D.E.A. and U.S. Finally Get Their Man

A very well written article which exposes the long arm of the American judicial system and the obvious fallacies of the Drug War. The DEA finally got their man and I am sure it assists someone's political agenda. Enjoy and please share your thoughts.


By Rodney Venis of PrinceGeorgeCitizen.com

Whatever you may think of the United States' persecution of marijuana loudmouth Marc Emery, try to bear in mind it's about more than just pot.

Admittedly, it's pretty hard to separate that stem from those leaves when it comes to Emery, B.C.'s self-anointed Prince of Pot. He revels in the U.S. government's claims he's responsible for an estimated 1.1 million pounds of marijuana grown illegally in the states and brags to the CBC that he's responsible for more of the pot being smoked on earth than anyone else but God. He's gotten high on the steps of police stations, he's staged rallies, he founded the Marijuana Party, started the magazine Cannabis Culture and, of course, set up a marijuana seed-selling service that ended up doing $15 million worth of business in Canada and the U.S.

Nevertheless, the key p-word here isn't pot, but persecution. Emery persecuted two governments -- in the second sense of the word, annoying persistence -- through his life-long quest to produce so much marijuana and so much public pressure the police would be overwhelmed and forced to make it legal across North America. In turn, the U.S. persecuted Emery -- in the first sense of word, by making him suffer for beliefs.

Now, that's not to say this country should blindly give shelter and support to Emery, regardless of what he's done. But what's galling in this is the disproportion of the U.S. response and Canada's wholesale acquiescence.

Take away all the words -- the War on Drugs, decriminalization, the children, oh, the children -- and concentrate on the acts. Emery sold the seeds of a plant that, the rights and wrongs of it aside, is neither as dangerous nor as addictive as, say, over-the-counter codeine-laced cough syrup or a bottle of wine. He's just noisy about it -- burdened with an ego one reporter says "must make up 40 per cent of his body weight," Emery thinks he's Gandhi in a nice suit carrying a full bong on a mission to "overgrow" the United States through peaceful political means.

He succeeded and the DEA, embarassed by Emery's blaring appearances on CNN, Rolling Stone and the Wall Street Journal, slurred him by saying he's worse than the murderers and thugs of the Hells Angels and Triads. It forced the Vancouver police to interfere in his place of business, livelihood and political activism. It then attempted to bleed him financially by setting in motion the complex legal mechanism of extradition.

At the root of the DEA charges was a blatant act of extortion: voluntarily accept exile from your country and a lifetime of imprisonment in the U.S. or two of your closest friends will share the same fate. The reason was political -- even then DEA boss Karen Tandy bragged about it, calling his arrest in a now notorious press release: "a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also the marijuana legalization movement . . . Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on."

Basically, the DEA wanted to shut up a Canadian because it didn't like what he was saying and the causes he supported -- and Ottawa helped stick a fist in his mouth by supporting the whole
thing.

That's the problem and the outrage. This country chose the interests of a foreign power over protecting its citizens not because it was right, but because it was more convenient. It's a frightening, loathsome truth that's played out too many times to be denied, from Maher Arar to Afghanistan to the Avro Arrow.

Basically, if it's a choice between you and mildly offending the U.S., don't count on Canada. That's unacceptable.

In the end, with him and his two friends facing extradition, a deal was reached last month: his friends should avoid jail, Emery will serve five years in Canada and the DEA gets a conviction against a lone stoner they've deluded and lied themselves into thinking is one of the 46 most wanted criminals on earth

But at least he's still here -- and at least there's one person who isn't afraid to be Canadian, no matter what the U.S. says. (Click here to subscribe to my feed!)

The Only Place in America You can Legally Try to Give a Cop in Your Doorway a Contact High

Link to article's origin.

Police can't enter a home without a warrant just because they see someone inside smoking marijuana, a state appeals court ruled Friday.

In overturning a Pacifica man's conviction, the state Court of Appeal in San Francisco said officers may enter someone's home to preserve evidence of a crime - but only if the crime is punishable by jail or prison.

