Posted on 07/31/2005 12:35:50 PM PDT by freepatriot32
Marc Emery has built a multimillion-dollar business selling marijuana seeds and paraphernalia while thumbing his nose at authorities in his native Canada, even challenging them to arrest him.
Yesterday, the man known as Canada's "Prince of Pot" was arrested in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on a U.S. indictment charging him with selling millions of dollars worth of marijuana seeds to customers throughout the United States.
Emery, the 47-year-old leader of British Columbia's Marijuana Party, has earned about $3 million a year selling the seeds through his Internet Web site and by mail, federal officials said. Emery and two accomplices, Gregory Williams, 50, and Michelle Rainey-Fenkarek, 34, were arrested by Canadian authorities on a warrant issued by federal officials in Washington state.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan said Emery will be tried in the U.S. because he committed most of his alleged crimes in this country. The Seattle-based office of the Drug Enforcement Administration led the investigation.
Sullivan said Emery will be extradited from Canada to the U.S. for trial, but the process could take anywhere from six months to two years.
While Emery owns a Vancouver, B.C., store that sells marijuana paraphernalia and seeds, police say at least 75 percent of his illegal transactions involved U.S. customers.
Vancouver Police Department spokesman Howard Chow said U.S. authorities are hoping to prosecute Emery in Seattle under an agreement called the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, which allows the prosecuting agency to determine where to try defendants. Authorities likely thought there was a better chance of conviction and harsher punishment in the U.S., Chow said.
Emery, a self-styled activist who once called himself a "libertarian capitalist," has become a spokesman for British Columbia's movement to legalize marijuana and is publisher of the Canadian magazine Cannabis Culture.
During a 1996 interview with The Seattle Times, Emery discussed an arrest by Canadian authorities for selling seeds at his Vancouver store. He said he wanted to be arrested to "challenge this stupid law and overturn it."
Neil Boyd, professor of criminology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., said Emery's arrest may not have occurred if U.S. authorities had not been involved.
"It's not unusual for Canadian police to arrest a person who has committed a serious crime in another country. What's unusual about this case is that they are arresting a person for conduct that attracts very serious penalties in one country and potentially no penalties in Canada," Boyd said.
While selling marijuana seeds in Canada is illegal, Boyd says the laws in Canada are not as tough as in the U.S.
Emery opened his store in 1994 and operates Marc Emery Direct, the Web site through which he sells more than 500 types of marijuana seeds with names such as Wonderberry, White Widow and Island Orange. He claims to own the world's largest selection of marijuana seeds with prices for 10 seeds ranging up to several hundred dollars.
All three defendants were charged with conspiracy to distribute marijuana, conspiracy to distribute marijuana seeds and conspiracy to engage in money laundering. The distribution charges alone carry potential punishments of 10 years to life imprisonment.
John Conroy, Emery's attorney in several previous cases, said Rainey-Fenkarek already had appeared in court and was ordered held on $25,000 bail. He said Emery and Williams may appear in court on Tuesday.
"He's [Emery] been arrested for a number of things over the years," Conroy said, but never before on a U.S. charge. The Canadian arrests include marijuana possession — particularly the seeds — for purposes of trafficking. He has been convicted of some charges, and according to his Web site, he was most recently sentenced to 92 days in jail for trafficking and possession.
Officials say Emery sold marijuana to undercover agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration both by mail and in person.
Emery has been active in pushing for marijuana legalization. He has run for mayor of Vancouver and his marijuana party's slogan is "overgrowing the government."
Because of treaties between the U.S. and Canada, U.S. attorney Sullivan said, if Emery is convicted in the United States he could request to serve his time in Canada, where he might be eligible for release sooner. Sullivan said U.S. authorities will have a chance to weigh in on his release to Canadian custody but that his transfer would still be possible.
"That's one of the frustrations with prisoners who are sent to Canada," Sullivan said.
Ari Bloomekatz: 206-464-2540 or abloomekatz@seattletimes.com
OK....are we going to send spec ops there to snatch him like we did in Colombia?
I don't support the guy but I do recognize that the WOD is a total waste of taxpayer money & has no effect upon the numbers of pot smokers in the U.S. People that want to smoke pot, get it and smoke it. People that don't want to smoke it, don't. The WOD is not stopping it.
I don't think anothers responsible usage of pot is a threat to me anymore than anothers responsible ethanol usage is a threat to me.
I don't want my confiscated tax dollars redistributed to the WOD. I want my money back.
BTW, I do not smoke anything, pot, tobacco or otherwise nor do I consume ethanol except in very limited, occasional circumstances, perhaps once or twice a year.
I'm surprised he's been able to maintain the discipline and focus needed to run a multi-million dollar businessssssss....................seeds man like wow man...........eh?
Massively.
But the looks on their faces when they came up the front porch and saw it.
Priceless.
Your points well stated,even although I think your point is arguable,in an equal forum. One could follow some experts, who say that use of the plant leads to needs of a more powerful drug. This I don't know. Still, those on your side of the discussion will say this. That many solid citizens and with professional occupations smoke the weed, with no effect.
