Anti-Extradition Campaign Underway In Canada For Country's Most Famous Marijuana Law Reform Advocate
National Post columnist and lawyer Karen Selick penned a New Year’s Eve column calling attention to the upcoming January 21 extradition hearing for Cannabis Culture publisher, and former cannabis seed vendor, Marc Emery. The extradition hearing could lead to Emery having to stand trial in the United States on federal charges relating to selling cannabis seeds over the Internet.
In an open letter to Rob Nicholson, Canada’s Minister of Justice, Selick acknowledges that Emery will likely be compelled by Canadian courts to surrender to U.S. authorities, and pending such a determination, asks Nicholson’s intervention on behalf of Emery. Selick exhorts, "[Marc’s] conduct would have been grounds for criminal charges here, although Canadian authorities never chose to charge him. But that’s enough under the Act to make it mandatory for the judge to commit him for surrender to U.S. authorities.
That’s where you come in, Mr. Justice Minister. Once the court has ruled, the Extradition Act gives you discretion to refuse to surrender Marc if it "would be unjust or oppressive having regard to all the relevant circumstances." From 1999 until he was arrested in 2005, Marc declared his income tax return that his occupation was ‘marijuana seed vendor.’ He paid $578,000 in income taxes into federal and BC government coffers….Canada Revenue Agency…graciously accepted his money without ever taking any action to put a stop to all this criminal activity."
Nicholson is reminded by Selick that an Internet search today of the term ‘marijuana seeds’ still finds numerous seed-selling businesses still operating widely in Canada, making the arrest of only Emery (along with his co-defendants Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams) apparently a selective law enforcement action. Further, when Canada was compelled in 2000 to make medical marijuana available by the Ontario Court of Appeals, confusion reigned and that Health Canada (Canada’s health bureaucracy) referred qualified medical patients to purchase seeds online from Marc Emery’s company.
Selick concludes, "It would be the height of hypocrisy and injustice for this country to now hand over its benefactor to a foreign government for a prosecution it declined to pursue itself. The Extradition Act requires you, Mr. Justice Minister, to refuse to surrender a person if the request for extradition is ‘made for the purpose of prosecuting or punishing the person by reason of their…political opinion.’ Please consider Marc’s long history of idealistic activism and tell the U.S. government that you won’t let them haul this politically motivated Canadian hero off to one of their jails."
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