EMERY SHOULD BE A FREE MAN

Drug policy in Canada, particularly as it pertains to marijuana, is
stuck in a sort of legal no-man's-land. Politicians want to appear
tough on crime, but at the same time are loath to make criminals out
of the hundreds of thousands of Canadians -- perhaps as many one or
two million -- who are casual tokers. They tiptoe up to the precipice
of decriminalization, always to scurry back at the last minute for
fear of offending the United States, or the many domestic voters who
oppose more liberal marijuana laws. At best, our leaders can only
ever summon the courage for a de facto decriminalization: Keep
personal pot possession nominally illegal, but instruct Crown
prosecutors not to prosecute most offenders.

The irony is: This gutless approach undermines the rule of law more
assuredly than decriminalization or full legalization ever could.

Nowhere has this truth been more evident than in the two-year-long
efforts by American drug police to extradite Marc Emery,
entrepreneur, leader of the B.C. Marijuana Party and the West Coast's
self-styled "Prince of Pot." For years, the government has looked the
other way as Mr. Emery has become a millionaire many times over. But
even as he has remained a free man in Canada, Ottawa has felt
pressured by Washington to crack down on Mr. Emery for alleged breach
of U.S. drug laws (Americans complain that his mail-order business
has sold seeds to U.S. buyers.) The result of this application of War
on Drugs heavy-handedness by remote control has been a diminution of
our national sovereignty and a blow to Canada's own rule of law.

On Monday it was announced Mr. Emery had struck a deal with U.S.
prosecutors. To avoid extradition, he will serve a five-year sentence
for selling marijuana seeds by mail. He will do his time here, rather
than stateside, but will be ineligible for the early release to which
all other Canadian criminals generally are entitled. He will have to
do his full time behind bars, no parole, no halfway houses, no
statutory release.

As Mr. Emery told the Vancouver Sun, "I'm going to do more time than
many violent, repeat offenders." And indeed he is. In a report on
Canada's federal prisons, sent to Public Safety Minister Stockwell
Day last month, it was revealed that most offenders -- even those
convicted of assault, armed robbery and rape -- spend less than three
years behind bars.

This is a travesty for a man who, as he correctly states, "has no
victims." But it is also a travesty for Canadian justice.

We arrested Mr. Emery, a Canadian citizen, for crimes he allegedly
committed in the United States, even though he had not been in the
United States, was not fleeing American authorities, has not
inflicted any action upon an American to which the latter did not
consent, and Canada refused to prosecute him for the very same crimes here.

If Ottawa felt strongly enough about the pot-seed catalogue saleman's
misdeeds, it should have prosecuted him itself. Otherwise, it should
have refused American requests to cooperate with the extradition application.

By no less an authority than the Supreme Court of Canada, our
government will not extradite Canadians suspected of committing
murder in the United States, unless American prosecutors promise in
advance not to seek the death penalty, which is banned here, but not
there. Why then would we even consider arresting a Canadian and
prosecute him at the behest of U.S. authorities for a crime we
routinely ignore here?

The last time Mr. Emery was convicted of selling seeds here was a
decade ago, at which time he received a $2,000 fine. Since then,
Canadian prosecutors have refused to lay charges against him. Indeed,
when it failed on its own to grow medical marijuana for terminal
patients, Health Canada even directed Canadians with permits to Mr.
Emery's mail order business.

Permitting Marc Emery to cut a deal with U.S. prosecutors is one of
those cowardly half-measure that have come to symbolize Canadian drug
policy. If Ottawa wants Canadians to respect the law, it either has
to enforce it as written or -- as we would prefer -- change what is
written to conform to the prevailing social norms. Our current
neither-fish-nor-fowl stand makes a mockery of our criminal justice system.