Pot
You are currently browsing the articles from Jay Currie matching the category Pot.
Dawg took the obvious and correct shot at Margaret Wente on drug policy and Dan Gardner posted a comment to correct a minor error. I went to his website and found this dead smart article:
Seen from this perspective, needle exchanges and safe injection sites are relatively minor attempts to reduce a harm created by prohibition.
But people don’t see it from that perspective because all they hear about is harm reduction. The news stories. The research. The politics. The debates. The noise about harm reduction is deafening. It dominates public discussion of drug policy.
As a result, perception is totally out of line with reality. Most Canadians, I suspect, would assume Margaret Wente is right in calling harm reduction “the philosophy that has come to dominate drug policy.” But to say that harm reduction dominates drug policy is to focus on the housefly while ignoring the elephant on whose rump it sits. Dan Gardner, Ottawa Citizen
The headline on the Wente piece is “Legalization in disguise”. Some chance. As Gardner points out the safe injection sites are the fly on the elephant of drug prohibition. Do they work? Do they reduce harm? Perhaps. But compared to the harm inflicted needlessly by the current drug laws in Canada the entire concept of safe injection sites is trivial.
I had business in downtown Victoria today and it took me down Pandora Street. There are handy receptacles for “used sharps” which is a good thing as I sure as Hell don’t want one sticking in my foot or my children’s. There were a lot of people who were clearly “on something”. And there were street workers out checking to see how the people they know were doing.
Gardner advocates an end to the drug prohibition, so do I; but that end has to be managed very carefully lest it turn out like the influx of Residential Schools settlements or resource money on Indian Reserves.
Part of that management may well be the creation of a quasi-criminal space where, for their own benefit, substance addicts can be taken off the street for a period of time. And, yes, this is exactly opposite to my libertarian views and to my skepticism about the State’s ability to do good; but the tragic fact is that there are concentrations of two or three thousand people in various cities in Canada for whom full legalization of drugs with the attendant 95% (or 70% or whatever) drop in price would be fatal.
Drug prohibition must end and end soon; but we will have to deal with the consequences of 50 years of this misguided policy. They are people and they are citizens - and they might just be your brother or your child.
Update: Excellent rebutal of Wente from Rebecca Jesserman in today’s Globe.
Written by jay on July 21st, 2008 with 3 comments.
Read more articles on Canadian Politics and Pot and culture.
It is pretty clear that Harper and the CPC have written off the more libertarian end of the conservative interest.
Mandatory minimum sentences are a lovely way to send the message that the CPC is tough on drugs. Rather like the GST, the fact that qualified experts actually think mandatory minimums are, at best ineffectual, at worst counter-productive in that, with hard cases crowns and judges will be inclined not to charge or not to convict if they know that there is a mandatory minimum in place, is not going to stop the Tories.
It is no surprise that the CPC is also backing away from the last twenty years of scholarship and experience with respect to marijuana legalization. It seems pretty clear that the Tories want te establish brand differentiation early and this position will certainly ensure that on this issue the Tories have left the building.
Politically it is difficult to see how these positions are going to actually win any votes; but it is a certainty that these fairly simplistic postures will energize the base in the Rovian sense. No bad thing if you are trying to avoid the 50 seat scenario; hopeless if you are looking to pass the Liberals.
Written by jay on December 4th, 2005 with 6 comments.
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Unlike most politicians, David Cameron knows something about the global drugs industry. When he served on the Home Affairs Select Committee in 2002, he conducted a year-long investigation into it, taking more than 50 hours of evidence and long testimonies from the world’s experts. He went in very sceptical of the idea of legalisation: aren’t only crazy pro-heroin hippies in favour of ending prohibition? But as the evidence piled up, the committee was honest enough to admit that - in Cameron’s words - “about the only thing all our witnesses agreed on was that the Government’s strategy was a failure and prohibition of drugs over many decades had not worked”. They explained the truth: criminalisation does not kill the drugs industry. It simply hands it over to armed criminal gangs who flood the country with guns, terrorise their neighbourhoods, and drain resources that would be better spent helping and treating addicts.
