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Canada's "Prince of Pot" Nabbed For U.S. Seed Sales
Ari Bloomekatz| The Seattle Times | 07/30/2005

Marc Emery has built a multimillion-dollar business selling marijuana seeds and paraphernalia while thumbing his nose at authorities in his native Canada, even challenging them to arrest him.

Yesterday, the man known as Canada's "Prince of Pot" was arrested in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on a U.S. indictment charging him with selling millions of dollars worth of marijuana seeds to customers throughout the United States.

Emery, the 47-year-old leader of British Columbia's Marijuana Party, has earned about $3 million a year selling the seeds through his Internet Web site and by mail, federal officials said. Emery and two accomplices, Gregory Williams, 50, and Michelle Rainey-Fenkarek, 34, were arrested by Canadian authorities on a warrant issued by federal officials in Washington state.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan said Emery will be tried in the U.S. because he committed most of his alleged crimes in this country. The Seattle-based office of the Drug Enforcement Administration led the investigation.

Sullivan said Emery will be extradited from Canada to the U.S. for trial, but the process could take anywhere from six months to two years.

While Emery owns a Vancouver, B.C., store that sells marijuana paraphernalia and seeds, police say at least 75 percent of his illegal transactions involved U.S. customers.

Vancouver Police Department spokesman Howard Chow said U.S. authorities are hoping to prosecute Emery in Seattle under an agreement called the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, which allows the prosecuting agency to determine where to try defendants. Authorities likely thought there was a better chance of conviction and harsher punishment in the U.S., Chow said.

Emery, a self-styled activist who once called himself a "libertarian capitalist," has become a spokesman for British Columbia's movement to legalize marijuana and is publisher of the Canadian magazine Cannabis Culture.

During a 1996 interview with The Seattle Times, Emery discussed an arrest by Canadian authorities for selling seeds at his Vancouver store. He said he wanted to be arrested to "challenge this stupid law and overturn it."

Neil Boyd, professor of criminology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., said Emery's arrest may not have occurred if U.S. authorities had not been involved.

"It's not unusual for Canadian police to arrest a person who has committed a serious crime in another country. What's unusual about this case is that they are arresting a person for conduct that attracts very serious penalties in one country and potentially no penalties in Canada," Boyd said

While selling marijuana seeds in Canada is illegal, Boyd says the laws in Canada are not as tough as in the U.S.

Emery opened his store in 1994 and operates Marc Emery Direct, the Web site through which he sells more than 500 types of marijuana seeds with names such as Wonderberry, White Widow and Island Orange. He claims to own the world's largest selection of marijuana seeds with prices for 10 seeds ranging up to several hundred dollars.

All three defendants were charged with conspiracy to distribute marijuana, conspiracy to distribute marijuana seeds and conspiracy to engage in money laundering. The distribution charges alone carry potential punishments of 10 years to life imprisonment.

John Conroy, Emery's attorney in several previous cases, said Rainey-Fenkarek already had appeared in court and was ordered held on $25,000 bail. He said Emery and Williams may appear in court on Tuesday.

"He's [Emery] been arrested for a number of things over the years," Conroy said, but never before on a U.S. charge. The Canadian arrests include marijuana possession — particularly the seeds — for purposes of trafficking. He has been convicted of some charges, and according to his Web site, he was most recently sentenced to 92 days in jail for trafficking and possession.

Officials say Emery sold marijuana to undercover agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration both by mail and in person.

Emery has been active in pushing for marijuana legalization. He has run for mayor of Vancouver and his marijuana party's slogan is "overgrowing the government."

Because of treaties between the U.S. and Canada, U.S. attorney Sullivan said, if Emery is convicted in the United States he could request to serve his time in Canada, where he might be eligible for release sooner. Sullivan said U.S. authorities will have a chance to weigh in on his release to Canadian custody but that his transfer would still be possible.

"That's one of the frustrations with prisoners who are sent to Canada," Sullivan said.

