'PRINCE OF POT' READY FOR MARTYRDOM IN MARIJUANA CAUSE

Marc Emery Faces Extradition to U.S. on Drug Charges

But Some Argue Emery Should Be Tried in Canada Instead

VANCOUVER--The B.C. man wanted in the United States to stand trial
for selling marijuana seeds by mail thinks a jail term south of the
border could be his springboard to a political career in Canada.

"I get elected to Parliament, I become the justice minister and
finally get rid of these marijuana laws," is how Marc Emery sees his
future on return from a prison term in the U.S. if convicted there on
charges of conspiracy to distribute marijuana, distribute seeds and
launder money.

"My personal feeling is, I do get taken away and kept in captivity
for many years," he says. "Historically, that's a very good
springboard to the governing party."

Next week, the B.C. Supreme Court is expected to set a date for the
extradition hearing for Emery, 48, his co-accused, Greg Williams, 50,
and Michelle Rainey, 34. However, the extradition hearing now hinges
on other court proceedings in the B.C. Interior city of Nelson.

Patrick Roberts, chairman of the nationalist Bloc British Columbia
party, has started a private prosecution in Nelson against Emery and
the others, on the basis the accused should be accountable only to
Canada because the alleged conspiracy took place here. It's a matter
of sovereignty, Roberts says.

If the three face those charges in Canada, they cannot face them in the U.S.

Whatever the judicial outcome of the extradition case, it will then
move into the political realm because the federal justice minister
must sign the removal order. And that might not be good news for
Emery and company.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been unequivocal in his get-tough
stance on drug crimes, and has proposed mandatory minimum sentences.
Earlier this month, Harper told the Canadian Professional Police
Association that the Tories would not reintroduce legislation to
legalize small amounts of marijuana.

Emery says that sends an ominous warning about future drug policies.

Simon Fraser University criminologist Neil Boyd says if drug
sentences in the U.S. were much more severe than what Emery would
face in Canada, the extradition request might be denied. Because they
are not, Emery could well be extradited, he says.

In running his seed business, Emery "was being very blatant," Boyd
says. "He knew that people who had sold seeds from Australia and
Spain had been extradited to the United States to faces charges. He
knew he was gambling that Canada would send him back to face the charges."

Rodney Benson, special agent with the Seattle office of the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA), says the Emery case is not political.

"He's a drug trafficker, plain and simple," Benson says. "Marc Emery
was violating United States law. Marc Emery is a significant threat
to the United States."

The political and legal wrangling began July 29, 2005, when the RCMP
and DEA officers nabbed Emery, Williams and Rainey. Emery, the
so-called Prince of Pot was in Lawrencetown, N.S., when he was arrested.

Concurrently, the police raided Emery's Vancouver store, The Toker's
Bowl, which doubles as the headquarters for Emery's British Columbia
Marijuana Party.

It was the culmination of an 18-month investigation by American
authorities into the sale of marijuana seeds on the Internet and by mail.

DEA administrator Karen Tandy said at the time that "Emery and his
organization had been designated as one of the (U.S.) attorney
general's most wanted international drug-trafficking targets -- one
of only 46 in the world and the only one in Canada."

She claimed his business and his "propagandist" Cannabis Culture
magazine generated $5 million a year to bolster his trafficking efforts.

Emery says he knew that he would eventually be arrested, but says
it's the greatest platform he could have in his 16-year fight against
the prohibition of marijuana in North America.

"I realized, 'okay, it's all happened, finally it's here. This is the
big moment I've been waiting for,'" he says.

If he has to be the martyr for the movement, so be it, he says.

"If I go to jail, and I'm really well-known and, hopefully, get
murdered in jail, that will serve as a form of martyrdom that every
year, demonstrations, protests, bombing, various forms of violent and
non-violent behaviour can be used to put forward our thing," he says.

But in the meantime, he's going to keep fighting.

"It's my job as leader of the cannabis culture to thwart the United
States government," he says, calling the U.S. attitude toward
marijuana "tyrannical."

"If my country allows me to get extradited, that is the biggest
indictment against Canada that I could ever imagine," he says. "I'd
rather be extradited and sit there in exile rejected by both my own
countrymen and the Americans for doing something good, honest and
necessary that I would never recant on.

"Canadians are cowardly," he says. "They're a wonderful people but
they don't have the courage of their beliefs that we ought to have a
free society in Canada."

Which brings us back to the private prosecution launched by Roberts.

The federal justice department has asked the B.C. Supreme Court to be
allowed to intervene in the Roberts prosecution so that it can ask
for a stay of the proceedings, which would then clear the way for the
extradition hearing.

Roberts' lawyer, Don Skogstad, says research shows the conspiracy
case could be dealt with in Canada.

"We never got an answer about why it's not done here," he says. "How
many times does a citizen get to stand up and say: 'This is what's
right for Canada?' That's what Mr. Roberts is doing."

The court heard arguments on the government's motion to take up the
charges Monday and has reserved its decision.

While Emery has been in the marijuana business since he was selling
High Times magazine on the streets of Vancouver, his political
activism goes back to his time in London, Ont., where he used the
proceeds of a comic book business to open City Lights Books, which he
ran from 1975 to 1992.

There, he took issue with Sunday shopping laws by opening his store on Sundays.

Relocating to Vancouver in 1994, Emery began selling banned books and
publishing High Times, quite determined, he says, to start a "hemp
revolution business."

He soon opened Hemp B.C., a store in the firebombed shell of a former
Communist bookshop on what has now been dubbed downtown Vancouver's Pot Block.

Shortly after, he began selling seeds, which, he says, contain no
drug content but can be used to grow marijuana.

"It rapidly expedited cash flow. No one else in North America was
doing it," he says.

But, he says, U.S. authorities are claiming those seeds are
responsible for the production of $2.2 billion worth of pot.

All told, Emery has been arrested 21 times and jailed 17 times. In
2004, he was convicted in Saskatoon for passing a joint and spent
three months in jail.

He admits he's "a total, recidivist repeat offender."

He says Vancouver police have, for the most part, turned a blind eye
to him for years. And, he says, federal officials have suggested
people contact him to buy seeds for medical marijuana.

Further, Emery says, he's paid $578,000 in income tax since 1999.
It's from the proceeds of the $2 million to $3 million worth of seed
sales per year.

He says, his new fiancee, Cannabis Culture editor Jodie Geisz-Ramsay,
supports him, and so does his family, including his brother, an
Anglican minister whose son is serving with Canadian forces in Afghanistan.

At the end of the day, though, Emery says fights over principles keep
him going.

"You have to focus on one thing and don't let go," he says. "Grip it
like a lion and go right at it until you accomplish your goal."