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EMERY IN TROUBLE by Ted smith
By Hempology | November 6, 2005
On July 29 Marc Emery was arrested at a rally in Halifax while the B.C. Marijuana Party store was being raided in Vancouver. Greg ‘Marijuana Man’ Williams and Michelle Rainey were arrested in Vancouver for conspiring to distribute marijuana seeds, money laundering and conspiring to cultivate cannabis for working with Emery’s seed business which sells about $3 million a year to mostly American customers. Emery faces the same charges, but because he is the leader and the main target of the DEA he is likely to face a stiffer sentence upon conviction.
The US Drug Enforcement Agency has chosen 47 different illegal drug organizations around the world to focus upon, and Emery’s seed business, magazine and web-page is the only group in Canada that the DEA is trying to shut down. Ironically, though he has been openly doing business in Canada, even paying taxes, he does not face charges in tin’s country for the very same offenses that the US is proceeding to prosecute him for. The extradition process could take years but no one knows for sure because some of the laws being used have never been heard of before. Apparently in 1990 the Canadian government signed a treaty of cooperation with the US in the war on drug and no one has been arrested before using this piece of legislation. While there is little hope that the courts will stop the extradition, there will be an opportunity to the Federal Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler, to halt the process and let the trio free.
However, Marc has not done himself any good by stating in the past that police officers and the Minister of Justice himself are Nazis or no better than Nazi collaborators. Though Emery has somewhat retracted these statements, the damage has been done, and because he and liis group have a habit of name calling and insults, many bridges are burned. In the past Marc gave the club $2,000 when the police raids were occurring, though we always considered it a loan and even repaid $100 at a Cannabis Convention he came to in 2002. So when he was trying to bail himself out we decided to repay another $1,000, though when I got there he had just been set free on bail so 1 was able to give the check to him personally. Upon their request we wrote the check directly to his lawyer, John Conroy. Legal bills for Marc and company could easily be over $100,000 depending upon how long the process takes.
Topics: CD-7th, Sum/Fall 2005 | Comments Off
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