Pot Activist To Face Charges In Canada

[SirBlazinBowl]

A private citizen says he is filing charges today against pot activist Marc Emery and two of his associates, partly because that will throw a wrench into U.S. plans to extradite them to face drug charges in that country.
"If he gets charged in Canada that will have major legal consequences for that extradition request," said David McCann, a Vancouver philanthropist and businessman. Mr. McCann said he has hired prominent lawyer Peter Leask in filing three charges of conspiracy under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and the Criminal Code of Canada. Mr. McCann says Canada has been hypocritical in allowing Mr. Emery to sell marijuana seeds and collecting thousands of dollars in taxes from him, and in the City of Vancouver giving him a business licence for his pot paraphernalia store.

"We have let him operate and now we let the Americans walk into our country and charge a man who they will probably lock away for the rest of his natural life in the United States for doing something that the government of Canada condoned. And you know, I got a problem with that as a Canadian." Mr. Emery, along with co-accused, Michelle Rainey-Fenkarek and Gregory Keith Williams, were arrested July 29 after police raided Mr. Emery's store as part of an 18-month investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "He broke the law in Canada, and so if we are going to let him be charged, he should be charged here, where he did the offence," said Mr. McCann, adding he has never met Mr. Emery. Mr. McCann noted that Health Canada has even referred patients, many of them terminally ill, to Mr. Emery for medicinal marijuana.

Kirk Tousaw, one of Mr. Emery's lawyers, said it is possible that the U.S. attempts to extradite his client would be thwarted. Section 47 of the Extradition Act says the justice minister may refuse extradition if he is satisfied that the same conduct is the subject of criminal proceedings in Canada. "If Canada is trying someone for the same crime then certainly one would think it makes sense to keep them here in Canada rather than send them somewhere else," Mr. Tousaw said. Mr. Emery, leader of the Marijuana Party, said he sees Mr. McCann's private prosecution attempt as something positive because he has always felt he should be charged in Canada for his activities.

"His intent is to stop the extradition and have me charged under Canadian law in a Canadian courtroom," Mr. Emery said. "I'd much rather be in front of a Canadian jury in a Canadian court. It'd probably still keep me out of the seed business for the rest of my life, alas, but it certainly would lay people's fears of a sovereignty intrusion to rest." Mr. Emery said all Canadians will be complicit if the United States succeeds in extraditing him to face drug charges because he has been doing it for years without anyone raising a fuss. He said he attended a public forum called the Cannabis Conundrum at the Vancouver Public Library on Wednesday, where a former police officer said the Crown refused to lay charges against him after his department conducted an investigation 2 1/2 years ago. Mr. Emery's extradition hearing continues Oct. 21. His supporters have requested that Justice Minister Irwin Cotler step in, but he has said the matter is now before the courts.

Newshawk: SirBlazinBowl - [url]420Times.com[url]
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2005, The Globe and Mail Company
Contact: letters@globeandmail.ca
Website:http://www.globeandmail.ca/
Author: Camille Bains

[Hash]

Brilliant, simply brilliant

[Pinch]

I will never again be sarcastic toward Canada or Canadians..

I promise!