies together," he said. "There was also
some inconsistency between provincial and federal parties. There's
always going to be some disagreement, but I found that often
provincially they favoured prohibition but federally they were more
open."

In 2005, Larsen founded eNDProhibition, an anti-prohibition wing of
the NDP.

"Part of creating eNDProhibition was to bring parties on the same page
on this issue," he said. "We're basically NDPers who want to see a
change to the drug laws and see the party take a stronger stance on
this."

He said the group, which has about 700 members across Canada, has
passed resolutions in several provinces regarding cannabis and
supervised injection sites.

"To me it's all one issue, but . we often have one in each of those
two camps to bring the party together on these two issues," he said of
cannabis and supervised injection.

Larsen was set to run as an NDP candidate in Vancouver in the October
2008 federal election, but resigned in September after questions
emerged about his role with the Seed Bank. In addition, a video from
Pot.TV surfaced of him smoking marijuana and taking psychedelic drugs
LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) and DMT (dimethyltryptamine). After
taking DMT, he was shown driving a vehicle.

Larsen said he wasn't legally impaired in the video, but he resigned
to avoid drawing negative attention to the Party.

"The videos that they showed and all the stuff that I've done-I stand
by virtually all of that stuff. I'm proud of a lot of the work that
I've done, but I also understand that taking LSD and filming yourself
and putting it on the Internet is a bit out there for a lot of
people," he said.

Larsen said he had been a candidate for a year and a half and should
have released the videos to the public earlier.

"Having the Liberal Party release that stuff during an election
campaign-and that's what happened-puts it in the worst possible light,
it made it very difficult, he said. I didn't want to make Jack Layton
defend what I'd done on video 10 years ago."

"It looked like I was going to become the focus and that totally
wasn't my goal within the Party."

Larsen said the NDP didn't kick him out and Layton wasn't involved in
the process.

"I could have forced the issue but I didn't want to do that. I think I
made the right decision, but it was a difficult one to make."

Larsen said he'd like to run as a candidate again.

"If having taken marijuana or psychedelics means that you're not
allowed to run for political office then that eliminates a lot of
people. A number of other politicians have used marijuana but they
don't do it on camera and they don't have it released to the public
during an election campaign.

"Everyone's got a stupid video of themselves doing something they
shouldn't have done," he said. "I was doing it before Facebook and
YouTube, so maybe I'm ahead of the curve."

Larsen said he'll continue to push the NDP on its stance on
drugs.

"It's not a peripheral issue, it's a key issue that ties into other
areas of concern," he said.

"I'd like to see the NDP, at the provincial level, become more
proactive on this. At the provincial level you'll have the party
saying, 'We do support legalization, but we can't do anything about
it, so in the meantime we have to crack down on these gangs.' I find
that to be a contradiction from my perspective."

Larsen said marijuana legalization is a politically touchy
topic.

"With every politician there's sort of this fear, they don't really
know how to talk about marijuana and drug policy," he said. "But I
can't think of an area of policy where our laws are more
inappropriately based on harm and punishment and a misunderstanding of
human behaviour than in marijuana prohibition."

Larsen said anti-prohibition isn't necessarily a partisan issue,
pointing out that right-wing think tank the Fraser Institute supports
the legalization of all drugs.

Larsen said his job isn't finished until "our children and
grandchildren aren't still living this nightmare and seeing our money
and our resources go towards people who are not guilty of any crime at
all. "I think Canada has a unique opportunity to make a difference in
this area, and I think it'll be a shame if we don't."

Dana Larsen speaks tonight at 7 p.m. on the second floor of the Grad
Club.