HIGH-MINDED DRUG POLICY IS NOT ABOVE THE LAW

David Malmo-Levine, one of Canada's most flamboyant marijuana
activists, was led off to jail Wednesday to serve a six-month sentence
for a pound-a-day trafficking operation he ran for three years.

His supporters, who crowded the tiny Main Street courtroom, burst into
tears and cried out, "We love you David!"

The Edmonton-born 35-year-old, who has made ending the criminal
cannabis prohibition his life's work, vowed imprisonment would not end
his crusade.

"I hope he is wrong," Provincial Court Judge Joseph Galati
said.

While Marc Emery, the imprisoned Prince of Pot awaiting extradition to
the U.S., sold seeds, Malmo-Levine was convicted of offering bags of
marijuana, hash, psilocybin mushrooms and opium.

No more.

Though "in some respects I admire" Malmo-Levine for the way he
presented his drug policy views, the judge insisted the criminal code
must be enforced.

"He objects to being called a zealot," Galati noted, "but he admits he
is zealous in advancing his cause."

Malmo-Levine, whose last convictions for trafficking in 1998 led to a
landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling, did business from a store on
East Hastings Street next to the safe-

injection site.

He called it the Herb School.

Malmo-Levine and his associates also conducted "Drug War History"
walking tours of the downtown, identifying sites in Chinatown, for
instance, where at the turn of the last century there were numerous
opium factories.

After a lecture on how to safely use marijuana, "students" could make
purchases.

Two undercover Vancouver cops who tried to get into the Herb School
only to buy pot were turned away because they wouldn't take the tour
and lecture.

During a three-day surveillance stint in January 2008, police counted
346 visitors to the school where Malmo-Levine was known as "the grand
poobah."

The VPD dubbed the raid on the Herb School "Operation
Herbicide."

"As if they didn't notice the irony of attacking non-toxic,
non-carcinogenic herbs with such a toxic, carcinogenic metaphor,"
Malmo-Levine quipped in court.

He pleaded guilty to the trafficking charges but presented a mountain
of evidence on sentencing urging the judge to recognize the
perniciousness of the prohibition and to "provide hope to others."

Galati noted that the Supreme Court did not buy Malmo-Levine's
arguments and neither did he.

"Used properly cannabis may well be a remarkable substance," he said,
but no one was above the law.

Malmo-Levine kept no books, he paid no taxes and he claimed that after
covering his costs and paying modest lifestyle expenses, he used any
profit to fund his activism.

"The defendant is in debt as a result of the raid and will be for
quite some time --probably four of five years," Malmo-Levine said
about himself. "His financial backers are unlikely to invest such
money in any similar projects in the future."