Posted August
10, 2005
Analysis by
Richard Cowan

It has been
obvious from the beginning that the
arrest of three Canadians at the behest of the DEA for “conspiracy” against the
drugwar was political.
See

Marc Emery, Michelle Rainey, Greg (Marijuana Man) Williams, Arrested By Canadian
Narks At Request of DEA! “Offenses Over Which The USA Has Jurisdiction.”

Absurdly, the warrant
actually included “AKA The Prince of Pot” in parentheses after Marc Emery’s name
as though that was an alias that he sometime used when hiding from the law…
something Marc never did.

It is not uncommon for
merchants to dub themselves the “king” or whatever of their line of merchandise.
They may even appear in their television commercials wearing a fake crown or
robe, but if they were indicted for some crime, the warrant would never read
“AKA The king of donuts” or whatever. That sort of thing is simply a silly bit
of marketing hype that no one should take seriously, but the United States of
America put it on a warrant!

Obviously, now that
there is nothing left to market, it should be clear that – far from being a
Prince, Marc is broke and now is really just one of three paupers being stalked
by a deranged hyperpower, with the collusion of their own craven government.

If more proof was needed
about this bust being political, Karen Tandy, the thuggette who heads the DEA,
was actually stupid enough to tell a reporter, “Today’s arrest of Mark ( sic
) Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture magazine and the founder of a
marijuana legalization group, is a significant blow not only to the marijuana
trafficking trade in the U.S.  and
Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization
movement…. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery’s
illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization
groups active in the
United States and Canada.  Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of
money to rely on.”

I hate to
disappoint Her Thuggishness, but Marc’s extensive philanthropies have had
negligible impact on the marijuana reform movement in the States, but that is
beside the point. Whether Tandy is lying or delusional, or both, it is clear
that there is a strong political component to this case that should give Canada
pause, but will not, because Ottawa has its own need to maintain the war on
cannabis. The Canadian
government is not a victim of DEAland, but an accomplice.
See


Documenting The Role of Politicized Canadian Police In Maintaining Cannabis
Prohibition. Canadian Narks Versus Canadian Freedom. Following the DEA Party
Line. The Battle for Canada

In any case,
it is time to drop the cuteness of faux royalty, and understand that this case
is not just about Marc. Two other people also have been targeted.
Thus far, most of the publicity and debate about
focused on Marc, for understandable reasons. However, that is not in anyone’s
interest, including Marc’s – with the exception of the international
prohibitionist enterprise.

Both the prohibitionists
and some neutral observers – including the editorial pages of several Canadian
newspapers that have endorsed legalization – have argued that Marc knew what he
was doing was illegal in the US (and at least formally illegal in Canada). He
took his chances, made contraband profits, and lost. So, off with his head! As
Voltaire said, “It is dangerous to be right when government is wrong.”

There are serious
problems with that argument that will be addressed in the Canadian courts, not
least of which is that Canadians cannot be extradited for something that is not
illegal in Canada, and it is not entirely certain that selling seeds is still
illegal here, because Marc has been allowed to operate for a decade.

However, the situation
of his co-defendants raises rather more fundamental questions for Canadians.

Greg Williams has not
been accused of sending seeds to the US, but has been charged with selling seeds
to an American nark who lied to him. (However, she is somehow to be believed
when she claims that he told her how to get the seeds back to the US.)

In fact, all that Greg
was doing was sitting at a desk in Vancouver. Whatever one may think about what
he was doing, it is vastly different from (allegedly) running ads soliciting US
buyers, collecting money sent from DEAland, and then shipping seeds to the
world’s largest consumer, producer and importer of cannabis.
See

Fantasy and Reality in UN and US Reports on The Global Drug War. The Real
Numbers Are There. DEAland is The World’s Largest Producer, Importer, and
Consumer of Cannabis.

Greg’s case really
raises more questions about Canadian sovereignty (pause for laughter) than the
other two. For years, I have been almost alone in describing the campaign by
Canadian narks against their own countries independence.
See

Voice of America Becomes Latest Organization to Be Corrupted By Cannabis
Prohibition. Canadian Collaborators Lie To Undermine Their Country’s Freedom and
Sovereignty. The Myth of BC Bud.
and links

The case against
Michelle Rainey raises several other important questions.

First, the problems with
the case against Marc and Greg apply to her – in spades. She did not become
involved until after Marc had been in business for years. Moreover, she did not
own the website(s) or the magazine. It was Marc’s business.

There are other
questions and defenses that the lawyers will undoubtedly raise, but there is
another key difference between her situation and the other two. Michelle has
Crohn’s Disease. Cannabis has saved her life. Before discovering that cannabis
could control her disease, she had two major surgeries to remove sections of her
intestines and had to live with the debilitating side-effects of the standard
pharmaceutical treatments, especially steroids.
See
my interview with
her on PotTV.

If Michelle is sent to
the States to face federal charges, she will die a very painful death, because
the Feds simply deny that there is any medical value to “smokedmarijuana.”
(Yes, that is one word.)
See

Leakin’ ‘Bout My G-G-Generation. Leak of AARP Poll On Medical Cannabis Assures
Story Will Have Long Legs. Mainstreaming Real Threat To Prohibitionist Party
Line.

