Sentence reeks of injustice and mocks our sovereignty
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister
House of Commons
Ottawa ON
Canada
October 7, 2009
Dear Prime Minister Harper:
Re: "Marc Emery's sentence reeks of injustice and mocks our sovereignty"
(IAN MULGREW, VANCOUVER SUN COLUMNIST SEPTEMBER 27, 2009)
To allow the United States to extradite, prosecute and imprison Canadian citizens for crimes the Canadian Federal government either encouraged [Health Canada..."recommended medical marijuana patients buy their seeds from his (Emory's) company"] or profited by [From 1998 until his arrest, Emery "paid provincial and federal taxes" as a "marijuana seed vendor" totalling nearly $600,000], is outrageous by any standard of human rights and Canadian justice.
Please tell the Americans to flog their ignorance and their prejudices somewhere else.
I cannot and will not support any government or political party that would surrender our sovereignty to a foreign government as you and your government has done in the case of Marc Emory.
What your Conservative government has done to Mark Emory for the flimsiest of reasons it is obvious you will allow to be done to all of us.
No doubt I will end up on your subversive version of the United States Patriot Act - a nasty piece of fascism one would hardly expect from governments who pride themselves on standing up for and defending democracy, freedom and human rights!
John A. MacDonald must be spinning in his grave along with many, many other real Canadians of our historical past and those who are now aware of your duplicitous actions.
Yours truly,
Croft Woodruff PhD (Honoris Causa)
Coquitlam BC V3B 7H8
604 552 5663
Cc:
The Honourable Robert Douglas Nicholson, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
The Honourable Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Minister of National Revenue
The Honurable Jim Flaherty , Minister of Finance
The Honourable Leona Aglukkaq - Minister of Health
The Honourable James Moore MP (Port Moody--Westwood--Port Coquitlam (British Columbia)
The Honourable Michael Ignatieff, Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition
Marc Emery's sentence reeks of injustice and mocks our sovereignty
BY IAN MULGREW, VANCOUVER SUN COLUMNIST SEPTEMBER 27, 2009
After two decades as Canada's Prince of Pot, Marc Emery will surrender himself today in B.C. Supreme Court and become the country's first Marijuana Martyr.
Emery will begin serving what could be as long as five years behind bars as Uncle Sam's prisoner for a crime that in Canada would have earned him at most a month in the local hoosegow.
It is a legal tragedy that in my opinion marks the capitulation of our sovereignty and underscores the hypocrisy around cannabis.
Emery hasn't even visited America but he was arrested in July 2005 at the request of a Republican administration that abhorred his politics.
He is being handed over to a foreign government for an activity we are loath to prosecute because we don't think selling seeds is a major problem.
There are at least a score of seed-sellers downtown and many, many more such retail outlets across the country.
In the days ahead, once the federal justice minister signs the extradition papers, Emery will be frog-marched south to Seattle where his plea bargain will be rubber-stamped and he will be sent to a U.S. penitentiary.
For comparison, consider that the B.C. Court of Appeal last year said a one-month jail sentence plus probation was appropriate punishment for drug and money-laundering offences of this ilk.
The last time Emery was convicted in Canada of selling pot seeds, back in 1998, he was given a $2,000 fine.
In July, his co-accused Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams were given two years probation for conspiracy to manufacture marijuana.
They were indicted along with Emery for their role in what the authorities described as a
$3-million-a-year business.
Rainey, 38, worked for Emery from 1998 to 2005, helping him operate the B.C. Marijuana Party and his mail-order business.
The 54-year-old Williams took phone orders.
Emery flouted the law for more than a decade and every year he sent his seed catalogue to politicians of every stripe. He ran in federal, provincial and civic elections promoting his pro-cannabis platform.
He championed legal marijuana at parliamentary hearings, on national television, at celebrity conferences, in his own magazine, Cannabis Culture, and on his own Internet channel, Pot TV.
Health Canada even recommended medical marijuana patients buy their seeds from his company.
From 1998 until his arrest, Emery even paid provincial and federal taxes as a "marijuana seed vendor" totalling nearly $600,000.
He was targeted because of his success, targeted as surely as pot comic Tommy Chong — who spent nearly a year in U.S. jail because his son ran a company selling glass pipes.
Emery challenged a law he disagrees with using exactly the non-violent, democratic processes we urge our children to embrace and of which we are so proud.
"The same seeds I sold are being sold right in America," Emery complained. "The people in California are doing it the same way I did so there's a terrible hypocrisy at work here."
He's right.
Emery recently wrapped up a 30-city "farewell tour" of speaking engagements across Canada.
And, he's banking on the transfer agreement that allows Canadians convicted and jailed in America to serve their time here and take advantage of our very liberal early-release laws.
If that happened, he could be out within a few years. But Ottawa has regularly rejected drug offenders for the program and I doubt Emery will find any sympathy.
I suspect he's likely to moulder in a violent, overcrowded U.S. jail for probably his full five-year sentence.
"I'm going to do more time than many violent, repeat offenders," he noted.
"There isn't a single victim in my case, no one who can stand up and say, 'I was hurt by Marc Emery.' No one."
He's right again.
Emery is facing more jail time than corporate criminals who defraud widows and orphans and longer incarceration than violent offenders who leave their victims dead or in wheelchairs.
Whatever else you may think of him — and I know he rankles many — what is happening to him today mocks our independence and our ideal of justice.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
--
Croft Woodruff PhD (Honoris Causa)MEMBRE HONORAIRE COLLÈGE DES NATUROPATHES DU QUÉBEC
“For the past fifty years I have been demonstrating that the use of natural nutritional treatment is and must be the most effective form of medicine and that when it is not usedand the profession depends soley on the use of toxic drugs the results are abysmal."
~Dr. Abram Hoffer MD PHD FRCP(C)
"It should be obvious that action without wisdom, without clear awareness of the world as it really is, can never improve anything." ~ Theodore Roszak
"Woe to the man who tries to remain objective and to maintain a wide perspective: every one will label him as an enemy." ~ Paul Tournier
"If the people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson--
Croft Woodruff PhD (Honoris Causa)MEMBRE HONORAIRE COLLÈGE DES NATUROPATHES DU QUÉBEC
“For the past fifty years I have been demonstrating that the use of natural nutritional treatment is and must be the most effective form of medicine and that when it is not usedand the profession depends soley on the use of toxic drugs the results are abysmal."
~Dr. Abram Hoffer MD PHD FRCP(C)
"It should be obvious that action without wisdom, without clear awareness of the world as it really is, can never improve anything." ~ Theodore Roszak
"Woe to the man who tries to remain objective and to maintain a wide perspective: every one will label him as an enemy." ~ Paul Tournier
"If the people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson--
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