Jay Currie

So there you have it. The leader of the Liberal Party of Canada says we can’t make our own laws, because Washington wouldn’t like it — which is both utterly depressing and among the most conventional thoughts a Canadian politician can have. I’ll point out, not for the first time, that 12 American states have [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

“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 [...]

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 [...]

“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 [...]

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 [...]

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

(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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

(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 [...]

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 ramblingsThis must not stand.

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. [...]