Drug War Chronicle, Issue #602 -(urls + editioral)- 10/2/09 - More on the Emory case!

Drug War Chronicle, Issue #602 -- 10/2/09
Phillip S. Smith, Editor, psmith@drcnet.org
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/602

A Publication of Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
David Borden, Executive Director, borden@drcnet.org
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"

PLEASE SUPPORT THIS NEWSLETTER WITH A GENEROUS DONATION:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/changingminds09/donate

Table of Contents:

1. FEATURE: MARC EMERY JAILED IN CANADA PENDING EXTRADITION TO
US
Canada's "Prince of Pot" is in jail in Vancouver, awaiting
extradition to the US to accept a five-year plea bargain for
selling marijuana seeds to US customers. But if anyone thinks
that is going to shut up Emery and his supporters, they should
think again.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/602/marc_emery_jailed_for_extradition

2. FEATURE: NORML ANNUAL CONFERENCE MEETS IN ATMOSPHERE OF HOPE,
DETERMINATION, AND EXHILARATION
Hundreds of people came to San Francisco last weekend for the
annual NORML conference. The organizers can be forgiven if it
seemed a bit California-centric because so much related to
marijuana policy is occurring in the Golden State. With the
clamor for marijuana reform gaining decibels by the day, the
atmosphere was headier than ever.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/602/norml_conference_san_francisco_2009

3. LATIN AMERICA: MEXICO DRUG WAR UPDATE
Mexico's foreign minister said this week that the high death
toll in his country's drug war was a sign his government's
policy was correct. If that's the case, he just got more
confirmation, as the body count continues to rise.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/602/mexico_drug_war_update

4. FEEDBACK: DO YOU READ DRUG WAR CHRONICLE?
Do you read Drug War Chronicle? If so, we need your feedback to
evaluate our work and make the case for Drug War Chronicle to
funders. We need donations too.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/602/do_you_read_drug_war_chronicle

5. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
We've got two weeks worth of corrupt cops again: dope-peddling
cops, dope-stealing cops, cops who rip off motorists, cops who
rip off their departments, cops who take bribes, cops who squeal
to dealers.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/602/police_drug_corruption

6. MARIJUANA: BOSTON FREEDOM RALLY DRAWS 30,000 -- NO ARRESTS,
SOME TICKETS, IN WAKE OF STATE DECRIM VOTE
We would be remiss if we didn't mention Boston's annual Freedom
Rally, the first since Massachusetts voters passed a state
decrim law.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/602/boston_freedom_rally

7. MARIJUANA: DAILY 4:20 PROTESTS SPARK SATURDAY ARREST IN
KEENE, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Libertarian Free Staters are staging daily pot-smoking civil
disobedience protests in Keene, New Hampshire, and this week,
the protests spread to Manchester.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/602/keene_new_hampshire_marijuana_civil_disobedience_p
rotest

8. LAW ENFORCEMENT: PATRIOT ACT "SNEAK AND PEEK" SEARCHES
TARGETED DRUG OFFENDERS, NOT TERRORISTS
The Bush administration warned Congress and the public that we
had to allow federal agents to do surreptitious "sneak and peek"
searches in order to fight terrorism. Funny how that worked out.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/602/patriot_act_sneak_peek_drug_searches

9. HARM REDUCTION: DRUG-RELATED DEATHS ROSE DRAMATICALLY IN
RECENT YEARS, CDC SAYS
Nearly 40,000 died of drug-related causes in 2006, the vast
majority of them overdoses. Dying on drugs is rapidly gaining on
dying in car wrecks as America's leading accidental cause of
death -- a grim demonstration of the failure of prohibition.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/602/drug_related_deaths_cdc

10. PUBLIC HEALTH: FEDS FINALLY ISSUE WARNING ON TAINTED COCAINE
More than a year after the DEA quietly reported that a
veterinary anti-parasitic agent was showing up in cocaine, and
after at least two US deaths linked to the tainted drug, federal
public health officials have finally issued an alert warning
doctors, treatment centers, and public health professionals of
the menace.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/602/feds_issue_warning_levamisole_tainted_cocaine

