Marc Emery Discusses His Trial

Canada's Prince of Pot Prepares for Jail Time

The former mayor of Vancouver, Larry Campbell, said that they'll never put someone on trial in Vancouver for selling marijuana seeds, and they haven't since I got busted in 1998. Everyone else will sell seeds with impunity; they may as well give them a licence to make money, whereas I am probably going to get a 10-year deal, which is the mandatory minimum for one of the three charges I'm facing. Now my hearing has been delayed, so I have even more time to stew about it.

It's easy to bump me because my case is unpopular in Canada. They know that the public isn't behind this. But I don't get a trial in Canada and the U.S. doesn't know what it's in for; they've never tried to prosecute anyone Canadians really care about.

Marc Emery Faces US Prison Time

No one wants to encourage me to give myself up to a U.S. prison for 10 or 15 years as a martyr, because they don't want to be responsible for any crazy decision I make. But I'd rather go to jail in the United States and have people really angry and bitter and causing all sorts of trouble. I'd like to keep the crisis going. As soon as I agree to a deal, people will say, "Marc agreed to it; there's no more crisis, there's nothing to protest."

Here's the exclusive story on my defense - there is no defense. The defense I want to do, my lawyers don't want to do because it costs too much money. My lawyers say there are no laws to defend me because the Canadian government signed away Canadians' rights in these awful treaties, and the treaties have been upheld by the Supreme Court. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) bought seeds off me on three or four occasions. They seized my computers, but didn't find anything because I never kept any records. The evidence against me is my own admissions - there is no other evidence. I boasted on videotape of selling more seeds than anyone ever. I boasted that my seeds have produced several million pounds of weed. I'm an old man, so it's not like I can blame my boasting on youthful indiscretion.

I'd rather have a nice trial about torture and the wrongness of it all, but my lawyers say that will cost me $50,000, which I don't have. They don't think I can win, but I say I might win, and I say we don't have to agree to 10 years. But these lawyers have never met anybody like me. It's going to turn out to be very costly.

I'm 50 years old, and it's a lot easier to go to jail at 50 than it is at 22. If it were just me, it wouldn't be so bad. But Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams are facing time too. I don't think Greg will do time though because he only sold seeds to the DEA once, so I don't know how they could possibly extradite him. Michelle though, she boasted about being my CEO and financial manager, so even though she lied, she could have a hard time saying she wasn't involved. When you've got someone else's life on the line, it's kind of a downer.

It's like when they charged my kids. When your children get charged, you tend to agree to all sorts of crazy things. My kids were home schooled and then worked for me. They'd press seeds and check them out all day to make sure they were perfect. They also helped with shipping and receiving, and they were great at it. Unfortunately, they were also there when I got busted, and the cops charged everybody, so it forced me to negotiate. They agreed to throw out all extraneous charges against bystanders if I would just agree to plead guilty.

History of Marijuana Convictions

I've been arrested dozens of times and convicted of 22 marijuana-related offenses. I've given pot away, sold bongs, sold seeds, promoted seeds - offenses you didn't even know existed within the law. I once got 90 days for passing a joint to a 22-year-old. But never have I been charged with selling weed or growing weed.

I see myself as Howard Roark from The Fountainhead. Even if they send me away for two or three hundred years, at least I get my way for one day. But when they send you to Seattle, you don't get to say anything like that. In the federal court, you only get to state the facts and why I did it is not important. They'll just play the tape of me boasting about selling seeds, and that's it. So, court is a lot less satisfying than it's portrayed in movies.

But I have other platforms; I do interviews all day long. LA Times Magazine, New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post. CNN did a great show about me. So, I've done conventional media, online media, and we have 30,000 MySpace friends to whom we send bulletins.

Our network of activists are expected to make alot of disturbances on my behalf. I am highly regarded in our community, because we all understand the oppression. There are 165,000,000 cannabis users in the world and we are all oppressed by our governments. The cannabis culture sees me as a leader who has earned their respect. They will be angry and they will take action, so that is all good. Anything that generates more action against the U.S. War on Drugs is a necessary thing. I'm happy to be someone who escalates the crisis in order to cause our enemies to over-reach. When they over-reach, they are vulnerable. In the art of political ju-jitsu, you must make your enemies prepare their own downfall.

In order for me to face long prison hardship, you have to love life, enjoy it and enjoy the struggle against our enemies. I do.