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May 4, 2009
Focus: Drugs
Action Request: None at this time
Location: United States

British Columbia's "Prince of Pot," who has been waging a long campaign to reform marijuana laws and to evade the long arm of U.S. prosecutors, may soon have a decision to make.

In a few weeks, Marc Emery faces an extradition hearing in Canada that could end up sending him to Seattle. He faces drug charges in U.S. District Court over his former Vancouver business that sold marijuana seeds. The charges could send him to prison for 10 years to life.

Emery is quite willing to fight the extradition through every court in Canada. And if he ends up being sent to Seattle, making a spectacle of his trial.

Four years after indictment, it may be decision time for the Prince of Pot.

By SCOTT SUNDE
SEATTLEPI.COM

But he may have an easier way out.

His two codefendants settled with prosecutors on April 24 in a sweet deal for them. They, too, faced at least 10 years in prison, but prosecutors have agreed to recommend no prison time.

And they can smoke dope without worrying about drug tests.

"If they gave me the same deal, I'd be hard-pressed not to take it," Emery, 51, said in an interview in Cannabis Culture, an online magazine he edits in Vancouver.

Federal prosecutors aren't commenting on a possible plea deal for Emery. They did have one in place a year ago, but it fell apart after the Canadian government rejected it.

However, it is clear that the case may be reaching a critical junction in what has been a long, strange trip.

This has been no ordinary drug case. It has raised outcries in Canada, prompted smug declarations of satisfaction at top levels of law enforcement, and been played out against shifting public views of marijuana.

At the center is Emery, the self-proclaimed prince. Calling him an activist or a gadfly is inadequate.

He is a founder of the B.C. Marijuana Party and a perennial candidate for public office (12 times since 1980). Now his wife is running for the B.C. legislature as a Green Party candidate on a platform of, among other things, drug law reform.

Emery has his magazine, a ganja-themed shop and a lounge where people can smoke grass.

His MySpace page includes a photo showing him playing a guitar the shape of a marijuana leaf and smoking a joint bigger than a Fidel Castro cigar.

He is an aging hipster and a Libertarian. Ayn Rand and Ron Paul are his heroes. He thought so much of the latter that he talked up his Republican run for the presidency in 2008. It was politics from afar since Emery lives in Canada and is subject to arrest if he crosses the border in the U.S..

Among his other heroes listed on his MySpace page are John Lennon and Spider-Man.

His marijuana seed business in Vancouver, Marc Emery Direct Seeds, was not the only one in a city where pot use isn't cause for alarm or arrest, but it was certainly a successful one: $3 million in annual earnings and sales of 4 million seeds.

The court documents that give those breakdowns also say that about 75 percent of the customers were in the U.S. They got their seeds through the mail.

His Web sites said much of the proceeds from Marc Emery Direct Seeds went to fund reform of drug laws, especially in the Canada and the U.S.

"I was a pretty public seed dealer," Emery said.

And, he said, he was "pretty mouthy" about marijuana and drug laws, especially in the U.S.

So in 2002, when then-White House drug czar John Walters spoke in Vancouver, Emery was there to heckle him.

The feds got what he thinks was payback in 2005, announcing the culmination of an 18-month investigation that produced indictments against Emery and two of his employees, Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams.

A grand jury charged Emery with conspiracy to distribute marijuana, to distribute marijuana seeds and to engage in money laundering.

An undercover agent from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had bought seeds over the counter from Emery's business. But not marijuana plants, much less dried marijuana ready for smoking.

Then again, Emery wasn't selling seeds to feed the birds or sprinkle on muffins. His business told customers that at least half the seeds would sprout.

Federal prosecutors have said that translated into more than a ton of marijuana produced from the seeds.

The basic facts in the case aren't in dispute: Emery's business sold seeds to grow marijuana. People in the U.S. could buy them

To U.S. law enforcement, this was a large, illegal business supplying marijuana growers in several states.

"We are not going to turn a blind eye to Marc Emery's illegal, multimillion-dollar sales of marijuana seeds," said then-U.S. Attorney John McKay as the indictment was announced. "The grows that sprout from those seeds are often protected by armed criminals or rigged with lethal booby-traps. They do significant environmental damage and fuel the organized crime and drug trade that destroys lives."

The local head of the DEA spoke of the "tentacles" of Emery's business that reached out across the U.S. and Canada.

