'BOTANY VERSUS NAZIFIED INSTITUTIONALISM:' EMERY

The 'Prince Of Pot' Speaks At Concordia

Appealing to Biblical scripture and citing the health benefits,
Canada's proclaimed Prince of Pot, Mark Emery, is taking on the
system to legalize cannabis. But these days his pro-pot lectures are
doubling up to garner support for his own personal
plight--challenging extradition to the United States where he could
face 35 years or more in prison for selling marijuana seeds.

"That's longer than what I'd get for multiple murder in Canada,"
Emery said during his visit to Concordia last Friday. While it is
illegal to sell seeds in Canada, the largest penalty handed down has
been a $200 fine.

It was perhaps a different kind of activist crowd who drifted into
H-110 to see Emery speak last Friday, along with a cloud of sweet
smoke. And although the topic was what is still an illegal substance
in Canada and the speaker is--according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Agency--the "number one drug-trafficking king pin" with 30
convictions to his name, Concordia security barely batted an eyelash.

In his stream-of-conscience style lecture, the 50-year old activist
who runs Pot TV and publishes Cannabis Culture Magazine compared the
plight of cannabis users to cultural genocide and maintains users are
the "most oppressed group of people in the world."

Emery was all over the map when it came to justifying legalization.
He looks to the book of Genesis for justification. Nowhere in the
Bible, he says, does it say that any plant is forbidden. God made
plants and berries, Emery continued, "and he said you should make
meat of them. And on the seventh day he rested and he saw that it was
all good."

Time and again, he pointed out what he feels is hypocrisy in our
country. "What kind of society do we have that I'm the biggest
kingpin and I've never hurt anyone?" he asked. Tobacco and sugary
foods are more damaging to people's health than cannabis, he said,
yet "it's institutionalized and it's everywhere."

But with the four to five-million seeds Emery has sold, he proudly
figures he has neutralized the efforts of close to 100,000 law
enforcement officers out to eradicate marijuana. "This is botany
versus Nazified institutionalism," he said.

Emery will defend himself in Canadian court against extradition to
the United States. "If this country can send me to a Gulag... they
can go to hell," he said, adding that he dared the newly elected
Conservative government to go through with the extradition.