Cameron found the prohibitionist rhetoric - stamp, stamp, stamp it out - increasingly ludicrous and self-defeating. So he has begun to advocate the only serious alternative: legalisation at the international level through the UN.
johannhari via andrew sullivan
The Ambler and I were on a long walk yesterday afternoon and discussing our general sense of disillusionment - for entirely different reasons I hasten to add - with the CPC. One of the things which is annoying is how very little vision the Tories seem to have. They have fallen into the trap of letting the Liberal set the agenda and then trying to gain votes with little second order variations on the Liberal theme.
The Tories in England seem to be made of sterner stuff as David Cameron proves with his clear eyed look at the massive defeat which is the “War on Drugs”. The old golfing rule, “Always change a losing game, never change a winning one.” seems to apply. Not even the most zealous DEA official can keep a straight face if asked if the war on Drugs is being won. They know that drug use in the US and the rest of the world is increasing, that the price of drugs is falling and that all their efforts are doing is tossing poor, often black, kids in jail and blighting the lives of the middle class dope fiends who are unlucky enough to get caught.
It is open to the CPC to actually embrace legalization and harm reduction rather than the silliness of Canada’s half hearted WOD. Will they? Of course not. that would be a position and the one thing the CPC is truly scared of is taking a position.
The Ambler thinks the Liberals will win a majority in the next election. So, sadly, do I.
Written by jay on September 17th, 2005 with 7 comments.
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These are pictures of the raid on Marc Emery’s seed operation in Vancouver. So here’s the question: are those Vancouver undercover cops trying to protect their identies (ugly, but fairly standard operating proceedure) or are they DEA guys operating in Canada??
It is impossible to tell; but a CPC on the ball and the NDP for sure should be asking the Minister of Justice who these masked men were and they should demand proof that these were not DEA agents operating in Canada.
Written by jay on August 22nd, 2005 with 3 comments.
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While I spent the day moving and trying to get KMG back online L’affair Colbert took many a dizzying twist and turn.
A miracle occured.
First Colbert posted a long rebuttal of my email in which he states:
So what happened to this comment, I went through my spam filter to see if it was caught there but besides the countless manhood enlargement products and on-line gaming ads no “rather insulting” comments.
As I was away from my computer for most of the day, it being my youngest first birthday I know I did not delete it. A quick check with my security guy to look at the records shows no posting activity beyond what appears on the site of held in the spam blocker.
colbert
And then in his comments Colbert comes up with this:
When a comment is posted to my site I instantly get a copy sent to my blackberry so that when I am away from my desk I can see what people are saying. In the last couple of days I have not received any notification of a comment left here by Mr. Currie and it is not in the spam list so I am left with no other option but to believe that he has made this story up.
colbert
Meaghan Walker-Williams beats the poor man about the head and shoulders with, er, logic and eyewitness testimony. Ian Scott nails him on the tech end. Kate McMillan suggested that it was just spiffy to delete whatever comments you want.
With the arrival of the screen shot from Andrew Anderson’s invaluable CanConv, Colbert had to go to plan B.
I’m not disputing that Jay may have posted something to his blog. I’m not even suggesting that a few people may have seen it on his site before it was deleted by someone with administrator privileges.
colbert
Meaghan wallops the poor man pointing out that he had earlier claimed that with respect to the substance of my post, namely my comment on his blog, “I am left with no other option but to believe that he has made this story up.” op. cit. supra. Kate is surprisingly silent. Ian Scott was being “spam blocked” but posted to his own blog:
So either he is a liar, or an idiot, or his “security guy” is totally incompetent and an idiot. One comment he could miss? Perhaps. Two or three?
In fact, I’ve just tried posting a comment on Colbert’s blog a few minutes ago – the same “spam tag” message, and then tried resending it and got the “Oops” message.
So that indeed is evidence that his software DOES have a record of the comments. Therefore, Colbert is outright lying or is incompetent at figuring the difference between a spam comment about spam and a comment about inherent rights.
