REPORT DELIGHTS B.C. POT ACTIVISTS

'It's the most far-reaching document of any western country,' Marc Emery
says

VANCOUVER (CP) - There was more than the usual buzz happening today at the
downtown headquarters of the B.C. Marijuana party as news circulated - along
with the pungent aroma of burning pot - that a Senate committee had
recommended legalization of marijuana use.

Marc Emery, perhaps Canada's best-known pot activist, was busy bouncing
among media interviews at the store, which is also home to the party's
extensive bookstore of how-to pot pourri.

Emery was visibly ecstatic, admittedly stunned at the way the stereotypical
stodgy senators had suddenly become, well, dudes.

"It's a beacon of light from the Senate," said Emery, president of the
Marijuana party and a candidate for the autumn Vancouver mayoralty election
under the Vancouver Marijuana party banner.

"It's wonderful," he continued to bubble as a few nearby customers thumbed
through books on cultivating pot. "I was stunned by the enlightenment in
this report."

He was even more delighted given the reaction he received at his appearance
before the nine-member committee and especially Senator Colin Kenny, its
deputy chairman.

"Colin Kenny gave me such a grilling that I found very intimidating," said
Emery, who also publishes Cannabis Culture magazine and whose Web site touts
him as having for sale the largest collection of marijuana seeds in the
world.

He now believes that the committee was "obviously willing to push people's
buttons to get the information they were seeking."

"It's the most far-reaching document of any western country or any place in
the world in regards to marijuana," said the leader of a party who ran
candidates in every riding during the 2001 provincial election and received
more than 53,000 votes.

"It goes further than Switzerland, further than Holland and is certainly
light years ahead of the United States."

The report said the current system of prohibition simply doesn't work and
should be replaced by a regulated system, perhaps like that used for
alcohol, with cannabis available to anyone 16 or older.

David Malmo-Levine, another longtime pot legalization activist, said he was
"ecstatic."

He is heading to the Supreme Court of Canada, along with two others, in a
few months on a pot conviction.

"I'm euphoric. I'm blown away."

He will argue his own case before the nine justices, as he did before the
B.C. Court of Appeal, but now bolstered now by the Senate committee's pot
pronouncements.

"The senators have gotten us all high out here on the West Coast," said
Malmo-Levine. "I'm glad that age does not seem to remove common sense from
your brain."

Malmo-Levine was found guilty of possession of marijuana for the purpose of
trafficking.

The B.C. Court of Appeal upheld the conviction, but a dissenting judge
stated the risk must be significant if Parliament is to intervene criminally
in people's lives.

The judge wrote that simple possession does not meet that test.

He will be joined by two other Canadians - convicted pot smokers - who will
argue that federal marijuana laws are unconstitutional.

Scott Hearty, who works at the Marijuana party bookstore, passed a joint
around as he too wondered at the Senate's work.

"I'm in awe," said Hearty. "They were supposed to consider decriminalization
options and they said legalization."

Still, Hearty is wary of the reaction in the elected House of Commons and by
the United States.

"There will be a lot of pressure on Ottawa from the U.S. government and it's
hard to say how they'll react."

But Emery said the Senate report might help the Commons.

"The Supreme Court will be greatly emboldened and empowered by nine Senate
members unanimously saying legalize marijuana," reasoned Emery. "A lot of us
suspect that all along the House of Commons wants the Supreme Court to rule
on this so they can go to the Americans and say, `It's not our fault. It was
that liberal-minded court.' "

In Fredericton, criminal lawyer Daniel Watters hailed the recommendations as
something whose "time has come."

"It's a thing that has to happen," said Watters, who has long called for
drugs to be legalized in Canada.

"It's one of the most innocuous flowering little buds known to humankind and
it's been a friend of humans for 20,000 years," he said.

"It's politicians of the ignorance of George Bush and the rest of that ilk
that have stopped it all around the world."