EMERY'S OVERGROWTH GOES TO POT

Marc Emery has certainly reaped what he sowed.

He wasn't just B.C.'s self-anointed 'Prince of Pot'; for most of his
life, he's also been the commander-in-chief in a one-man drug war
against the Canadian and U.S. government. His battle plan was simple:
'overgrow' the government by producing so much marijuana and so much
public pressure that law enforcement would be so stretched the
powers-that-be would have no choice but to legalize it.

Smoking pot is still illegal but Emery's campaign was colourful and
effective: he's staged rallies, founded a political party, a magazine
and claims to have helped grow 1.1 million pounds of marijuana in the
United States through his seed-selling business.

This week, the empires finished striking back. In the culmination of
four-year legal extradition battle that's been a financial drain on
him and even threatened his friends, Emery surrendered to Canadian
authorities and, barring an unlikely act of mercy from the federal
Conservatives, will be sent to Washington state to spend five years in
jail. It's part of a deal that Emery agreed to earlier this year in
exchange for extradition charges being dropped against two of his colleagues.

Emery is 51. While Ian Mulgrew of the Vancouver Sun may have gone a
little too far calling him Canada's first 'marijuana martyr', five
years hard time in a U.S. jail is a harsh punishment for what's he's
done.

Of course, the Prince of Pot picked the fight but that fact only
confirms the most salient point about Emery's case: whatever its legal
niceties, his incarceration is a purely politically-motivated act
perpetrated by the U.S. government and abetted by Canadian
authorities. As Paul Willcocks pointed out in 2005, police officers
here could have turned down a DEA request to devote time and resources
to the Emery extradition and prosecutors could have done likewise.

Instead Canadian police poured a year into aiding the U.S. effort,
despite the fact the law Emery broke in this country - seed sales -
has not been enforced since 1968 and despite a court ruling that an
appropriate punishment for drug offences of his type is about a month
in jail. Bush-era appointee and DEA boss Karen Tandy summed up why
Emery was targeted succinctly, his arrest "a significant blow" to "
the marijuana legalizaiton movement ... Drug legalization lobbyists
now have one less pot of money to rely on."

To recap, Emery thumbed his nose too often at the U.S., so, via the
DEA, Uncle Sam beat him up while Canada helped hold his arms behind
his back. And our government decided to use your tax dollars and your
public servants in this noble cause.

So Goliath stomps on David and no surprises but thanks again to Mr.
Emery for teaching an anesthetized Canadian populace another lesson in
the price - and power - of dissent.

The Conservatives could try to have Emery serve his sentence in Canada
but it's doubtful - this is a government that continues to condone the
seven years of torture the teenager Omar Khadr suffered in Guantanamo
Bay. The case does however let out the flatulent nature of the Tory's
sovereignty noises; the hydrocarbons and minerals that lie under the
Arctic Ocean are worthy of this nation's protection and best efforts
but Canada's citizens are merely inconveniences to be sacrificed at
the merest whiff of political expediency.

There's more indignation and outrage to be wringed out of the Emery
case but it would strident, hollow and weak; Emery is going to jail
for his beliefs, while this editorialist is going to bed.

But perhaps it's best to end on a defiant note and paraphrase that
sage of the silver screen Richard Gere. Think about whatever you hate
most about government - the HST, social cuts, the breaks for big
business, the lying, the graft, the genial, patronizing, complacent
corruption - and then think of all the times you were told you can't
fight city hall.

You can. Marc Emery did, for decades. Because two governments that
control a pair of the most powerful countries on earth hate him - yet
there he stands.