My guess is that Colbert is blocking some folks and is using his “spam filter” to prevent some people’s comments from going live before he has a time to “vet” them.
So fire away with your libel allegations against me, Colbert. I’ve got the screenshots, and I’ll post them on my blog as soon as I’m done my coffee.
ianism
Better still, Ian has lock down evidence that Colbert’s “spam filter” was extra clever,
In fact, if you go and look at this post, you will notice that Les McKenzie has a comment in which he says, “Had you not been such a shithead, Ian, I might apologize for misreading your quote…”
Now, Mr. McKenzie was directly replying to my one of my comments on Colbert’s blog. You’ll notice that both of my comments have been deleted. Yet McKenzie’s remains… do you see anyone else named “Ian” above his? Colbert’s actions make McKenzie look like a blooming idiot.. responding to some guy named “Ian” on TWO separate occassions on Colbert’s blog – yet no “Ian” author exists. I’d be a little miffed at that if I were McKenzie.
ianism
Ooops….smart people are ganging up on Mr. Colbert. Time for Plan C. The old “you’ve been hacked…well so have I and I am not going to take it lying down” gambit:
We have found the missing comments! By going through the actual database we have located the original comments and something very curious. it would seem that “User Unknown” was able to delete the comments, using time stamps and IP access logs I will be forwarding the information my security guru discovered off to the same person at the RCMP that reviewed the logs when I was last hacked first thing in the morning.
colbert
First rate. Better still, Colbert or his security guru were miraculously able to find and restore the comments which
“In the last couple of days I have not received any notification of a comment left here by Mr. Currie.
colbert
You can read the wee thing here - which is a link to Colbert and I will repost it to my blog shortly. “What once was lost is now found”, as the hymn goes.
[Apparently the “hacker” really had it in for me. Every comment I have posted to Colbert, until today, has been miraculously restored with the little “Comment edited by User Unknown Comment recovered by Administrator” tag. Even the ones which were not deleted in the first place…]
Having been caught lying Colbert realizes that an apology might save his well flayed skin:
I will apologize for possibly suggesting that these post never existed, I just never saw them and had no knowledge that they had been removed. If Mr. Currie is willing to withdraw his potentially libelous accusations regarding my involvement in tampering with his blog I will conceder the matter settled.
colbert
Now, as it happens I know a little something about libel law. First of all there is no legal animal as “potentially libelous”: either something is a libel or it isn’t. Here are a couple of examples of libels:
It might have even sounded like a good idea while you were refilling your bong
colbert
Stating that a person uses drugs is outright defamation of character. Doing so in writing and publishing the result is a libel.
I have not received any notification of a comment left here by Mr. Currie and it is not in the spam list so I am left with no other option but to believe that he has made this story up.
colbert
Stating that a person “made this story up” is defamatory. Doing so in writing and publishing the result is a libel.
I’ll hold the question of Colbert’s libels in abeyance for the moment in the general expectation of a full apology posted prominently on Colbert’s site.
Written by jay on August 8th, 2005 with 7 comments.
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“Conspiracy” is the mating call of the out-of-control prosecutor. U.S. drug law has been crafted to lighten evidentiary burdens in conspiracy trials, and hearsay is more broadly admissible in them. Some U.S. jurists would like to see the whole concept thrown out.
“Money laundering” is another favourite truncheon of the U.S. police state-within-a-state: The minute a drug dealer does anything with his illicit income, a door opens magically to a cavity search of his financial affairs and, upon conviction, property seizures. We are not obliged to co-operate with the worst excesses of U.S. federal law, and I’m afraid this case will turn out to exemplify them.
national post via simon pole
Dead right. And I suspect Colby did not know when he wrote this that the head of the DEA has now confirmed the political motivation for the charges.
Written by jay on August 7th, 2005 with no comments.
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Embarking on attempt to “Free Marc Emery” people need ot know what Marc is up against. A good place to start is the surrender of Renee Boje. You can read Minister Cotler’s letter to John Conway, Q.C. who is acting for Emery in this matter. It is 19 PDF pages long and it is not encouraging on its face. However, Cotler does set a test for whether a presecution can be said to be political. You can find it beginning at the bottom of page 15. Read it here - it is PDF and it is full of case law.
