Prince of Pot Purloined to Prison

Mark Emery, self-named the Prince of Pot, is on his way to a US prison. For years he ran a mail order seed business. Cannabis seeds that is. He is also a highly publicized advocate for the legalizing of marijuana, having spent thousands giving money to various advocacy groups. He has run for office before but never won a seat.

Emery ran his business for years Vancouver, BC, since 1995. In 2005, on request from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, the Vancouver police raided the BC Marijuana Party Bookstore and Headquarters. Emery was arrested but not charged for several years.

This happened because of one thing: George Bush. That the US stuck its nose into Canadian business and asked for a raid was not constitutional, nor should Canada be bending over to US demands, but Harper is George’s strange bedfellow. Every Canadian should be wary and upset over this, whether it was for pot seeds or stealing shoes. The US didn’t go through the proper channels and Bush’s war on terror seemed to extend to pot seed sellers.

Yet again, we have many dollars being wasted on something pretty innocuous. As I’ve said before, legalizing marijuana would put police resources to better tests than going after every person with a joint, or seeds, or pot plants. And in fact, organized crime would not bother to continue growing it once it was legalized. Already, the drug wars and shootings that go on are over the harder drugs on average.

You also never see people who smoke marijuana breaking into homes or cars, or robbing people on the street. It is the hard drugs that cause an addiction and a strong need to have another fix “right now.” But where would our right ring politicians be without some “cause” to fight. Too bad they and municipal police forces actually aren’t spending time on the real causes. Why? Because it would take real work and it’s easier to hit up a singular pot growing business. Which likens the strikes of police against organized crime to gnats buzzing around one’s head.

Mark Emery goes to take a martyr’s place in the long ludicrous history of the battle against marijuana. Alcohol causes more deaths through too much drinking and car accidents than pot does but it’s legal. Right wing governments seem to want to control people but why? What difference does it make when morphine is legal, when booze is legal? How is marijuana so bad it shouldn’t be legalized?

I haven’t seen any convincing arguments. Mark Emery will serve time and as much as many murderers, more in some ways. There are people who kill people and get a manslaughter sentence, often out of jail in less than five years. Like the Sasan Ansari who stabbed his friend to death thirty-three times. He only got five years because he couldn’t remember what he did and he was an ex-law student. And Mark Emery will get at least five years for selling seeds. Hardly the same scale. Perhaps he should just say years of smoking pot have faded his memory to black and he’ll get off in no time.