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killer12382

This sucks. There is no other way to put it.

king cola

He didn't exactly commit a crime in the U.S. He never crossed into our country, just the seeds did. I can't even believe they wanna sentence him from anywhere from 10 years to life in prison. Just a few days ago i was watching on tv about child molesters who have been in and out of court 4 times without ever being convicted, then finally killed another child. These are your real criminals but they are so willing to let them go everytime until someone gets killed. Now they are facing life which they deserve but how do you justify sentencing someone to 10 years or more for seeds? A drunk driver kills someone, well we will let you out in 15 years but we will let you out sooner if you go around to schools telling people not to do it!

In my opinion wheather it was for a sting or not, the DEA broke a law by ordering seeds, Emery got their money and was able to use it and they got their seeds.

The only way to put it is we really do try to police the world. Not trying to go off topic but it seems like we only go after people when it comes to politics. Iraq and Saddam is a good example, people can say yea well look what he did to the people in his country, well look at 10 years ago what happend over in Africa when all those people were brutally murdered, we didn't do sh*t to help them, a lot of families were destroyed.

In this case it's a marijuana activist who was selling seeds. Owners of these other seed banks don't go out and do what he does, protest, etc. It seems like they were left alone and Marc was the person to go after.

Everyone knows and even the DEA knows Emery wasn't the only seed bank shipping to our country. They go online and look for sites doing things like this and i'm sure they found more than just his. They can say they didn't go after him cause hes a activist but i don't believe that bullsh*t for one minute because his seed bank was the only one targeted.

He wasn't the one growing the plants in our country so they weren't his. He sold seeds all over the world, even the Japanese are even more strict than we are and we haven't even seen them complain about Emery and get involved or any other countries for that matter, except ours.

All they have to say for their reason besides the thousands of plants they claim were created from his seeds is, the children, the children. Pot is the most dangerous drug in America! They say it's the reason why more kids are in rehab. Courts, jail time, and records are why people go to rehab, to get cut a break for their first offence or parents flip out that their kid is smoking pot and send them there against their will.

Prohibition is the danger, pot never killed anyone, i started smoking when i was 16. I didn't start on shwag, i started on kind bud, it was strong, I was able to quit whenever i wanted to, i never got addicted, never needed rehab. As for now Marc is in jail, he's smoked hundreds of strains of marijuana, now he is in jail without it, is he going through withdraw symptoms? I doubt it, he would be a perfect example of being able to go without pot for a few days,months, possibly years while being in jail and not showing any signs of withdraw someone with an addiction would show. They should monitor him while hes in there but they wouldn't want to, cause someone who has smoked as much pot as he has and shows no addiction would be an embarrassment to the statements they make.

rick

Ya, this is pretty rough. It has some pretty far reaching implications.

It would appear that now the United States government can arrest and extradite any world citizen for breaking United States law. This is a bit confusing to me and I dont quite understand how the Canadian government would allow such a thing.

It would appear the Canadians are all to eager to please her big brother.

Oh Canada...

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Mamabudz

It has to to do with the International Treaties between the United States and Canada -- the same treaties that turn back so-called "pornography" at the US/Canadian border and fireworks at the Canadian/US border.

It is a fuzzy area of the law, as is most International Law and enforcement is based on whether the countries involved chose to enforce the extradition aspect of the treaties.

Marc Emery has been systematically exploiting the less harsh cannabis laws in Canada and getting himself jailed on a one-man circus to attract attention to himself for over a year now. It is no great suprise that he has raised the ire of the "powers that be".

As an entrepeneur of cannabis seeds, he is a poor businessman and most growers I know will no longer purchase from his site. A number of medical growers I know have lost sums of money for seeds that were never sent and the handling of the matter was shall we say less than professional.

What Emery has now succeeded in doing is jeopardizing those individuals with integrity who do provide great services to our community. Folks like DoobieDude, one of our advertisers, WorldWide Seeds, Nirvana and others who provide a decent product for a reasonable proce and support our movement are in a more precarious position than ever before because of Emery's grandstanding. And Marijuana.com -- is it now on the firing line too because we support our Advertisers?