Cotler will be in Vancouver on the 15th of August. With luck he will be greeted by a very large number of very, very, determined but polite people.
“Q&A period featuring a panel of B.C. Federal Cabinet Ministers. Monday August 15, 7:30-9-15pm, Wosk Auditorium (950 W. 41st Ave). Free admission, info 604-257-5101. ”
A few thousand angry, but contained, people outside the hall, a couple of hundred well dressed, smart, controlled people inside each with one question on a piece of cardboard would make Cotler and his Cabinet colleagues realize this will not stand. When the questions begin each of the people gets in line and refuses to give up their place in line. Firmly, politely, they ask the same question. Over and over. Every person in the line at every mike. There is no other topic.
When will you free Marc Emery?
On the street, when the questions begin, signalled by a cell phone call, a chant. “Free Marc Emery”. Slowly, loudly, until the building trembles with the the sound of cold fury. And the chant continues until every single one of the Minister have left. The Liberals need to know they will lose on Emery. They will lose seats. Lots of seats. Because, in the end, that is all politicians understand.
Written by jay on August 6th, 2005 with no comments.
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“Today’s arrest of Mark (sic) Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture magazine and the founder of a marijuana legalization group, is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement.”
Why? Tandy gives us a handy dose of innuendo.
“Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery’s illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on.”
seattle post-intelligencer hattip to Simon Pole (with whom I want to have a beer when next in Vancouver
Ms. Karen Tandy is the head of the DEA.
This is a direct interference with Emery’s political rights. As Simon says, “When are Canadian polticians going to speak out?” The thin veil of “the law is the law” was just pierced by the pointy end of the DEA’s poltical agenda. Under the extradition rules Canadians are not to extradited for political offences and Ms. Tandy’s remarks simply confirm that Emery’s arrest is all about politics.
Written by jay on August 6th, 2005 with 4 comments.
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I was speaking to the still off line Kevin Michael Grace who pointed out vis a vis the Emery matter that Canada has at least one notable moment in its extradition history with the United States - we allowed draft resisters and deserters to come to Canada and refused to extradite them to the United States. Hmmm.
Written by jay on August 5th, 2005 with no comments.
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I’d love to know who designed this for Marc Emery because I think it’s a great graphic.
I have put up a page of these rendered at different sizes…you can reach it here (more…)
Written by jay on August 5th, 2005 with no comments.
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(I posted this in Jason Cherick’s comments. Go sign the Emery petition…)
Political, in this context, has several aspects. First, it is pretty clear Emery was targetted as much for the fact he is a strong advocate of drug law reform as for his business activites.
Second, the overall American War on Drugs is a political war in which American politicians are competing to show who is tougher on crime using drug laws and mandatory minimums as measures of toughness.
Third, Canada has made an explicitly political decision not to follow America down the “Zero Tolerance, Ten year minimum road”.
Fourth, Canada has a Charter with by 6(1) promises security of person and s. 7 a reputable system of justice.
Fifth, America is seeking to set a precedent for extradition in a relatively case where the “crime” is so trivial under Canadian law that we have exercised our prosecutorial discretion and declined to charge anyone for at least a decade. That precedent, once established will allow the US Government to go after other seed sellers and paraphinalia makers; but it will also put file sharers and people who crack software encryption at risk of the DMCA.
Put those elements together and, in my view, both at the judicial level and the ministerial, for the sake of the preservation of the probity of the administration of justice, Emery’s S. 6(1) rights to the security of his person must not be violated.
This is not about pot - it is about sovereignty and the Canadian government acting to protect the rights our Charter has granted to each of us.
Written by jay on August 4th, 2005 with no comments.