Thanks for your comments, we do have one solid problem, I will agree. For me the jury is still out, as to the value of massive deployment of man power here. My generation conjures up the drug dens and utter depravation- al la the Hollywood of the 1930's in relation to drugs.
That is because you are ignorant of facts, and willing to listen to naysayers, and vipers, with no knowledge of the truth!
You can't juggle when you're drunk!
There was a recent thread about this...click here
...I'm surprised he's been able to maintain the discipline and focus needed to run a multi-million dollar businessssssss...That is because you are ignorant of facts, and willing to listen to naysayers, and vipers, with no knowledge of the truth!
You can't juggle when you're drunk!
I can't juggle when I'm not drunk, either!
I'm screwed, man, screwed!
Bill Paxton rulez!
Not to worry, you are not alone...
My comment came from watching a guy in DC on the 4th of July. He was awesome in his dexterity, and hitting a bowl between sets! He could keep five balls going, and didn't miss a beat. If he missed one, he just picked it up, while keeping the rest in the air!
I wish I could do it, too, but can't throw a ball straight, as it is!
There went the loserdopian argument that legalization is the last thing that drug dealers would want.
Not at all. You're entirely missing the point. Legalization is the last thing the *illegal dealers* want (i.e. the drug cartels, organized crime, Joe the local pusher, etc.), because if Walgreens or liquor stores could carry pot legally, customers would buy from there, and not risk getting their pot from the illegal sources. (How many people do you know who still buy their booze from illegal bootleggers?)
That's still true, and it's hardly invalidated by the fact that an activist has chosen to sell seeds in order to challenge the laws. He's not doing it for the money, like the drug cartels are, he's doing it because ultimately he wants to be a (legal) *consumer*, not a dealer.
Technically speaking, selling marijuana seeds in the US is not illegal. Selling *viable* seeds is. They can be sold as long as they have been rendered unsproutable (e.g. by heating). They can be found in a lot of pet supply stores, as they have healthy oils and vitamins that are good dietary supplements for parrots. The birds love them.
And as another poster pointed out, there's no THC in the seeds. Or at most just trace amounts -- perhaps if you smoked a whole bushel you might get a tiny buzz, but you'd get better results with a bottle of light beer.
So if pot were legal, we'd see no increase in the number of users.
Even you can't believe that.
The ONDCP budget is about $11B (.5% of the federal budget), and half that money goes for drug education, advertising and treatment. The other half is for drug interdiction, including border patrol.
99% of drug arrests are done at the local or state level, and most of those are a result of other actions (ie., a traffic stop discovers pot in the car).
What "massive deployment" are you refering to?
Currently, 30% of pot smokers are under 21. With legalization, that percentage could increase to 50% (as the University of Alaska study showed).
Now, with half the marijuana market being illegal, there's plenty of incentive to maintain "illegal dealers". AND, they'd be much harder to catch, in that it would be perfectly legal for the dealers to own, carry, or grow pot -- you'd have to catch them actually selling to kids.
This is not a problem with tobacco or alcohol since a small percentage of users are underage (it's 6% for tobacco, not sure about alcohol).
The leader of the B.C. Marijuana Party has some hard opinions of Langley residents, and some radical ideas for pot, education, and healthcare reform.
And he's not scared to share them.
Langley is filled with "old people who are intolerant and bigoted and hate young people," and those old people support marijuana prohibition, said Marc Emery.
Supporters of pot crusaders rally in Vancouver
Last Updated Sat, 30 Jul 2005 21:45:06 EDT
About 200 people rallied in Vancouver Saturday to protest the arrest of three members of the B.C. Marijuana Party, who are the subject of an extradition request from the U.S. government. Vancouver police armed with a search warrant carried out a raid Friday on a pot-seed store run by party leader Marc Emery. Pot crusader Marc Emery smokes marijuana while holding a plant. (CP file photo) The warrant was executed on behalf of the U.S. government. Emery was arrested by RCMP in central Nova Scotia and is spending the weekend in a Halifax-area jail awaiting his return to Vancouver.
Michelle Rainey-Fenkarek, financial agent for the party, and Greg Williams, an employee of Pot-TV, were taken into custody in Vancouver.
Rainey-Fenkarek was released on bail Friday while Williams remains in custody.
All three face charges in the U.S. of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, distribute seeds and engage in money laundering. Conviction carries a sentence ranging from 10 years to life in prison. American officials are seeking their extradition, a process which could take six months to a year.
Some people just ask for it. Ed Rosenthal is another.
Seems I have been caught by the general argument used by those who propose legalizing drugs. For this is what THEY say. This is if the figures and instance you have kindly provided are accurate.
Of course one could take refuge in the fact that an enormous amount of manpower time was spent in the tunnel episode. Under the border between Canada and the USA. It took months to allow the tunnel to be connected,the first shipment of pot, was stopped with the perps. It was, of course from Western Canada that a would be terrorist was spotted on a ferry to the USA.
Food for thought here- for both views.
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