11. LAW ENFORCEMENT: DRUG COURT PROGRAM NEEDS SERIOUS REFORMS,
DEFENSE ATTORNEYS SAY
It's been 20 years since Janet Reno established the first drug
court in Miami. Now, there are more than 2,100 of them, but the
nation's leading criminal defense attorneys' group says they are
distorting justice and need serious reforms.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/602/nacdl_drug_court_report

12. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of
years past.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/602/drug_war_history

13. ANNOUNCEMENT: THE 2009 INTERNATIONAL DRUG POLICY REFORM
CONFERENCE, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO, NOVEMBER 12-14
Every two years drug policy reformers from across the United
States and around the world come to the International Drug
Policy Reform Conference to listen, learn, network and
strategize together for change. This year the conference is in
Albuquerque, in November, and StoptheDrugWar.org is a partner.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/602/2009_international_drug_policy_reform_conference_a
lbuquerque_new_mexico

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today!)

===============

1. Feature: Marc Emery Jailed in Canada Pending Extradition to
US
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/602/marc_emery_jailed_for_extradition

Canadian "Prince of Pot" Marc Emery turned himself in to
Canadian authorities Monday and is in custody in Vancouver
pending extradition to the United States. The Canadian Justice
Minister is expected to sign extradition papers within a matter
of weeks, and then Emery will be driven to the border, handed
over to US authorities, shackled, and sent to a federal
detention center in the Seattle area. Shortly after that, Emery
is set to plead guilty to a single count of marijuana
distribution, with an expected sentence of five years in a US
federal prison.

Emery and two employees of his cannabis seed selling business,
Greg Rainey and Michelle Williams, were arrested in July 2005 by
Canadian police honoring a US arrest warrant charging the trio
with marijuana distribution and conspiracy for selling seeds to
customers in the US. They faced decades or even life in prison
under draconian US federal marijuana laws. Earlier this year,
Rainey and Williams accepted a plea bargain in which they
pleaded guilty to a single count and were sentenced to probation
in Canada.

With his employees' legal situation resolved, Emery then cut his
own deal. But that doesn't mean he's changed his ways. At a
press conference outside the BC Supreme Court in Vancouver
Monday just before he turned himself in, Emery was in typical
"Prince of Pot" form.

"I'm disappointed in my government, but very proud of my
'Overgrow the Government' revolution," Emery told supporters.
"This terrible, insidious prohibition has been propped up by
Liberal and Conservative governments for 45 years. It's a public
policy with no public benefit, and it has caused so much misery,
heartbreak, and torment for so many Canadians."

Emery urged supporters to lobby the Canadian Justice Ministry to
not sign his extradition order -- something that is admittedly
unlikely -- or, barring that, to make the government pay at the
polls in the next election. "And if they do sign they must be
punished in the next election," he said.

In the event that he is imprisoned in the US, Emery is urging
supporters to demand that he be returned to Canada to serve his
sentence. "I would be out on the streets in a year from now if I
am transferred back to Canada as a first-time nonviolent
offender in the Canadian system," he told the crowd.

Emery showed no remorse -- in fact, quite the opposite. "I'm
proud of everything I've done; I only regret that I wasn't able
to do more," Emery continued. "I did sell those seeds so people
would overgrow the government, and I gave away $4 million that
kick-started a worldwide movement. I'm the 'Prince of Pot' for a
good reason. And there is no victim here; there are no dead
people in my revolution."

"Plant the seeds of freedom. Overgrow the government, everyone,"
Emery yelled as he was led away by sheriffs.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, Emery carved out a niche for himself
as a cannabis entrepreneur and legalization advocate in
Vancouver, but his activism extends back to his native Ontario,
where, as a libertarian bookseller, he brought cases against
Canadian censorship laws that then blocked magazines such as
High Times from being sold in the country. After moving to
Vancouver, Emery set up the Cannabis Culture shop, Cannabis
Culture magazine, and the Marc Emery Seed Company.

A constant gadfly to law enforcement and drug warrior
politicians on both sides of the border, Emery's mouth, his
money, and his commitment to the cause enabled him to become one
of the most well-known voices worldwide for ending pot
prohibition. Emery founded the BC Marijuana Party and
crisscrossed Canada to spread the word about "Overgrowing the
Government," and profits from his seed sales help fund drug
reform groups and activists in both Canada and the US.

