Canada's "Prince of Pot" nabbed for U.S. seed sales

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com ^ | Saturday, July 30, 2005 | Ari Bloomekatz

[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

[Know your rights]

He wants very much to get rich in the marijuana industry.

The LEGAL marijuana industry ... nothing wrong with that.

[Lurker 50001]

Thanks for the reply TL.

I just wonder why our fearless DEA wasted a year and a half on this MJ seed bust. You know that you can walk into any grocery store in the USofA and buy poppy seeds, McCormick is a big supplier. I guess an opium garden is okay, but we can't have any of those evil MJ seeds coming in.

I think the DEA's time and our tax dollars could be spent in better ways. Maybe they could use their resources (our money) making sure the southern border was less porous, the way it is now, one could drive a 50 megaton warhead across and no one would notice.

As for the fullauto weapons musanon, I wonder how many of those crossed our southern border in the last year and a half, while the DEA was busy protecting us from someone who might flip a MJ seed at us. You can bet FAs were not going to the law abiding, but I shall wait at my mail box and hope!

Lurker

[tacticalogic]

FR's foremost gun grabber has 'outed' himself again by inferring it is his business to see that those evil full autos "never enter the commerce stream".

Let him talk. The longer he goes on the more he sounds like a paper pushing career bureaucrat who's never turned a tap in his life, and terrified of the idea of an ordinary citizen being able to machine and assemble his own firearm.

[tacticalogic]

Thanks for the reply TL.

You're welcome. If you check out groups like jointogether.org and their sponsor, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation you'll find the gun grabbers and drug warriors sleeping together quite amicably.

[Lurker 50001]

Thank you for the information, I shall follow your link. I think it is time for us freedom lovers to come together, and this takes work from both sides. We must put our petty differences aside and realize "IT'S ABOUT FREEDOM" or we will all be doomed to tyranny.

Lurker

[robertpaulsen]

"3.6 million were hardcore users"

2000 NSDUH shows 1.2 million cocaine (last month) users -- and my guess is maybe half are addicts. Add 200K heroin addicts, and you get around .25%, or half the 1900's legal rate.

Give it a rest already.

[Ken H]

Here's what your source says about its own survey:

"Cautious evaluation of this data is necessary because the NHSDA cannot accurately measure rare or stigmatized drug use, relying as it does on self-reporting and on people residing in households. In alternate research, the number of hardcore* users of heroin in 1998 was estimated to be 980,000,"

"Estimates of heroin use from the NHSDA are considered very conservative due to the probable underreporting and undercoverage of the population of heroin users."

________________________________________

Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, Oct 4, 2000:

"For example, numbers like heroin addiction. You can find numbers that go from 255,000 up to the one I'm currently using, 980,000, if I remember the last time we updated it, and those are all valid scientific studies."

--http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/symposium/panelmccaffrey.html

So, the government says its own household survey numbers are not reliable, and both the USDOJ and the Drug Czar say there are 980,000 heroin addicts.

The DOJ also says there are 3.6 million hardcore users who spend $36 billion/year on cocaine. That's $10,000/year per hardcore user. I suppose you're going to maintain that is not addiction?

Time to face the facts, the WOD is a failed social experiment.

[robertpaulsen]

"The DOJ also says there are 3.6 million hardcore users who spend $36 billion/year on cocaine."

This explains the difference. Your source adds the NHSDA number (close to my estimate of 600K addicts) to this DUF guesstimate.

"This less-stable population of hardcore drug users is, however, well-represented in data collected by the Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) program, which questions a sample of arrestees in 24 central city jails and lockups about their drug use. In this analysis, hardcore users in the DUF data are defined as those who admitted using cocaine or heroin on more than 10 days during the month before being arrested."

This "data" is then extrapolated to overall use. From the report: "For example, if hardcore users account for 2 million arrests per year, and if hardcore users are arrested an average of 0.5 times per year, then there must be 2 million divided by 0.5, or 4 million, hardcore users in the nation." What a joke.

The NHSDA measures drug use among the American household population age 12 and older, as well as among people living in group quarters and the homeless. The DUF supposedly picks up all others, AND "hardcore users in the DUF data are defined as those who admitted using cocaine or heroin on more than 10 days during the month before being arrested".

OK. So these losers, not part of a household, not part of a group shelter, not homeless (lord, what are they?), strung out on drugs over one-third of the time, are only arrested once every two years???

Once a week, I'd believe -- petty theft, vagrancy, public intoxication, prostitution, whatever. Once every two years is beyond credulity.

[Ken H]

Once a week, I'd believe -- petty theft, vagrancy, public intoxication, prostitution, whatever. Once every two years is beyond credulity.

In the footnotes:

"For example, in the 1993 Household Survey, about 58 percent of weekly cocaine users surveyed had been arrested and booked at some time, 39 percent during the year prior to the survey. In the National AIDS Demonstration Research data, 81 percent of heavy cocaine users had been arrested at some time in their lives, and one-third had been in jail or prison during the six months prior to the interview.

Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, Oct 4, 2000:

"Now I would also suggest to you that we've gotten a lot further, 'cause we brought in some of the most noted scientists, epidemiologists, mathematicians, statistical people in the country. We've identified the gaps in our data."

I say again, the government flat out says the numbers you using are invalid for hardcore use estimates. The Drug Czar himself said the same thing, and used the figure I've been citing: 980,000.

[Lurker 50001]

Not to worry Ken H, to qoute Forest Gump...tyrants are what tyrants do. Ignorance is curable, self inflected ignorance is stupidity.

Lurker

[robertpaulsen]

The DUF's numbers are based on the utterances of arrested hard-core cocaine and heroin users -- then they start estimating.

In 2002, we had, what, 1.5 million drug arrests? And 30% of those were for cocaine and heroin, sale and possession (need a link?).

So, according to you, we have 4.5 million hard core, strung-out-over-one-third-of-the-time cocaine and heroin addicts, and we're arresting only 450,000 per year? 10%, if we're arresting each addict only once per year.

"the government flat out says the numbers you using are invalid"

Fine. You believe the government numbers. I don't.

They're based solely on estimates, and those estimates are applied to the testimony of arrested drug addicts.

[Ken H]

The DUF's numbers are based on the utterances of arrested hard-core cocaine and heroin users -- then they start estimating.

They're based solely on estimates, and those estimates are applied to the testimony of arrested drug addicts.

DUF relies on urinalysis. You need to read this footnote:

"Because urinalysis will detect cocaine and heroin use within two to three days of its consumption, it is unlikely that urinalysis will fail to identify an individual who uses cocaine on at least a weekly basis. [~snip~] Arguably, the EMIT test used by DUF understates drugs in the urine of arrestees."

You believe the government numbers. I don't.

HA! You believe the SAHSMA numbers, which they themselves say are not valid for estimating stigmatized drug use.

OTOH, the USDOJ and Drug Czar General Barry McCaffrey stand behind the survey which produced the higher figures I quoted.