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Section 7 (”fundamental justice”) applies because the extradition order would, if implemented, deprive the respondents of their rights of liberty and security of the person since their lives are potentially at risk. The issue is whether the threatened deprivation is in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice. Section 7 is concerned not only with the act of extradition, but also with its potential consequences. The balancing process set out in Kindler and Ng is the proper analytical approach. The “shocks the conscience” language signals the possibility that even though the rights of the fugitive are to be considered in the context of other applicable principles of fundamental justice, which are normally of sufficient importance to uphold the extradition, a particular treatment or punishment may sufficiently violate our sense of fundamental justice as to tilt the balance against extradition. The rule is not that departures from fundamental justice are to be tolerated unless in a particular case it shocks the conscience. An extradition that violates the principles of fundamental justice will always shock the conscience.
United States v. Burns
Neutral citation: 2001 SCC 7
I ran into this cite at Rabble’s ongoing discussion of the Emery matter. this is exactly the sort of decision which can be used by Emery at the judicial level and provides another hook for an argument at the Ministerial level. And it is interesting that in this case the Minister used his discretion to sign off on extraditing two people who potentially faced the death penalty in the States, they appealed and the Court found that the failure of the Minister to “seek assurances” was contrary to the fundamental principles of justice….Hmmmm
Written by jay on August 4th, 2005 with no comments.
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POGG has a very good idea:
Since much of what Rev. Phelps has to say would be considered hate speech under Canadian law, and since it comes into Canada over the internet (though I’m not providing a link), when can we expect American law enforcement officials to arrest the good Reverend and arrange his extradition to Canada to stand trial?
pogg
So I set up a little weblog for that very purpose: http://extradite-rev-fred-phelps.info-syn.com/
Written by jay on August 3rd, 2005 with no comments.
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Process matters in cases like Emery’s. The intial phase, the so-called judical phase, is pretty cut and dried. Evidence on affidavit will be presented to a judge whose powers are limited to examining the prima facie legal case for committal. This amounts to asking the question, if the DA could prove all of the alegations he is making would he have a case against Emery. I have to bet that in the instant case nothing would have proceeded to the point of arrest without the Crown in Canada being very sure they could meet the minimal standard set during the judicial phase.
Now, Emery will, no doubt, fight hard at the judical phase. Much of the relevant law and the consideration going to that law can be found at USA v. Cotroni [1989] 1 S.C.R. 1469 The majority of the SCC held,
A general exception for a Canadian citizen who could be charged in Canada would unduly interfere with the objectives of extradition. Considerations relating to effective prosecution, the availability of evidence, initiative for investigation and to the impossibly difficult task of determining the country best suited to try the case by judicial examination, go beyond mere administrative convenience and touch the very purpose underlying extradition. In particular, the interests of society in bringing a fugitive to justice at a trial where his or her guilt or innocence can be properly determined would be seriously impaired. Such an approach, moreover, would weaken the system generally, and so the objectives it serves, by sapping the trust and good faith that must exist between nations and their officials and law enforcement agencies at many levels.
Which is not good news for Emery in that it places an individual’s right to remain in Canada beneath the interests of the state in preserving “trust and good faith”.
Better news, and the basis for a reasoned legal argument to the Minister is contained in Wilson, J.’s dissent,
“The locus of the wrongdoing is very relevant in any attempt to justify extradition as a reasonable limit on a Canadian citizen’s right to remain in Canada. It is often the key factor connecting the accused to the requesting state. The right of a citizen to remain in Canada need not be violated when the crime has been committed by a Canadian in Canada and is punishable by Canadian law. He can be brought to justice right here. It is otherwise when the crime has been committed in the requesting state. The argument for extradition being a reasonable limit under s. 1 is clearly much stronger in the latter case. More persuasive reasons than convenience of prosecution are required to justify the violation of a right expressly guaranteed to Canadian citizens in the Charter. This Charter right is not a trivial one nor can its breach be viewed as peripheral.”
