'PRINCE OF POT' GETS OUT OF JAIL

SASKATOON - Released on Monday after 61 days behind bars, marijuana
activist and entrepreneur Marc Emery knelt in the Saskatoon snow and
kissed the cannabis-leaf flag his supporters have flown across from
the courthouse since Day 1.

He then launched into a contemptuous diatribe against Saskatchewan's
"intolerable" attitude and promised to try changing it from the
inside. He plans to establish a chapter of the Marijuana Party within
three months and offer a full slate of candidates in the next
provincial election.

Emery, the self-proclaimed prince of pot, was released from the
Saskatoon Correctional Centre at 8 a.m. after serving two-thirds of
his sentence, as required by law. He stood in driving winds and snow
to thank about 20 people who gathered to welcome him back to freedom.

"I was joking with some people (prior) to jail, saying that going to
jail in Saskatoon was like being sent to Siberia. Now I get out and it
is exactly like Siberia," Emery said, then remarked about the province
itself.

"This is a rough place to start out. It's one of the most inhospitable
places on Earth, over time, to try and form a modern day society. It's
a place where droughts hit every five or 10 years, the weather and
landscape are formidable and there is tensions between whites and natives.

"If you had to choose somewhere in Canada to live, you'd really need a
good reason to live in Saskatchewan. And they (lawmakers) aren't
creating one. There is no beacon of tolerance and enlightenment that
makes you overlook everything else."

Emery praised his local supporters who maintained a vigil across the
street from the provincial courthouse where he was sentenced Aug. 19
to three months in jail after pleading guilty to passing a joint at a
pot rally in Kiwanis Park in March.

"The people here are tough. You wouldn't get that in Vancouver, they're too
soft," he said That's what's hopeful about Saskatchewan: there is a spirit
to adapt and overcome as proven by those who settled here and those who
still live here.

He made reference to Saskatoon's prohibitive past as a temperance
colony, suggesting the new Marijuana Party will deal with that
narrow-mindedness.

Marijuana smokers are people who simply want to pursue "a peaceful and
honest living of their lifestyle," he said. "When you send somebody
like me to jail for three months -- someone with children, who's a
good citizen and believes in the responsibilities and obligations of
citizenship -- for passing a joint, it's telling everybody to stay
well away from here because this is not a progressive community where
their children will grow up in a tolerant environment. This is a
backwards place."

Emery is the leader of the B.C. Marijuana Party, owns a marijuana seed
store and Internet business in Vancouver and also operates the Iboga
Therapy House, which offers a treatment of chemical dependence using
an experimental psychoactive substance called Ibogaine, from the root
of an African plant. He funds the $150,000 annual cost to run the
facility and claims to pay $12,000 per month in personal income tax.

"It's incumbent upon me, with my resources and my talent, to go out
and help the people being oppressed who are poor," he said. "I'm
grateful to be their spokesperson."