EMERY "NOT SCARED"

Right now MARC EMERY's got no seeds to sell. The pot prince, weed warrior,
jailbird and munificent marijuana activist, is readying for a skunky battle
as he faces hard time in an American prison.

And he says he's not scared.

EMERY, 47, grew up in Ontario and currently sits at the head of a global
cannabis community. And since the American Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA) charged him last month for selling seeds online - something he'd done
for years - he says more and more people are taking note of his battle.

We sat down with EMERY - against a wall, painted with hemp leaves - and
spent an hour trying to figure out what makes him tick.

How do you respond when people call you a criminal or a drug dealer?

I'm a law breaker and a very specific law breaker.someone willing to break
the law very transparently and openly in order to get the law
changed.Income tax for the federal and provincial government took $578,000
of my money for six years, from 1999 to 2005, and they knew it was from
seeds.I was completely transparent with everybody.

Are you a rich, drug lord?

Oh, they picked the wrong guy. No. You must dispel that. I've never owned a
car, or an apartment or any kind of property or assets.My current apartment
is $850 a month.

So are you stoned right now?

No, goodness no. I haven't smoked in probably 24 hours.

How many joints do you smoke every day?

One or two tops. A complete joint? Often not even one because you share a
joint.

How do people react when they meet you?

Well, now a little more reverent than normal. People are very concerned on
the street. But I also passed by a restaurant the other day where everybody
got up and saluted and clapped their hands.

How do you feel about your potential extradition to the U.S. and jail?

I feel worried that the beautiful scene we've nourished here in
Vancouver.that this beautiful scene has been disturbed not by any Canadian
law or Canadian activity but the DEA has been allowed to put paranoia and
fear throughout the entire cannabis community of Canada. And so we've
literally gone to another foreign power to impose their harsh US drug war
ways on the most obvious representative of the opposite.We have a great
groundswell of public and political support for the way it's always been
here, much more broadminded and realistic about the drug war.

Were you surprised to suddenly get arrested for selling seeds?

I realized the second I heard the words, "you're under arrest for
extradition to the United States of America," I realized in that very long,
frozen second in time that I was now going to enter my greatest period of
confrontation. Remember the whole idea is all a revolution, not only to end
the cannabis prohibition but to overgrow the United States government.

What do you mean?

The whole methodology was to sell millions of seeds, to use millions of
dollars - to use profits to agitate on a worldwide scale the political
advancement of our movement - but on a botanical scale to produce millions
and millions of plants so the government could never eradicate them all and
eventually it would become futile for them to try. And that they would use
millions and millions and billions of dollars while one guy simply
nullified all their work.And - that of course is why - they want this one
guy real bad. They're angry and frustrated that I've, uh, neutered them.

What do you want people to do?

I believe it's important to break the law, and even be willing to go to
jail on principal. Our problem as a culture, a cannabis culture, is there
are too many people in jail as victims. In other words, they were found
out, arrested and jailed. We need people to go to jail as warriors. People
who deliberately broke the law in a public way, in a transparent way and
who are willing to go to jail to protest the oppression.

Why are you so optimistic?

It's all part of a divine plan. This all has to unfold like this. I have to
bring people together. And this has accomplished two important things. It's
unified our worldwide movement. Now everybody's together. They've ditched
the ego things.The second thing is I've finally got people who don't smoke
marijuana to give a damn about what's happening to our country.We need to
build on that and build a real momentum to end prohibition of cannabis.