POT ADVOCATE TO LIGHT UP AT POLICE STATION TODAY

Local News - Canada's Prince of Pot says he dares Kingston Police officers
to try to seize his marijuana when he smokes weed outside police
headquarters this afternoon.

Marc Emery, the president of the British Columbia Marijuana Party and the
country's most prominent pot activist, will light a joint or smoke a bong -
he hasn't decided which - at 4:20 p.m. to protest Kingston Police's policy
of taking marijuana from anyone caught with less than 30 grams.

"They have no right to do that. I don't know how they can get it out of
someone's fingers," Emery told The Whig from his home in downtown Vancouver.

"I'm looking forward to seeing them try that."

Since May 16, when an Ontario Superior Court judge upheld a lower court
decision to quash a charge against a youth for simple possession of
marijuana, Kingston Police and police across the province have changed the
way they deal with simple possession.

People caught with under 30 grams haven't been charged, but officers have
been instructed to confiscate the pot.

Pot smokers across the country have decried the policy, arguing that if the
court says marijuana is legal, police shouldn't touch it.

"It's completely lawful, like tomatoes or lettuce," Emery said.

Emery will give a speech starting at 4 p.m. and spark up at exactly 4:20
p.m., a time pot smokers recognize as a daily ritual to get high.

Kingston Police spokesman Mike Weaver said officers will be at the protest
but he didn't know if they will take Emery's pot. "We'll wait and see what
happens. I can't predict what will happen."

Emery said he won't be confrontational and won't get physical if an officer
reaches out to take his weed.

But he did promise to spark up again.

"I will light up again if they're going to take it and they're going to
have to take it repeatedly. They're going to look pretty foolish if they do."

Kingston is one of many cities Emery has been visiting this summer for
similar protests.

In June, the 45-year-old got high outside Toronto Police headquarters after
Chief Julian Fantino announced that, in lieu of the May court ruling, his
officers won't lay charges but will seize marijuana.

The Toronto protest inspired Emery's Cross-Canada Police Headquarters
Smoke-Out, a planned 16-city tour.

He has been arrested in six cities. In Winnipeg he was held for 24 hours
and brought before a judge in handcuffs and leg shackles, where he was
nearly denied bail, he said.

In Halifax and Charlottetown, which are in provinces where the courts have
ruled that marijuana laws are no longer valid, he was allowed to puff away.

Officers also let him pass around a joint in Prince George, B.C., a few
weeks ago.

Kingston is one of the smaller cities on his tour, but he said he chose the
Limestone City because of the police stance on seizing weed.

Insp. Brian Cookman has said the reason police are confiscating the drug is
because it's still outlawed in the Criminal Code of Canada.

But Emery accused Kingston Police of being political. By seizing people's
marijuana, police are defying the court ruling and the Charter of Rights
and Freedoms.

"If the court says it's legal, the police should say 'That's fine.' "

Officers don't arrest people for their sexual preferences or religious
preferences, so they shouldn't arrest someone for the lifestyle choice of
getting stoned, Emery said.

"They're so in need of the drug war. It's like an addiction to them. It
validates all the useless arrests made by police officers. It's so sick,"
he said.

Emery is also the publisher of a magazine called Cannabis Culture and runs
a mail-order service for marijuana seeds called Marc Emery Direct Seeds.

The business, which offers customers a variety of seed strains ranging in
price from $20 to $395, grossed $2 million last year, Emery said.

He's been raided by police numerous times - he has 22 pot-related
convictions - but the seed-ordering business has gone untouched for some
time, he said.

He keeps no records of his clients - tearing up documentation within
minutes of processing it - and keeps his inventory at an undisclosed location.

Though he's best known for his activism on marijuana, Emery has fought
lawmakers and law enforcers on a number of civil rights issues, especially
censorship.

As the owner of City Lights, a book shop in London, Ont., Emery was often
in court for selling material that had been outlawed.

In the early 1990s, when record shop owners were banned from selling an
album by 2 Live Crew, a rap group whose lyrics were deemed too obscene,
Emery stocked his shelves with the disc in protest and was quickly arrested.

He is currently mounting legal challenges in the cities where he has been
arrested on his tour.

He hopes to invoke a challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,
citing the May court ruling in Ontario, forcing the courts in each province
where he was arrested to review their respective pot laws.

In each city he has tried to use a bong with a symbol or emblem that is
representative of that city, such as a hockey team logo.

As of Friday, he hadn't found a suitable one for Kingston.

"I'm not sure if there's a bong out there that's in the shape of a
penitentiary," he said.