The plea deal under which Canadian marijuana seed maven Marc Emery -- the subject of the documentary "The Prince of Pot" -- was to serve five years in an American prison has collapsed, according to news accounts.
(Above: Marc Emery.)
The bizarre twist to the story is that Canada is blocking the deal. Reuters reports:
Canada refused to go along with Marc Emery's deal with U.S. prosecutors to plead guilty in return for the United States dropping charges against two co-accused and allowing him to serve most of the sentence in a Canadian prison, the marijuana activist said on Friday.
The B.C. Marijuana Party founder said Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government is pursuing a get-tough policy on drug use and is upset by his long-running campaign for marijuana legalization.
"They want to make an example out of me," Emery told CKNW radio in Vancouver. "They just don't like me."
Canada's National Post argues:
It is time for the Minister of Justice to exercise his prerogative and end an extradition farce that has become tainted with illogic as well as inhumanity. If we have a legitimate social interest in seeing Emery arrested, tried and imprisoned, why don't we do it ourselves? Why was he permitted to run his business freely and openly in Vancouver for years (a business recommended to legal users of medical marijuana by Health Canada) and to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal and provincial taxes? How can a provision in the criminal law be taken seriously when it's applied only upon the urging of a foreign government?
(Thanks to W for the tip.)
The National Post has been outspoken on the Emery case for a while. What's interesting is that their editorial line is decidedly conservative. Yet, even they don't think the extradition is right.
Posted by: eh | April 07, 2008 at 08:32 PM
Yeah I can't quite fathom what's going on in this case! A lot of behind-the-scenes arm twisting, I'm guessing.
Posted by: Alex | April 08, 2008 at 07:24 AM