EMERY 'LIVING DAY TO DAY' BEFORE U.S. JAIL TIME

Extradition Order On Drug Charge Could Come As Early As Today

Vancouver marijuana activist Marc Emery is taking his last puff of
freedom -- as the clock counts down on execution of an extradition
order that will send him to jail in the U.S. for five years.

Emery, founder of the B.C. Marijuana Party and publisher of Cannabis
Culture magazine, is out on bail, waiting for federal Justice Minister
and Attorney-General Rob Nicholson to sign the extradition order,
which can be done any time after today.

Emery says he will not turn fugitive but will obey the order when it
comes.

Until then, Emery, often referred to as B.C.'s Prince of Pot, is
making the most of his last days of freedom.

"I've been enjoying every moment of it out with my wife. We are just
living day to day," he said Thursday.

Emery's trouble with U.S. authorities stemmed from his online
mail-order marijuana-seed business, "Marc Emery Direct Seeds," which
he ran from 1994 to 2005.

Trade in seeds is illegal in Canada and the U.S., but the law is
seldom enforced here.

By 2005, the U.S. Justice Department got wind of the seeds coming in.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency raided Emery's business, and the
Canadian government was asked to extradite him to face charges of
conspiracy to produce and traffic marijuana and to launder the
proceeds of crime -- charges that could have landed him a life
sentence in a U.S. prison.

At the time, DEA administrator Karen Tandy said: "Emery and his
organization [have] been designated as one of the attorney-general's
most-wanted international drug-trafficking organizational targets--
one of only 46 in the world and the only one from Canada."

After a failed legal bid to serve his time in Canada, Emery signed a
plea bargain in September 2009 to avoid a U.S. trial. The deal reduced
his sentence to five years in a U.S. federal prison.

"It's clearly a political case against me," Emery said. "It's not
because of any harm I have done."

Following the plea bargain, Emery was detained in North Fraser
Pretrial Centre as his lawyers argued his case in an extradition
hearing in B.C. Supreme Court. He was released on bail Nov. 18.

Emery said he expects to be held at SeaTac Federal Detention Center
outside Seattle for several weeks while officials decide where he will
serve his sentence.