In the past, federal prosecutors have always maintained that the case was simply that: An illegal business supplying illegal activities in the United States that they had to bust.

Emery's politics and campaigns for marijuana legalization had nothing to do with it, officials in Seattle have said.

But back in Washington, D.C., the case took on a different tone. Karen Tandy, who was the DEA administrator in 2005, released a statement saying that the arrest of Emery was a blow to marijuana trafficking and "to the marijuana legalization movement."

She contended that Emery's profits went to fund campaigns to make pot legal in the U.S. and Canada. "Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on," she said.

Emery and his supporters seized on Tandy's statement to show that his indictment was all politics and his prosecution would be a show trial.

Then there was the matter of drug laws in the United States and Canada. Selling seeds in British Columbia is rarely prosecuted. When it is, punishment is lenient.

Emery himself was convicted in Canada of selling seeds in 1997

He was fined $500.

Still, Emery kept selling seeds openly and even paying his taxes on income from it.

Then there is the matter of U.S. drug agents who were running an undercover operation in sovereign Canada, then having local police make the arrests.

All in all, it made Emery a visible figure, maybe even a martyr for the marijuana cause and Canadian sovereignty.

Public opinion polls in that country showed people favored not letting him being extradited to the U.S. One Canadian newspaper, The National Post, called his extradition a "farce" and said in an editorial that the differences in the two countries' drug laws would make "extraditing Emery a shameful abdication of judgment by Canadian authorities."

A Canadian television network did a documentary on the Prince of Pot. CBS's "60 Minutes" also weighed in.

But even the head that holds the crown must bend in compromise.

So after fighting extradition and campaigning against the prosecution and for legalization of marijuana, Emery seemed willing to go to prison to settle the case.

He worked out a deal last year in which he would plead guilty and end up spending five years in prison, most of it in Canada. The Canadian government rejected the deal, saying it could not legally agree to Emery's not being released before his five years were up, according to The National Post.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle would not discuss that plea deal.

"They had me agreeing to five years to save my friends (Rainey and Williams)," Emery said. The deal would have meant no prison time for them, he said.

"But now my friends aren't at risk."

In exchange for agreeing to plead guilty to one charge of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, prosecutors agreed on April 24 to drop two other charges against Rainey and Williams.

And prosecutors have agreed to recommend two years of probation to a judge who will sentence the two in July.

Prosecutors have also agreed that neither will have to undergo drug tests during probation.

There is no provision in the deal that either must testify against Emery. The court documents mention details of Emery's business: the 4 million seeds, the $3 million in earnings, and that 75 percent of the customers were in the U.S.

Those came from a Web site for the business, which closed after the indictment.

"All that stuff I used to advertise. That's no surprise," Emery says.

The plea deals Williams and Rainey signed do not mention any criminal enterprise in the U.S. that used the seeds to grow pot.

"They are secondary defendants, and we chose to resolve their cases," said Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle.

She also said: "It is very common for the government to resolve cases with secondary players in this way. Mr. Emery is, and always has been, the lead defendant in this case. In the statement of facts in their plea agreements, these two defendants verify and confirm the allegations made by the government in the indictment."

But Emery thinks the plea deal reflects a change in attitude toward marijuana in the U.S.

"I don't think the ideological will exists to pursue the case," he said.

The investigation and prosecution began when George W. Bush was in the White House, and his administration was hostile to liberalizing marijuana laws. Walters, Bush's drug czar, was antagonistic to medical marijuana, saying it was simply a ruse to legalize pot and even other illegal drugs.

But there is a new administration. The Bush appointees who ran the Justice Department, DEA and Office of Drug Policy when a grand jury indicted Emery are gone.

But Langlie, the spokeswoman for federal prosecutors in Seattle, said changes at the top won't alter a prosecution here.

"The case is being handled by a career prosecutor and is not impacted by any change at DOJ or in the administration," she said.

Public attitudes toward marijuana are also changing. More than a dozen states allow medical marijuana. Seattle voters have told p0lice to making busting people for private use of a marijuana a low priority. And moves are under way in California to legalize pot.

So is a deal in the works for Emery? He said he hasn't heard directly from prosecutors. His lawyer was unavailable for comment.

Todd Greenburg, the prosecutor in the case, wouldn't comment. In fact, the U.S. Attorney's Office as a matter of practice doesn't comment on plea negotiations.

