Marc Emery Accepts Plea: 10-Year US and Canadian Prison Sentence

[zoltron]

I agree....& being from the USA, I feel the DEA most definitely over-stepped its boundaries.

EDIT: I also wanted to point out that my seed order wasn't an isolated incident. As you can see farther up the thread, v3d4 has also had the same problem, as have many others.

[koshiva]

I think the reason Marks merchandise was sometimes not quite up to scratch is because he was often/always not selling the seeds directly but acting as a go-between of buyers vs sellers. Mark could take an order, X would dispatch it. No one really knew who X was but Mark and no doubt all the computer records seized by the DEAth.

When you are 'helping' distribute that many seeds in an enviornment such as exists, it's is natural that 'quality control' would suffer. Any one can get one good female and pollinate it with one good male and yield ten thousand seeds. @$10/seeds that is one hundred thousand dollars per plant, in theory, which would also mean ten of those plants would equal one million dollars. They are quite expensive plants huh. The most expensive plant in the world, with or without seeds! And the most useful too!

In some cases with seed banks - they sell bulk seeds which may or may not be 'ok' but which are not the strains they are alledged to be. A seed bank may have a list of 10-20 strains but they sell only one strain under all those different names. For the most part too, names are like the covers of books.

I think extradition should be reserved for things like homocide etc...not selling fucking seeds. If any one sold out it was the Canadian govt and it is a disgrace that Canadian sovereignty has been compromised so blatantly. It also seems 'unbelievable' that someone could get ten years for selling seeds! Fucking yanks! Stupid fucking neathanderal bullshit DEAth. Canadian govt - pathetic! Imagine that, they is just gonna hand yo ass over to the gestapo! Or, you could avoid a 'life sentence' in 'land of the free' and take the plea and only get ten years in a Canadian jail - for selling seeds - of a plant! Man, imagine the prosecutions which could be if poppy seeds were illegal? You know, those ones you can make tea out of and get wasted for 12 hours on a range of opiate alkaloids. Time to arrest bread roll manufacturers!

Is it time, that the USA is told to fuck off and stay the fuck out of other countries sovereign territory? Why is the Canadian govt working for the USA and putting the USA drug war above the interests of Canadian citezens? I thought the Canadian govt would protect its citezens from such violators of international law and basic human rights????

For some you can make a 'little' difference. Try your best to not buy any American products. Bouycot them and their industrial military complex Guantonomo bay renditionary force of evil. It can and will filter up - just look at their economy now - and people think the 'war' has nothing to do with it...lol. And then later, once and if 'land of the free' decides that it will abide by international law and respect other peoples and nations - only then should you consider again buying American products.

If you are American, buy Canadian - your leaders(cough) only understand dollars.

[zoltron]

What was even more pathetic was arresting Tommy Chong for selling a glass product. No drugs involved, no seeds, no resin...just a nice piece of glass that COULD be used to smoke cannabis, but there was no cannabis involved.
Maybe someone wanted to smoke tobacco...or even salvia [is that still considered legal?] or just have a cool-looking glass-blown mantle-piece.
The entire Drug War is a fiasco, a waste of human life being imprisoned, a waste of $$$, & a never-ending battle. I don't understand how the govt can't see what Prohibition produced [organized crime] & why these idiots continue to let it happen. It's a shame that there isn't 1 single politician that doesn't step up to the plate & finally put an end to this debacle.

[koshiva]

Yes indeed - that Tommy Chong case was even more of a bad joke than the Emery one. As you say Zoltron, there was no seeds, no cannabis involved in Tommy Chongs case. All he did was sell 'glass pipes' which could be used to smoke tobacco, or salvia, or what everelse, or merely as an ornament. So the Feds decided to threaten the old man, 'Look we know you are innocent, but unless you plead guilty we will aim toward getting you a twenty year sentence to start with and also seek to confiscate all your assets'! 'Take the plea or your life is over regardless of your innocence'.:confused :

Where have we heard about this type of justice before? It seems as if the process of justice is absent. 'Land of the free'? Glass pipes? Cannabis seeds?

The drug war is most certainly a waste of human life.

Look at Mexico and Columbia and see how succesful the drug war is there. And sponsored by none other than the USA.

[420smokeman]

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

By Terri Theodore, THE CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER - The skunky smell of marijuana wafted into the main lobby of the provincial court Tuesday as British Columbia's self-proclaimed "prince of pot" attended a court hearing on his plea bargain with the United States.

