Posted on 08/25/2003 11:01:32 AM PDT by Wolfie
Pot Advocate To Light Up at Police Station Today
Canada’s Prince of Pot says he dares Kingston Police officers to try to seize his marijuana when he smokes weed outside police headquarters this afternoon. Marc Emery, the president of the British Columbia Marijuana Party and the country’s most prominent pot activist, will light a joint or smoke a bong – he hasn’t decided which – at 4:20 p.m. to protest Kingston Police’s policy of taking marijuana from anyone caught with less than 30 grams.
“They have no right to do that. I don’t know how they can get it out of someone’s fingers,” Emery told The Whig from his home in downtown Vancouver.
“I’m looking forward to seeing them try that.”
Since May 16, when an Ontario Superior Court judge upheld a lower court decision to quash a charge against a youth for simple possession of marijuana, Kingston Police and police across the province have changed the way they deal with simple possession.
People caught with under 30 grams haven’t been charged, but officers have been instructed to confiscate the pot.
Pot smokers across the country have decried the policy, arguing that if the court says marijuana is legal, police shouldn’t touch it.
“It’s completely lawful, like tomatoes or lettuce,” Emery said.
Emery will give a speech starting at 4 p.m. and spark up at exactly 4:20 p.m., a time pot smokers recognize as a daily ritual to get high.
Kingston Police spokesman Mike Weaver said officers will be at the protest but he didn’t know if they will take Emery’s pot. “We’ll wait and see what happens. I can’t predict what will happen.”
Emery said he won’t be confrontational and won’t get physical if an officer reaches out to take his weed.
But he did promise to spark up again.
“I will light up again if they’re going to take it and they’re going to have to take it repeatedly. They’re going to look pretty foolish if they do.”
Kingston is one of many cities Emery has been visiting this summer for similar protests.
In June, the 45-year-old got high outside Toronto Police headquarters after Chief Julian Fantino announced that, in lieu of the May court ruling, his officers won’t lay charges but will seize marijuana.
The Toronto protest inspired Emery’s Cross-Canada Police Headquarters Smoke-Out, a planned 16-city tour.
He has been arrested in six cities. In Winnipeg he was held for 24 hours and brought before a judge in handcuffs and leg shackles, where he was nearly denied bail, he said.
In Halifax and Charlottetown, which are in provinces where the courts have ruled that marijuana laws are no longer valid, he was allowed to puff away.
Officers also let him pass around a joint in Prince George, B.C., a few weeks ago.
Kingston is one of the smaller cities on his tour, but he said he chose the Limestone City because of the police stance on seizing weed.
Insp. Brian Cookman has said the reason police are confiscating the drug is because it’s still outlawed in the Criminal Code of Canada.
But Emery accused Kingston Police of being political. By seizing people’s marijuana, police are defying the court ruling and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“If the court says it’s legal, the police should say ‘That’s fine.’ ”
Officers don’t arrest people for their sexual preferences or religious preferences, so they shouldn’t arrest someone for the lifestyle choice of getting stoned, Emery said.
“They’re so in need of the drug war. It’s like an addiction to them. It validates all the useless arrests made by police officers. It’s so sick,” he said.
Emery is also the publisher of a magazine called Cannabis Culture and runs a mail-order service for marijuana seeds called Marc Emery Direct Seeds.
The business, which offers customers a variety of seed strains ranging in price from $20 to $395, grossed $2 million last year, Emery said.
He’s been raided by police numerous times – he has 22 pot-related convictions – but the seed-ordering business has gone untouched for some time, he said.
He keeps no records of his clients – tearing up documentation within minutes of processing it – and keeps his inventory at an undisclosed location.
Though he’s best known for his activism on marijuana, Emery has fought lawmakers and law enforcers on a number of civil rights issues, especially censorship.
As the owner of City Lights, a book shop in London, Ont., Emery was often in court for selling material that had been outlawed.
In the early 1990s, when record shop owners were banned from selling an album by 2 Live Crew, a rap group whose lyrics were deemed too obscene, Emery stocked his shelves with the disc in protest and was quickly arrested.
He is currently mounting legal challenges in the cities where he has been arrested on his tour.
He hopes to invoke a challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, citing the May court ruling in Ontario, forcing the courts in each province where he was arrested to review their respective pot laws.
In each city he has tried to use a bong with a symbol or emblem that is representative of that city, such as a hockey team logo.
As of Friday, he hadn’t found a suitable one for Kingston.
“I’m not sure if there’s a bong out there that’s in the shape of a penitentiary,” he said.
YeeeeeHaaawww!!!
The guy has balls of steel. ;^)
That he do.
Just damn.
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Too deliberately commit that kind of disobedience, when one can privately indulge, seems an act of folly. The police have extra powers, why cross them on such an issue?
Sorry if this is a little preachy, feel that to lose that wonderful thing- freedom, may not be understood until too late.
The man is a damn fool.
Acts of principle are often acts of folly. Only those with integrity can recognize the principle through the folly.
It's the principle of the matter: if pot is legal, the police have to keep their hands off.
Huh, I didn't know that the pot lobby were Monarchists.
Oh well, one learns something new every day.
Even better, since they know he's coming, the local cops should just make up some prank. For example, when he shows up and starts toking up, the cops should grab the pot, "examine" it, publicly declare it to be nothing more than ground-up weeds, and hand it right back to him, laughing hysterically that "You got screwed by your dealer, man!" Just embarrass the hell out of this moron and let him slink home with his tail between his legs.
It is all over the radio stations such as KRock 105.7 etc. and will be on TV as well.
If I hear of anything once I get home from work, I will update the board.
hawk
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