As well, Sopinka J.’s dissent also provides some bones on which to hang an argument:
The infringement of s. 6(1) of the Charter resulting from extradition is not peripheral: countries to which a Canadian can be extradited do not recognize the presumption of innocence or the right to remain silent; do not permit bail; have no independent bar; and still retain the death penalty for a number of offences. Any enforceable rules of law designed to protect the citizen make no distinction as to the nature of the requesting state. Further, little protection can be afforded by matters considered at the time of treaty negotiations because many of the treaties are old and the political and legal nature of many states has drastically changed in the interim.
With respect to drug offences, marijuana in particular, it is certainly open to Emery to argue that the American’s rediculous drug laws and the harshness of their sentencing system mean that the essential assumptions which underlie extradition are void in this particular case.
Enter Minister Cotter,
If the person sought is committed for surrender by the extradition judge, then in the second or “executive phase”, the Minister of Justice decides whether the person sought should be surrendered to the requesting partner in accordance with the applicable treaty, the legislation and the Charter. The Supreme Court of Canada confirmed in November 1992 in Idziak v. Minister of Justice that the second phase of the decision making process is political in nature.
The Court said (at p. 659):
Parliament chose to give discretionary authority to the Minister of Justice. It is the Minister who must consider the good faith and honour of this country in its relations with other States.
the federal prosecution service deskbook
By definition and the determination of the SCC the Minister of Justice is asked to make a political decision. Which means that if Emery is not going to be extradited to the US it will almost certainly be as the result of a decision by Mr. Cotter.
Cotter seems to be a pretty reasonable guy but also a stickler for legal arguments. While a few thousand stoner emails might change his mind I would doubt it. Rather he is more likely to listen to essentially legal arguments.
Framing those arguments within the postions laid out by Wilson and Sopinka in
USA v. Cotroni would be a good beginning. The objective is to suggest that, with respect to marijuana, the United States has simply ceased to be reasonable.
Interestingly, Cotter’s own efforts in the decriminalization debate and legislation in Canada, should ensure that he at least listens to an argument that the American position is unreasonable enough that to extradite a Canadian system to face that position is, in fact, a violation of that citizen’s Charter rights. This would be particularily effective given that Emery could just as easily be prosecuted under Canadian law. Indeed, it can and should be argued that it makes no sense for Emery to be prosecuted in the US as the nexus of his operations are in Canada. Wilson’s disent could be cited in support of this proposition.
Now, I note that I have not updated the ruling in USA v. Cotroni and the new Extradition Act 1999 may have altered the situation significantly. However, the fact remains that a situation in which a Canadian citizen is facing ten years to life in prison for a “crime” which would attract, in all likeliehood, a fine in Canada, strongly suggests that an appeal to the Minister lies on the basis of the Charter’s promise of security of person.
By all means keep the letters going to Cotter and your MPs; but the heavy lifting here will be in framing an appeal which gives the Minister of Justice solid grounds for refusing to grant the extradition.
Written by jay on August 2nd, 2005 with 1 comment.
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(a version of this was posted as a comment at Blogs Canada E-Group)
Propose for a moment that apples were illegal in the United States. (Which, if Carrie Nation had had her way they would have been - apples lead to cider which leads to apple jack.) Propose further that an evil doer in Canada shipped apple seeds to America. Now propose that the Americans wanted to extradite the evil doer to face 20 years to life in prison….Do you think it would be a good idea for the Canadian government to help?
For all of Emery’s faults, and he has many, he has been blowing the bong of marijuana reform in Canada successfully for years. He has actually run for the Legislature of British Columbia and mayoralty of Vancouver on a pro-pot platform. Certainly he has made very good money selling pot seeds by mail order - for which he has never been convicted in a Canadian Court. But the objective was political,
“Spreading a revolution through retail is probably the niftiest idea that we ever came up with,” says Emery. “It inhibits a marijuana revolution to have a lack of money. With hemp stores, people are disseminating information in a self-sufficient way which puts them in the public sphere. This gets them lots of media attention, access to people, retail advertising, and the business community. You get social acceptance in a completely different way.”
cannabis culture
And while Emery has certainly made good money from his pot seed operation he claims he has put most of it back into his political fight,
Emery is a major financial backer of almost every pro-pot effort in North America and many more around the world. Emery has funded almost every significant Canadian cannabis court challenge, including the major constitutional challenge coming to Canada’s Supreme Court this Spring, which could rewrite Canada’s marijuana prohibition. Between 2000 and 2002, Emery invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in election campaigning for the Canadian Marijuana Party, BC Marijuana Party and the Vancouver Marijuana Party.
cannabis culture
He’s been arrested for selling seeds over the counter and, in his words, convicted and assessed a reasonable fine. So he stopped selling over the counter and went mail order. He has not been disturbed by the police since.