Emery would take a deal that keeps him out of prison. With the case pending, he said he can't leave British Columbia for elsewhere in Canada without the approval of a court. Crossing the U.S. border means handcuffs and jail.

"I would like to go to the United States someday," he said.

But he is torn.

"For me, we get more mileage for our overall objective if they tried to extradite me," Emery said. "It would galvanize support (against drug laws)."

An extradition hearing is scheduled for June 1 through 5 in Canada. If it takes place -- others have been scheduled, then postponed -- Emery plans to fight and take his battle through the Canadian appeals process.

Time is on his side.

The Conservative Party rules Canada as a minority, unpopular government. National elections and a change in government could take place this year.

"It would be unpopular to extradite me," he said. "So it would be beneficial to me for a change in government."

If he ends up being sent to the U.S., expect quite a show. Imagine hundreds of folks crossing the border to protest.

"I'll see what kind of crisis I can create there," he said.

Scott Sunde can be reached at scottsunde@seattlepi.com
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Posted: May 4, 2009 1:55pm
May 2, 2009
Focus: Environment
Action Request: Think About
Location: United States
Scientists worldwide admit global warming is a hoax
By Eoin O'Carroll |04.01.09
Christian Science Monitor

In an unprecedented move Wednesday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee rescinded the Peace Prize it awarded in 2007 to former US vice president Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, amid overwhelming evidence that global warming is an elaborate hoax cooked up by Mr. Gore.

A press release from the committee quotes a chagrined Rajendra Pachauri, the UN climate panel’s chair, who claims that he was the victim of a “cunning deception spanning decades”:

“I am deeply ashamed for having unwittingly perpetuated such a massive fraud on the governments of the world,” said Mr. Pachauri.

“It turns out that all that data from satellites and radiosondes, surface temperature readings, borehole analysis, measurements of rising sea levels, melting glaciers and permafrost, phenological data, and proxy reconstructions of paleoclimatic conditions were all fabricated out of thin air by my former friend, Al Gore. Now that I think about it, I suppose that we should have instituting some sort of peer-review process before publishing such alarming conclusions. Once again, I’m very sorry.”

After revoking the 2007 prize from Gore and the IPCC, the Nobel committee retroactively awarded it to the more than 31,000 people who signed the Oregon Petition – an appeal challenging the notion that there exists a scientific consensus regarding global warming – “for their efforts to pursue pure, objective science that is free from the influence of any special interest group.”

The prize of about $1.53 million will be divided equally among the petition’s signatories, whose expertise ranges from astrology to Intelligent Design.

For his part, Al Gore has owned up to duping the scientific community. In a blog post on his website, the ex-Nobel Laureate explains the genesis of his scheme, “now that the jig is up.”

As long as I can remember, my only goal in life has been to destroy free-market capitalism and replace it with global totalitarian socialism. But it seemed that traditional methods, such as guerrilla warfare, were proving unsuccessful. Then, one day in 1988, as I was strolling through the halls of my giant mansion, it hit me: carbon dioxide.

By striking at the molecule that lies at the heart of industrial civilization, I could bring the whole system to its knees and usher in a workers’ paradise.

The rest just sort of fell into place. I wrote a book, held some Congressional hearings, made a movie, dashed off a few pseudonymous journal articles on radiative forcing, and the next thing you know, I was on TV with Dave Matthews and Ludacris convincing people to purchase carbon offsets. Carbon offsets!

I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for that darn petition.

The New York Times quotes NASA climate scientist James Hansen, one of the most outspoken advocates of limiting greenhouse gas emissions, who says he bought Mr. Gore’s ruse “hook, line, and sinker.”

“I have to admit, Al got me good,” said Mr. Hansen as he packed up his personal belongings at his office at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. “Despite my decades of experience in climate modeling and satellite meteorology, I would just get mesmerized whenever he started showing me all those fancy charts and tables. The man is a real Svengali.”

Not all scientists were fooled by Mr. Gore’s ruse, but many remained silent nonetheless. The Associated Press quotes an anonymous marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who says she knew all along that “this climate change stuff was completely bogus.”

“But I played along,” she said. “The opportunities for securing global-warming-related grant money were just too great for me to resist.”

“Sweet, sweet grant money,” she added.