Marc Emery showed up with an entourage of marijuana advocates, some carrying placards and others wearing capes proclaiming their support for the well-known marijuana crusader.

But his court appearance was delayed for a few weeks while lawyers on both sides of the Canada, U.S. border negotiate a plea bargain over Emery's sale of marijuana seeds via the Internet.

The plea agreement would see Emery spend six to nine months in a U.S. jail. The remainder of the 10-year sentence would be served in a Canadian prison.

"I'm confident the United States Justice Department will see the good in this deal and would want to avoid a very - I think-prickly and unpopular prosecution," Emery told reporters following the brief appearance.

Despite the prospect of spending years in prison, the 50-year-old crusader said he wouldn't change a thing.

"I'm proud of what I did. I won't be making any apologies or any kind of repentance or contrition and the Unites States Justice Department is aware of that," he said. "I consider what I've done to be a great patriot's act."

Emery has flouted Canadian marijuana laws for decades and even went on a cross-Canada tour, smoking cartoon-sized joints in front of city police departments.

He spent two months in a Saskatoon jail after one of his pro-pot protests.

American authorities started the extradition process three years ago when a U.S. federal grand jury indicted Emery on conspiracy to distribute marijuana seeds into the U.S. over the Internet.

His acceptance of the prison term comes in exchange for no jail time for his two co-accused Greg Williams and Michelle Rainey.

"I'm not particularly afraid of a hearing or five years in jail if that's the price I have to pay to get my co-accused out of jail," Emery said.

Rainey doesn't want to see any of them go to prison.

"I don't feel it's fair that Marc would have to sacrifice himself for us in any way whatsoever," she said.

Rainey said prosecuting them in the U.S. for what is "a victimless crime," is a sovereignty issue.

"We need to stand up for our rights in this country as Canadians," she said.

Rainey has Crohn's disease and has a legal exemption to use marijuana for medical purposes.

She said she certainly wouldn't be allowed to use her medicine in a U.S. prison.

"I would die in a U.S. prison," she said outside the court. "I have used cannabis now for the past 12 years. I don't use any pharmaceuticals and it saved my life."

The case is to return to court Feb. 6.

"The anticipation and hope is no hearing is going to be required," Emery's lawyer, Ian Donaldson, told B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Patrick Dohm.

[420smokeman]

Marc Emery, Alan Young CTV The Verdict Jan. 23 / 08

CTV Broadband Network -- Your On-Demand Broadband Video Channel: Free full length TV shows, News & Docs, Discovery Channel and etalk celebrity interviews - all available online at ctv.ca.

[420smokeman]

Marc Emery Extradition Hearing Adjourned

[burnt_hiphophead]

^^ Any update from the Feb.6th meeting mentioned in that video?

[420smokeman]

On February 6th 2008, Marc Emery, Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams appeared in BC Supreme Court to schedule dates for the extradition hearing. However, because plea deal negotiations are underway between Marc Emery's lawyer and the governments of the US and Canada, the court appearance was adjourned to March 5th, 2008. Once the deal proposal is finalized and offered to Marc for review (which may or may not happen before March 5th), Marc will decide whether to accept it or not. If he doesn't want to accept the proposed deal, a court appearance will be scheduled to set new extradition hearing dates. If he does accept the deal, he will have 30 to 60 days of freedom left before being temporarily extradited to the United States.

[tedkennedy]

Originally Posted by zoltron

I totally agree. He's been spewing the 'everyone needs to do their part' kind of activism & he's basically selling-out to save his own ass 1st...THEN the co-defendants, imho.
As you can probably tell, I'm not a big fan of his...although I do feel bad for anyone who gets imprisoned under a cannabis-related charge. I wouldn't even be too surprised if he started dropping dimes like a scaghead at a candy machine just to save his own ass even moreso.
He's out for 'Marc Emery' 1st & all other problems are 2nd...imho. Although he shouldn't be doing any time.

how is taking 5 years in prison saving his own ass?

[Hostile]

Not to mention, totally saving Michelle Rainey here, who could potentially die in an American prison.

[koshiva]

Indeed. As 4horseman said earlier, Mark has done so much for the canna legalisation effort. Just imagine how many clones resulted from his efforts alone!

As I said earlier too, all one needs is one good mother and one good male to produce seeds. In the case of clones, all one needs is one good mother. One mother, which is 'stable' can produce hundreds of thousands, and even 'millions of clones' if you factor in 'clones from clones'.

