'PRINCE OF POT' TREATED FOR SERIOUS SKIN INFECTION

Canada's "Prince of Pot" has contracted a serious bacterial infection
while serving a five-year prison sentence in the U.S. for selling
marijuana seeds.

Vancouver marijuana activist Marc Emery was diagnosed with MRSA, or
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -a painful infection that
often appears on the skin -after he was transferred from a private
prison in Georgia to Mississippi in late spring.

According to Emery's wife Jodie, the trouble began when Emery was
bitten by a brown recluse spider while serving time in Georgia and the
bite took several months to heal. He was given antibiotics but then
developed a painful boil on his backside while transferring by bus to
a U.S. federal prison in Yazoo City, Miss. Doctors tested the boil and
discovered the skin infection, Jodie said.

"I was worried sick to hear it," she said, adding that he was forced
to fight the antibiotic-resistant infection without medication.

Jodie said the infection has since stabilized but the bug remains in
his system. "I'm still very concerned. He has to be extra vigilant
with any cuts or scrapes."

Emery, the founder of the B.C. Marijuana Party, was sentenced to five
years in prison in September 2010 after being extradited from Canada.

According to Jodie, the recent infection has been worrisome, but
Emery's keeping up his spirits with music.

"He joined a prison band," Jodie said. "He's spending all his spare
time learning how to play the bass guitar . . . he already knows 14 or
15 songs."