Lothar121

New Charges May Help Pot Activist
Camille Bains | Globe and Mail | 09/29/2005

Vancouver — A private citizen says he's filing charges Friday against pot activist Marc Emery and two of his associates, partly because that will throw a wrench into the United States' plans to extradite the trio to face drug charges in that country.

“If he gets charged in Canada that will have major legal consequences for that extradition request,” said David McCann, a local philanthropist and businessman.

Mr. McCann said he has hired prominent lawyer Peter Leask in filing three charges of conspiracy under the Controlled Drugs and Substance Act and the Criminal Code of Canada.

Canada has been hypocritical in allowing Mr. Emery to sell marijuana seeds and collecting thousands of dollars in taxes while the city of Vancouver gave him a business licence for his pot paraphernalia store, he said.

“We have let him operate and now we let the Americans walk into our country and charge a man who they will probably lock away for the rest of his natural life in the United States for doing something that the government of Canada condoned. And you know, I got a problem with that as a Canadian.”

Mr. Emery, along with his co-accused, Michele Rainey-Fenkarek and Greg Keith Smith, were arrested July 29 after police raided Mr. Emery's store following an 18-month investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

“He broke the law in Canada and so if we are going to let him be charged he should be charged here, where he did the offence,” said Mr. McCann, adding he's never met Mr. Emery.

Mr. McCann noted that Health Canada even referred patients, many of them terminally ill, to Mr. Emery if they wanted medicinal marijuana.

Kirk Tousaw, one of Mr. Emery's lawyers, said it's possible that the United States' attempts to extradite his client would be thwarted.

That's because Section 47 of the Extradition Act says the justice minister has the discretion to refuse extradition if he's satisfied that the same conduct is the subject of criminal proceedings in Canada.

“If Canada is trying someone for the same crime then certainly one would think it makes sense to keep them here in Canada rather than send them somewhere else,” Mr. ousaw said.

Mr. Emery, leader of the Marijuana party, said he sees Mr. McCann's private prosecution attempt as something positive because he's always felt he should be charged in Canada for his activities.

“His intent is to stop the extradition and have me charged under Canadian law in a Canadian courtroom,” Mr. Emery said.

“I'd much rather be in front of a Canadian jury in a Canadian court. It'd probably still keep me out of the seed business for the rest of my life, alas, but it certainly would lay people's fears of a sovereignty intrusion to rest.”

Mr. McCann said he has spoken to politicians at every level about the effects of various illicit drugs and feels they should be dealt with as a health concern.

“I don't want to look at it in terms of Mr. Emery,” he said. “I want to look at it in terms of how we as a society is going to deal with the drug problem.”

Mr. Emery said all Canadians will be complicit if the U.S. succeeds in extraditing him to face drug charges because he's been doing it for years without anyone raising a fuss.

He said he attended a public forum called the Cannabis Conundrum at the Vancouver Public Library on Wednesday, where a former police officer said the Crown refused to lay charges against Mr. Emery after his department conducted an investigation 2½ years ago.

Mr. Tousaw said he was also at the forum.

“(The speaker) said there had been a prior police investigation a couple years back but the Crown didn't have any appetite to prosecute.”

Mr. Emery's extradition hearing continues Oct. 21.

His supporters have requested Justice Minister Irwin Cotler step in but he has said the matter is now before the courts.

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