For the most part, while some seeds/strains are questionable, I think hermaphrodism would be 'stress' related in 'most' cases.

What is facinateing about all this 'extradition/rendition' process, is the extent to which the Canadian authorities have been complicit, willing puppets, in the denial of justice to Mark. Mark after all knows all the charges against him are based on lies! The Canadian authorities know those charges are based on filthy lies! So does the U.S justice(cough cough) dept and DEA know the lies which they sow. Just like the WOMD in Iraq which did not exist, the laws regards cannabis are one big lie!!! At least Mark had the balls to call them on their lies!!! But what you gonna do when the Gestapo say "Either you surrender the rest of your life fighting the lies - or you plead guilty to the lies and we will only take away several years of your life?"

That in itself would be somewhat funny in a kind of bad taste way if it were not for the fact that the UN itself condones this flagrant abuse of the standards of justice. The UN's own charter is directly at odds with the lies which they condone. This aweful abuse of human rights and the abuse of national sovereignty by internal and external elements to convict someone for alledgedly selling seeds is the epitome of the 'dictatorship of reason'.

That Murdocracy can prevail as the mouth piece of the means of consent is also somewhat disturbing. One need only ask, how successful has the the USA war on drugs(people) been all over the world? If one were assumeing that caged and dead civilians were 'points', then that war would be very successful. After all, millions are caged and at least hundreds of thousands dead every year, not to mention the systematic denial of the basic rights 'alledged' to be afforded to citezens of member states of the UN.

How is Columbia and Mexico looking in terms of homocides and endemic corruption? Did you hear about that record opium harvest this year? I heard that a great many nations are slipping into a type of anarchy because of the war on drugs which has sowed the seeds of corruption right up to the top. I heard that one pound per pill mdma in the UK is a sign of progress in the war on drugs? The cheapest coke ever? Heroin? And now, Africa is getting sucked into the vortex too - and you know how kosher their systems are.

It may just be that what has happened to, and what happens to Mark from now on may back fire some how and merely increase awareness of the gross inequity perpetrated by the U.S on other wise decent human beings across the globe. Seeds? WTF!!!

[zoltron]

Originally Posted by tedkennedy

how is taking 5 years in prison saving his own ass?

Because he could've ended up with 30 years.

[burnt_hiphophead]

I have no problem with the idea of extraditing someone who breaks the law in your country, in theory. Say, a murderer flees over the border like in a movie - they can't just NOT be brought back to be charged. Same for any crime where people are harmed, no question.

My problem is that distributing seeds doesn't harm anyone, hell it doesn't even directly let anyone get high. When one country accepts a tax return from a business, doesn't that legitimize it? I think so. Would anyone who makes their living illegally would openly declare it on a tax return? Doubt it.

The Canadian government is sending some extremely mixed signals. If what he did was illegal, why wouldn't they come after Marc? They had his business address.

I am sick about this situation. It's a reflection of how marijuana prohibition promotes suffering, rather than preventing it.

I get it, the D.E.A. can't change their positions, because it would be such a 180 from what they've always done. Just wish they wouldn't push those positions on Canadians.

[420smokeman]

Negotiations Hit a Snag in Plea Deal by US and Canada's "Prince of Pot" :

VANCOUVER, BC - A deal to resolve the extradition fight between Canada's "Prince of Pot" and US drug authorities has hit a snag, the marijuana activist said on Wednesday, March 5th. The United States wants to extradite Marc Emery -- who founded a political party and campaigned across Canada to legalize pot -- on charges he illegally sold marijuana seeds from his Vancouver store to American buyers.

Emery tentatively agreed with US prosecutors in January to plead guilty in return for the charges being dropped against two other defendants and he being allowed to spend the bulk of a 10-year sentence in Canada. Canada must also approve the deal, but its prosecutors say a Canadian judge cannot be ordered to impose a US prison sentence of no release for at least five years that is stricter than Canadian law requires.

Emery was in court in Vancouver on Wednesday to set a date for his extradition trial, but a judge agreed to postpone the hearing until April 9 to allow his lawyers, US and Canadian prosecutors to continue negotiating. Emery said he will fight extradition if a deal is not reached.

Emery has accused Canadian police of bowing to US political demands by arresting him in 2005, since his activities were well-known and tolerated in Canada -- where he even paid taxes on his seed sales.

[Mafoo]

this whole case makes me sick to my stomach
he should be facing fines if anything
why do people deserve jail time for these types of nonviolent crimes

a parent could leave their child inside of their burning house and never even do jail time