Ironically, if she was accused of murder – or of being a “drug kingpin” – Canada
would insist that the US promise not to kill her, and it would agree. But the US
would never agree to let her have access to medical cannabis – excuse me,
smokedmarijuana – so Canada will have a big problem with her case.

Canada may be content to
let DEAland murder US citizens like Steve Kubby and Steve Tuck, but it
supposedly opposes the death penalty – even for mass murderers. Actually, by
defying court orders to provide a workable medical marijuana program the
government of Canada has also put prohibition ahead of the patients.
See

Health Canada Escalates Its War on the Sick and Dying as the Canadian Cannabis
War Heats Up. Challenges Set In the BC Courts.
and


Hypocrisy and Democracy: Raid on Medical Cannabis
Research Facility Critical of Health Canada’s Schwag Challenges Canada’s Values.
What Will The Politicians Say?

It is just as happy to
kill sick and dying Canadians as DEAland is to kill its people – like Steve
McWilliams.
See

The Murder of Steve McWilliams – An Indictment, Not An Obituary. The Absurdity
of Evil. Condolences from NORML.

Nonetheless, it would be
very unpopular to let the US kill Michelle. So there will be a serious political
problem not only from extraditing her, but even more from the other issues that
her case will raise.

When Michelle first
found out that cannabis would control her disease, there was no medical cannabis
program in Canada. Then, when the program was set up, Health Canada required
that people with Crohn’s Disease get their family doctor and two
specialists to approve of their application, but it did everything possible to
discourage doctors from recommending it. (It can take six months or more even to
get an appointment with a specialist under Canada’s state monopoly on health
care.)
See

Lies Have Consequences. From Prohibitionist Venom to the Harsh Realities of Life
and Death for Patients. Swedish Prohibitionists, Canadian Bureaucracy and
DEAland Medical Murder.

Under court order, HC
has dropped the requirement for two specialists and Michelle is hopeful of
getting her exemption soon, which will complicate her case even more.
See

The Prohibitionist Counterattack in Canada Escalates. Blatant Drive to Create
DEAland Style Police State. Phony Decrim Bill Gets Even Worse.

Inasmuch as it was a
Seattle Grand Jury that issued the indictments, there is even more irony in the
fact that Washington State’s Medical Quality Assurance Commission voted to add
Crohn’s Disease to the list of qualifying illnesses allowed to use medical
marijuana in 1999, years before Health Canada, even though HC was boasting about
how terribly progress Canada was.
See

Washington State Medical Quality Assurance Commission

Votes To Add Crohn’s Disease To Approved Uses For Medical Marijuana

As American constitutional scholar Alexander Bickel
said, “We cannot, by total reliance on law, escape the duty to judge
right and wrong.  …  There are good laws and there are occasionally bad laws,
and it conforms to the highest traditions of a free
society to offer resistance to bad laws, and to disobey them.”

It was her anger that
Canada would not allow her to use the one substance that controlled her disease
that led Michelle to go to work for Marc. And now she has even more reason to be
angry. Having implicitly acknowledged that she was right, her government now
wants to send her to Washington State to be killed where the State (but not the
Feds, of course) recognized that she needed cannabis even while her own
government would not. And this is where Michelle’s case becomes a threat to all
of cannabis prohibition in Canada.

As noted, Health Canada
has repeatedly ignored court rulings that require that it provide a workable
medical marijuana program – or the marijuana prohibition laws are void. That
raises the stakes for the Canadian government.
See

Philippe Lucas’ Analysis of the Consequences of Health Canada’s Failure to Obey
the Ontario Court’s Ruling On Medical Cannabis. Is Cannabis Legal in Canada?

and

Canadian Medical Cannabis Patients Denounce Health Canada’s War On Sick And
Dying As New Survey Shows “MARIJUANA LAWS A TOTAL FAILURE”

Consequently, each of these cases raises questions about cannabis prohibition
that the government of Canada cannot answer, either in court or in the public
discourse. Unlike DEAland, prohibition is already on the public agenda in
Canada. A majority of the major newspapers have endorsed full legalization, not
just “decrim.” The context is so different here, it is unlikely that the DEA
understands the problems associated with a critical press.
See

Front Page Fantasy: The New York Times Pushes Fact Free Journalism Supposedly
About “BC Bud”
and links.

It may be that Greg and
Michelle were simply indicted as hostages to be used as bargaining chips to get
Marc. That is very common in DEAland, where narks indict their target’s friends
and family members – or threaten to seize their property in order to extort
testimony or guilty pleas. It is unlikely that they fully understand the
problems that these cases raise for their accomplices in the Canadian
government. - Abraham Lincoln
said, “The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.” That
was certainly not their intention, but it may be the result.

Ultimately,
the Canadian courts will deal with each of these cases on their own merits. It
is essential that both the cannabis reform movement and the people of Canada
recognize that each case raises points that must be addressed, not simply for
justice for the accused or the sovereignty of Canada, but for the very soul of
the country.

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