Emery has been a shit disturber for quite a while. He’s a full on libertarian and unafraid of the powers that be. Which tends to get an activist in trouble.
n late November 2002, shortly after the Vancouver election, US Drug Czar John Walters paid a visit to the city. Walters was scheduled to speak before a $500 per table luncheon sponsored by the Vancouver Board of Trade.
Emery bought tickets for a table and invited fellow activists like David Malmo-Levine and Chris Bennett to attend.
Emery walked up to Walter and asked if he could have his photo taken together. Walters asked who Emery was, and when Emery smiled and replied “I’m publisher of Cannabis Culture magazine” Walters turned red and quickly backed away.
cannabis culture
We can oppose Emery’s extradition without having an opinion either way as to pot. The point is that Canada does not regard pot as worth 20 years to life. This is a political decision. Canada’s political decision. The Americans, as is their right, see it differently. Which is fine. However, the Extradition Treaty provides that the Minister may exercise his discretion in refusing to extradite a person who faces political charges. I would argue that the charges against Emery are entirely political and it follows that Justice Minister Cotter needs to exercise his discretion and refuse to extradite Emery.
To encourage Cotter the blogosphere needs to mobilize and start writing, faxing and generally raising a stink.
Where is Stephen Harper on this? Where is Jack Layton?
As ever, I don’t think Ian Welsh who posted on this is right about a lot of what he says about the US; but he is right that Canada needs to stand up to our American friends. We need to tell them that their anti-marijuana laws will not be enforced in Canada and that we will not send our citizens to face their loony pot sentences.
As one commentor remarked, burning either a US flag or an American $5.00 bill is illegal in the US but legal in Canada - wuld we seriously consider a request to extradite a flag or bill burner especially if that burning was in the context of political action?
We need to do this loudly and proudly.
Written by jay on August 2nd, 2005 with no comments.
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Vancouver Police spokesperson Howard Chow admitted that Emery’s selling of marijuana seeds “is not enough” for him to have been arrested by Canadian authorities acting on their own, and confirmed that the arrests came solely as a consequence of DEA motivation and information.
vancouver ramblings
This must not stand.
Written by jay on August 1st, 2005 with no comments.
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If ever there was a case of over reach the arrest of Mark Emery at the behest of the drug crazed US government is it.
The document alleges a conspiracy to produce marijuana and distribute seeds as well as alleging money laundering.
“Their activities resulted in the growing of tens of thousands of marijuana plants in America. He was involved, allegedly, in an illegal distribution of marijuana in this country [U.S.]. He is a drug dealer,” assistant U.S. attorney Jeff Sullivan told CBC News.
cbc
Here is the thing, in Canada the test for possession of marijuana - if anyone can be bother prosecuting a case - it the presence of the active ingredient THC. Mark’s business is selling seeds and, guess what, there is no THC in marijuana seeds. So, in Canada, you can’t be charged with possession, much less trafficking, for merely possessing seeds.
The problem of course is that the wackos in the DEA are charging Mark with crimes with carry serious, very serious, jail time. Crimes which are not crimes in Canada.
You don’t have to smoke pot to realize the War on Drugs is insane. And, as a Canadian, do you really want to see one of our fellow citizens extridited to the US to face charges for activity which is not illegal in Canada. Well, first thing send the Minister of Justice an email: cotler.i@parl.gc.ca
From there we’ll have to see. With luck a judge will hear this quickly and throw out the American application on the grounds it discloses no basis for extradition.
Written by jay on July 31st, 2005 with no comments.
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