B.C.'S PRINCE OF POT GOT WHAT WAS COMING TO HIM

VANCOUVER - In the basement of Marc Emery's Cannabis Culture
Headquarters, a woman in blond and pink dreadlocks is filling plastic
bags with what appears to be marijuana. It is not.

"Oh, it's way stronger than pot," she says, smiling. "It's Peruvian
torch cactus. The high lasts way longer. It has mescaline in it. It
really gets you off. It's $25 a bag."

In an adjoining room, a man watches a computer screen while smoking a
joint. Glass bongs are lying about. And rolling papers. The overhead
lighting is covered by long strips of purple and pink gauze. A white
blanket made of hemp and emblazoned with marijuana leaves covers a
futon couch. On the wall is a playful-looking map entitled: A Stoner's
Guide to Vansterdam.

At any moment, you expect someone to emerge from a cloud of smoke
saying: "We've got to get out of 'Nam man."

There are TV cameras too. And reporters. Everywhere. Here to talk to
Mr. Emery, who is holding up the show while finishing a radio interview.

"This is an assault on our sovereignty and we should be ashamed of
that," he is saying over the phone. "No, I'm not frightened at all
about going. I'm 50 now. If I was 25, I might feel differently. But
it's not such a bad time in my life to go. I can write my memoirs. I
can learn Spanish and French. And when I get out they can make me
justice minister.

"I figure Canadians will owe me that by then."

The self-styled Prince of Pot looks tired. The dark bags under his
eyes hang heavy. If he hasn't been sleeping lately, who can blame him?
Mr. Emery confirmed yesterday that he will be going to prison for five
years, with no chance of parole, in connection with charges he faces
in the United States for selling marijuana seeds over the Internet.

As part of the deal, charges against his two co-accused will be
dropped.

And he will get to serve his time in Canada, not the
U.S.

"This deal spares two innocent people from going to jail," Mr. Emery
told reporters. "If it means I have to go to jail, then it's a
sacrifice worth making."

Mr. Emery faced an extradition hearing on Jan. 21. It was a given that
Canadian authorities were going to turn him over to officials in the
U.S., where he almost certainly would have been in prison longer than
five years.

On the surface, Canadians should be outraged that the government
agreed to put someone in prison for five years for a crime that gets
you a $200 fine here - that is, if the police bother to charge you at
all.

People sell and smoke pot and hashish in Mr. Emery's downtown store
every day with the full knowledge of the police. Nothing is ever done.
So how is it the Canadian government is comfortable putting Mr. Emery
away for five years for selling marijuana seeds?

You can rob a bank in this country and not serve five
years.

Still, Mr. Emery is anything but a sympathetic figure. In truth, the
pot activist is a smart-ass egomaniac addicted as much to the fame and
attention his marijuana crusade has brought him as he is to the B.C.
Bud he likes to smoke so much.

We can condemn U.S. drug laws as unduly harsh all we want, but the
fact is they are the laws. And when we are in that country, or doing
business with people who live there, we must respect those laws. If
you decide to thwart them, as Mr. Emery did, you do so at your peril.

Mr. Emery essentially taunted U.S. authorities to come and get him. He
never imagined in a million years they would. That was a gross
miscalculation.

When the United States began extradition proceedings against him, Mr.
Emery naively believed the Canadian government would never go along
with it.

The fact is few if any Canadians have avoided extradition to the
United States.

And Ottawa wasn't going to make an exception with Mr. Emery. Not a
Conservative government that recently launched its own war on drugs.

Not a chance.

Mr. Emery appears resigned to his fate. While he does some writing and
learns new languages in prison, he said he will also continue his
crusade for the legalization of marijuana.

"This is a sacrifice I'm prepared to make for a much bigger cause," he
said.

Playing the role of martyr right to the bitter end.