That didn't win him any friends with the DEA or US federal
prosecutors, who indicted him on marijuana distribution charges
after busting some American growers who had obtained their seeds
from him. Then DEA head Karen Tandy crowed over his arrest,
describing it as a blow to the legalization movement, but then
quickly backtracked in the face of accusations that his arrest
was politically motivated.

While Emery is behind bars awaiting extradition to the US, his
friends and supporters are mobilizing. Their immediate
objectives are three-fold: to urge the Justice Minister to
refuse to sign the extradition papers, to urge the US sentencing
judge to give him a short or non-custodial sentence, and, in the
event he is sentenced to prison time in the US, to urge the
Canadian Public Safety Minister to approve his transfer to a
Canadian prison.

To that end, supporters have set up a web site, No Extradition
(http://www.NoExtradition.net), with instructions on how to
contact the relevant authorities. They are also planning vigils
at Emery's current BC jail digs and a demonstration in Seattle
when he arrives there for sentencing.

"We're planning it right this second," Seattle Hempfest
(http://www.hempfest.org) executive director Vivian McPeak said
Thursday. "It's kind of difficult without having a date certain,
but we're trying to get it so we're ready to go when it happens.
There will probably be a rally at the federal courthouse," he
added, noting that protest information would be posted on the
Hempfest web site after tomorrow.

"This is terrible," said Jeremiah Vandemeer, an editor at
Emery's Cannabis Culture (http://www.cannabisculture.com)
magazine, which recently switched from print to an all online
format. "It is an affront to Canadian sovereignty that Marc will
be handed over to the US government and its prison system. If he
committed any crime, he should have been prosecuted here in
Canada."

In fact, Emery has been prosecuted in Canada for his seed sales,
back in 1998. In that case, he was fined $2,000, with not a day
of jail time. Since then, the Canadian government had been happy
to ignore his seed sales and accept his tax payments from his
seed business.

"It's terrible to see my friend and boss put behind bars for
something in which there are no victims," said Vandemeer. "It's
difficult, but we're getting through it, and we all have that
extra resolve to work that much harder to get him back home."

Emery's young wife, Jodie, will be playing a key role, both in
keeping Cannabis Culture and the Cannabis Culture Shop going and
in waging the campaign to win his release. "Our campaign is
about Free Marc Emery, but this is really about freeing
everybody in prison for cannabis," she said Wednesday.

"There is a lot of pressure up here, and different political
actors are starting to voice their support," she said. "There is
all sorts of activism, and it's just starting. We will start
holding vigils outside his prison beginning Saturday and going
on every day after that. We're having postcards made today that
people can send to flood the ministers with mail. I'm hearing
that the Minister of Justice's office is being flooded with
phone calls, and people are pledging that they will call every
day."

But while Jodie Emery the cannabis activist is planning the
campaign, Jodie Emery the figuratively widowed wife is feeling
the pain. "It's horribly rough," she said. "During the day, I
can keep busy. It's only when I get home and I'm alone and I
realize that he's gone that it really hits me. I cry a lot," she
confessed. "Even if you think Marc is a loudmouth or got what
was coming to him, think of what it does to the people who love
him."

Sensitized by her experiences, Jodie Emery is broadening her
activism. "This has motivated me to start speaking up for the
families of prisoners," she said. "There are hundreds of
thousands of nonviolent drug offenders in prison right now,
nameless and faceless except to their loved ones. I want to
speak up for all the drug war widows. We want to put faces and
names to the people suffering endlessly year after year."

The historical record will show that Marc and Jodie Emery know
how to wage a campaign of agitation. Now, the question is
whether they can use those skills to raise awareness not just of
the injustice done to Emery, but to all the rest of the drug war
incarcerated.

================ ...

___________________

It's time to correct the mistake:
truth:the Anti-drugwar
<http://www.briancbennett.com>

Cops say legalize drugs--find out why:
<http://www.leap.cc>

Stoners are people too:
<http://www.cannabisconsumers.org>
___________________

later
bliss -- Cacoa Powered... (at sfo dot com)

--
bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of cacoa that the thoughts acquire speed,
the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
--from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.

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