BILLIONS LOST BECAUSE OF PROHIBITION, SAYS EMERY

Not legalizing marijuana is costing billions, says the Marijuana
Party candidate in the Shuswap riding, and that's why he's running for office.

"I'm running to keep the discussion about pot honest," says candidate
Chris Emery, running for a second consecutive time in this riding. "I
want the message to get out, not just to the general public, but to
our next representative in the legislature. Re-legalize it - it used
to be legal, we need to regulate and tax it. Right now we spend
billions chasing folks like me around, yet we leave billions of tax
dollars on the table. That's a double whammy. It's the economics."

Emery says the fact that marijuana is illegal fuels gangs.

"It's the lifeblood of gangs and the violence that brings on. They
ended alcohol prohibition and with it went bathtub gin, Al Capone and
the Purple Gang."

Emery has been a Sorrento resident since 1995 and works full-time as
an instrument electrical control systems technologist.

"I design and calibrate and otherwise service instrument electrical
control systems, everything from municipal water systems to
refineries and oil rigs. Around here, it's mostly breweries and
dairies and municipal water."

Emery says he stepped down after eight years on the executive of the
South Shuswap Chamber of Commerce and two years as president in order to run.

He said after writing a couple of newspaper articles on pot
prohibition and receiving positive feedback, he decided in 2005 to
enter the political arena.

"I got such positive feedback from smokers and non-smokers alike, and
I was actually contacted by folks who are very active in the cannabis
community - they asked me to run. It was the same week we all saw
Pierre Burton show us how to roll a joint on national TV. I came off
my back porch... and so did Pierre Burton on national TV, that he smoked."

He says he'd also like to take the "giggle factor" out of talking
about marijuana.

"I'm kind of tired of the Cheech and Chong types... It's a different
kind of negative stereotype. It's not the Reefer Madness psychotic
killer it started with, but it's almost equally ridiculous - the
lovable stoner, loser, comedian."

He describes himself as: "just your typical blues drummer who lives
next door, with kids. I have two school-age kids, in middle and high school."

He says he's been honest with them about pot, which he started
smoking "later in life."

"It's not for kids, neither is alcohol. But what bothers me is when
folks come into my kids' classrooms, with and without guns, and tell
them that my pot is the same as crystal meth and crack cocaine."

He says legalizing marijuana would not be introducing marijuana -
it's already here.

"I would say it's mainstream. Better than one in three people admit
to smoking it, but, more importantly, in survey after survey, the
vast majority of Canadians want to see it legalized. So does the
Canadian senate. So does a Royal Commission that we're not listening to."

He says he is not related to Marc Emery, the founder of the B.C.
Marijuana Party, who didn't run this time around in order to support
his wife who is a Green Party candidate in the Lower Mainland.

Chris Emery says that leaves him as the only Marijuana Party
candidate in B.C., because his party has elected to support Green
Party candidates rather than run against them. However, to remain a
party, a minimum of one candidate must be fielded, which puts him as
the only candidate and, by default, in the position of interim party
leader of the Marijuana Party.

"I'm going to tell Elizabeth May (Green Party leader) I know how it
feels," he says with a smile. "I was left out of the leaders debate."

The Observer is providing a profile of each candidate during the
campaign, as well as providing their answers to specific questions.