Following the Nobel committee’s announcement, national scientific academies from 187 countries hastily drafted a joint statement denouncing the theory of anthropogenic global warming and expressing a renewed humility in the face of complex natural phenomena:

It is our hope that, whenever future generations find themselves swayed by the notion that one can derive generalizations about the physical world by gathering measurable data and subjecting it to logical analysis, they will recall the humbling and extraordinary events of today, April Fools Day, 2009.

The only major scientific body not to sign the statement was the Royal Society of Canada, whose country has been brought to a standstill by a massive infestation of polar bears.
Feb 12, 2007
The mountain caribou needs more habitat than British Columbia's government is currently prepared to provide. And, without proper protection, one of the most endangered mammals in North America could disappear.

Industrial logging and out-of-control motorized recreation are not only destroying caribou habitat, but also diminishing opportunities for nature lovers and recreation enthusiasts.

Yet, the British Columbia government has prepared a mountain caribou recovery plan that proposes less habitat protection than the government's mountain caribou science team believes would be necessary to fully recover the herds.

Canadian pressure is critical for the recovery of this endangered species. Please tell the BC government that habitat protection is the cornerstone of an effective mountain caribou recovery plan. The comment period ends February 28, 2007. Send your comment TODAY!
Protect Mountain Caribou Habitat
I am concerned about the urgent situation for endangered mountain caribou. For two years your mountain caribou science panel met to develop options for mountain caribou recovery. These scientists all agreed that protecting habitat is critical to the long-term survival of the species. I write to urge you to protect ALL mountain caribou habitat. I believe that BC has a responsibility to the world to conserve this wildlife heritage.

You have promised to "lead the world in sustainable environmental management." In the two years that have passed since you created the Species At Risk Coordination Office, mountain caribou have continued to decline at a rate of 4.5% a year, according to your scientists. Meanwhile logging and motorized recreation have continued in mountain caribou habitat. The eyes of the world are on BC as host of the 2010 Olympic games. Since mountain caribou are found nowhere else in the world, I feel you have a global responsibility to protect them.

BC has the opportunity to demonstrate its environmental leadership by protecting mountain caribou and the globally unique ecosystem -- the Inland Temperate Rainforest — that these animals rely on. Please assure me that you will take immediate action to protect all the mountain caribou habitat identified by the Mountain Caribou Science Team.
 

My comment on the petition:

  Mountain Caribou cannot breed and raise their young in areas disturbed by noisy, polluting snowmobiles. When a population of animals gets TOO SMALL, those left inbreed and become genetically weak and DISAPPEAR. Which would you prefer: a world with NO MORE MOUNTAIN CARIBOU in it; or a world with NO MORE SNOWMOBILES??? I opt for a world that eliminates snowmobiles, before I want to live in a world with no more Mountain Caribou, and other species endangered by careless recreational snowmobiling.  BMT  


One of BC's most threatened species - can it survive more habitat loss?

Less than 2,000 mountain caribou exist in the world, 98% of which live in British Columbia. Found in both the upper Goat River and the Bugaboo Rainforest, mountain caribou are heavily reliant upon this moist old-growth ecosystem for raising their young, protecting themselves from predators and foraging for food.

Mountain Caribou

A Bugaboo Rainforest National Park would protect critical Mountain Caribou habitat. Photo credit: Michael Wheatley

In particular, mountain caribou depend on arboreal lichens as a critical winter food source. Because lichens grow very slowly, only very old forests provide the abundant lichens needed to nourish caribou over harsh winter months.

According to a 1999 BC Wildlife Branch report, “Because caribou are so well-suited to the ecological conditions in the inland rainforest…they can be considered a flagship species of this area. No other large animal has a distribution so closely tied to this region.”

The ongoing destruction of this rare ecosystem through logging, hydro and other development has seen the mountain caribou range shrink by 60%. Sadly, the younger forests which emerge after logging upset the natural balance by bringing deer and moose into the area, which in turn brings in predators such as wolves and cougars.

Government 2002 census results show serious declines in BC’s 13 mountain caribou herds. Of great concern is the fact that several mountain caribou herds are now at critically low levels. The population of some herds has declined by more than 50% between 1994 and 2001. These herds are in imminent danger of disappearing from the landscape altogether.

As an indicator species the mountain caribou is a canary in the coalmine and it is telling us that the ecosystem in which it lives is being destroyed and fragmented to such an extent that it can no longer support a species that has depended on it for thousands of years.


 
 

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BMutiny TCorporationsEvil
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Seattle, WA, USA
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