Under a 1975 California law, the court noted, possession of less than an ounce of marijuana is a misdemeanor carrying a fine of as much as $100, with no jail time even for a repeat offense. That means police who see someone smoking can enter only if they have the resident's permission or a warrant from a judge, the court said.

The case dated from March 2005, when Pacifica officers came to an apartment where loud noises had been reported, smelled marijuana as they approached, and looked through an opening in the window blinds to see someone smoking what appeared to be a marijuana cigarette among a group of people.

Over the objections of John Hua, who lived at the apartment, police entered and found two marijuana cigarettes in the living room, 46 marijuana plants in a bedroom and an illegal cane sword on a bookshelf, the court said. After a San Mateo County judge upheld the search, Hua pleaded no contest to cultivating marijuana and possession of the cane sword and served a 60-day jail sentence, his lawyer said.

In defense of the search, prosecutors argued that police had reason to believe there was more than an ounce of marijuana elsewhere in the apartment - enough to subject Hua to a possible one-year jail sentence - and that Hua or others might be committing felonies by handing marijuana cigarettes to each other.

The court said the first argument was based on "mere conjecture" and the second was a misinterpretation of the law, which prescribes the same maximum $100 fine for giving away a marijuana cigarette as for smoking it. Justice Mark Simons wrote the 3-0 ruling.

The court recognized that "California's law treats possession of marijuana as the least serious crime," said Hua's lawyer, Gordon Brownell.

As West Coast coordinator for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Brownell recalled, he drafted the 1975 marijuana law for then-state Sen. George Moscone, the San Francisco Democrat who later became the city's mayor and was assassinated in 1978. The law was signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown, now the state attorney general and head of the office arguing to uphold Hua's conviction.

Deputy Attorney General Ronald Niver said he would recommend appealing the ruling to the state Supreme Court.

"It's difficult to accept the proposition that if you see marijuana in one room, you cannot draw the inference that there's marijuana in another room," he said. "It's like saying that if you see the streets are wet, you can't infer that it's raining." (Click here to subscribe to my feed!)

History Channel Special on Drug War Hits Home. A Must See for Squares!

In America, more than half a million people a year are arrested for some form of marijuana possession. Half of the people currently in the federal prison system are there for some form of drug possession. This striking trend, a trend whose origins we can attribute to President Nixon's overzealous war on drugs campaign, has slowly began to gain recognition as an economically draining and futile effort.

With eleven states having passed some form of legislation to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, it is now up to the federal government to recognize this plentiful natural resource's multitude of societal applications. The idea of marijuana being more dangerous than alcohol is a complete farce. Alcohol being legal while marijuana is illegal is pure hypocrisy. Much of marijuana's mystique can be attributed to the movie Reefer Madness and a murderer named Victor Licata. Victor, while supposedly stoned, dismembered his entire family with an ax as they slept. Exactly the first activity that comes to mind when I have my morning bake.

This event occurred in 1933 and the first Commissioner of the Narcotics Bureau, Harry Jacob Anslinger, used the story as a springboard for his personal assault on recreational drugs. Victor Licata had reported having a terrible dream in which people were trying to "hack off" his arms. It would later be discovered that Victor was schizophrenic and that marijuana had no contribution to his acts. Anslinger failed to report this to Congress however. Imagine that.

This information is available all over the internet and more people, non-smokers especially, need to be informed. Our tax-dollars are being wasted against more than one fictitious threat. Billions of dollars a year could be saved simply by decriminalizing marijuana. Legalize it, tax it if you have to, but just quit demonizing its use. Fundamental America is drowning in its own ignorance and it wont be long before they too can make this realization: Pot-heads don't belong in prison while child-molesters and rapists run rampant. The fact that people who commit sex-crimes are required by law to register is a testament to their inhumanity, yet we turn them away from prisons due to overcrowding, sentencing them to probation instead.

By exonerating stoners and decriminalizing marijuana, America would be simultaneously opening the possibility to make money off of an already well established consumer base, while removing a huge tax burden from both federal and state governments, and freeing space our prison system desperately needs to lock away those who truly are a threat to society's innocents. I don't know about you, but I'm more worried about my son being snatched from his bus stop than being offered a joint. (Click here to subscribe to my feed!)