MARC EMERY: 'I'M MY ADVERSARIES' WORST NIGHTMARE'

Canada's marijuana king is on the phone, changing a baby's diaper and
predicting he'll live to see his favourite weed decriminalized.

"It's going to happen sooner or later," said Marc Emery. "You can see it
coming.

"There's been a breakthrough in medical use, I haven't been arrested in
three years and the mayor of Vancouver, who used to crusade against me, is
now saying legalization is inevitable."

Emery, a 43-year-old former Londoner, always could stir the pot.

"I consider myself my adversaries' worst nightmare," he once said. "I
regard myself as a principled idealist who just won't change his mind. I
won't compromise on anything."

From his 17-year perch as owner of the City Lights Book Shop on Richmond
Street in downtown London, he gained notoriety for his opinions and campaigns.

He was a buzz saw, a machine gun, a waterfall of words. He railed against
big government, big business, big unions, feminists, socialists and the police.

He wanted the downtown business improvement area organization dismantled
and fought its right to levy a charge on his store.

He started political parties and newspapers and campaigned against the
Pan-Am Games, city grants to the University of Western Ontario and pay
hikes for city politicians.

He paid people to pick up garbage during a municipal strike, hired a Santa
Claus to stuff coins in downtown parking meters at Christmas and gave books
away while defying a law banning Sunday business openings.

He was a school dropout and proud of it. He home-schooled his own sons and
once boasted he was too bright for school, so bored he had to get out.

"My idea of a good time was to take away the control from the teacher and
install myself as the main influence in the class," he said.

Emery started City Lights with the help of a $10,000 loan from his father
and within a year was making "a killing."

He started out as a New Democratic Party supporter, but his entrepreneurial
bent and Ayn Randish individuality turned him into someone who eventually
came to believe there should be little or no government.

He ran as a Libertarian in a federal election and later founded the Freedom
party with Robert Metz. He started the London MetroBulletin and the London
Tribune, two short-lived newspapers.

He went to court to defend his right to sell sexually explicit and
marijuana magazines and the 2 Live Crew rap tape, As Nasty As They Wanna
Be, deemed obscene by some people.

Citing his disenchantment with Canadian society, Emery moved to Indonesia
with his wife and two sons in 1992, vowing never to return.

He settled in Vancouver two years later and soon made headlines as the
owner of Cannabis Cafe, a meeting place for tokers, Hemp BC, a supply
store, and Little Grow Shop, a seed and plant outlet.

They were raided a few times and eventually closed. Emery was arrested
eight times and convicted of trafficking in marijuana seeds.

"I've had $600,000 in assets seized," he said. "It's been rough on my
employees. I employ 35 people right now."

This year, he'll gross about $2 million from Marc Emery Direct, his
mail-order marijuana seed business, break even as publisher of Cannabis
Culture Magazine and lose about $10,000 a month on his Web-based Pot-TV.
He's the proud father of an infant son and the BC Marijuana party, which
ran candidates in all 79 ridings in this year's provincial election. He's
donating about $400,000 to the cause of decriminalizing marijuana,
including legal defences.

"I'm having fun," he said.

Canada is the greatest country in the world, he added. "It's a friendly
fascist country, something you can live with. I'd be on death row in the
United States if I was doing there what I'm doing here."