What was Marc Emery thinking. And what was his real purpose for his actions, because it certainly has nothing to do with legalization and everything to do with his own self promotion.

 

troublemaker_42

I was going to stay out of this discussion, just because most people probably don't want to hear what I have to say.....but I agree completely with Mamabudz here. Is Marc Emery a great activist.....possibly. However, I too have heard less than stellar reviews about his business side, and fishy business practices of his company are well-known throughout the cannabis community. If his business wasn't illegal in the US, I'm sure there would have been many claims filed against him in court because of his shoddy business tactics. People can support him all they want, and brag about what a stellar activist he is, but the truth remains that his business was run poorly, and that his confrontational attitude was bound to draw some attention. Personally, I don't see him as being the hero many see him as. Not only does a dishonest business ethic bug me, but his style of activism doesn't sit right with me either. Look at that guy in New Jersey....NJweedman. He proclaims himself as an activist, but his entire agenda focuses more on creating public spectacles ( such as lighting a joint in the chambers as the legislature was in session, and getting arrested for it) than it does approaching change in a rational manner. Being an ass in the name of cannabis helps no one. Some pro-pot people may think ANY attention to their cause is good attention, but I tend to disagree in a major way. We don't need to be impressive to the pot-smoking community. We all KNOW that marijuana isa somehwat safe substance, both medically and recreationally. Who we need to impress is those people already in power...you know....those people who can actually DO something to help us out. Chances are, they aren't impressed with people passing joints out on the steps of city hall, or by people being so disrespectful as to interrupt the legislature by making a scene and lighting a joint in the name of "activism". Sure, such stunts may seem "cool" to a segment of the cannabis-consuming public, but what on earth does that do to BRING people to our side? We can't expect to win our war by making ourselves seem like outlaws and rebels. Such actions only push us further underground, and away from the very people we need to be exerting our influences on. Think about it people.....I don't have the answers, but I do know there's better ways to approach the legalization movement than to make yourself a media circus, because we all know that CLOWNS are a big draw at any circus. We don't need clowns pushing for ourt cause, no more than we need dishonest businessmen supplying our cannabis seeds.

Niteshift

I'm with Mama and Troublemaker...........

Yeah, it's ok to feel like the law sucks and that it sucks he got arrested, but let's not overlook a couple of obvious things.

Treaties that allow one country to ask that another one arrest and extradite someone on their behalf are nothing new. This is well tested ground.

The other thing is that we have to consider that Emery himself bears at least some responsibility. Here is a link, less than a month old, where Emery claims to have sold over 4 million seeds, to an American news service.http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/mo...s/12068268.htm

Come on.......the guy is high profile anyway, then tells US papers how many MILLIONS of seeds he's sent or makes comments about how the tunnel found on the US-Canada border proves they are trying to get pot to you any way they can. Might as well say he's figuratively flipping the US government a big finger and he's been doing it for a while..........so it's not hard to imagine he'd become the focus faster than someone who didn't try to rub their nose in it.

And, like TM, I don't like people that do the outrageous (and often pointless) publicity stunt just for the sake of "awareness". I don't care what the issue is or what end of the spectrum it is on.

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Buzzby

1)Emery was not arrested by the US government. He was arrested by Canadian authorities based on a warrant issued by a Canadian judge.

2)The request for arrest and extradition by agents of the DEA was pursuant to existing agreements between the governments of Canada and the US.

3)If the Canadian government had not honored this request it would have been in violation of those agreements.

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nacrypt

Yet, he never hurt anyone! They want to put him away for longer than some people serve for rape. Is that justice? Or has the world gone crazy?

Buzzby

He broke the law, repeatedly, in public, and bragged about it!

I have much less sympathy for him than someone who gets busted without making a public spectacle of himself. He knew the law, broke it, and flaunted it. If anyone should expect to get busted, it would be Marc Emery. I'd be surprised that so many people are making such a fuss about it, but potheads are no more rational than anyone else when it comes to their "celebrities".


Are you talking about moral "justice" or legal "justice"? It's certainly legal justice. Moral justice is a subject for philosophers.