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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (17316)	9/11/2010 9:25:15 PM
From: average joe	Respond to of 42652

From 'Prince of Pot' to 'Prince of Prison' 'Jail is a cruel and lonely place and I regret that my actions have brought me here.' By Damian Inwood, The Province September 11, 2010 5:01 PM Marijuana activist Marc Emery and wife Jodie Emery Vancouver’s Marc Emery has gone from “Prince of Pot” to prison pauper with a five-year U.S. prison sentence for mailing marijuana seeds south of the border. The 52-year-old cannabis activist spent part of the first night of his sentence holding hands with his wife Jodie, during a two-hour Seattle jail visit. “He gets very emotional when he thinks of being away from me for so long,” Jodie, 25, said Saturday. “He said that when he comes back to Canada, if he’s not allowed smoke cannabis, he won’t, and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t miss it — he just misses me and wants to get home.” Emery was slapped with the five-year jail sentence in a plea-bargain deal after fighting for more than five years to avoid a U.S. prison term. Jodie said her husband was pleased that District Court Judge Ricardo Martinez agreed to a defence recommendation that Emery be transferred to a prison in Canada to serve his sentence. “His application for transfer was dropped off at the Canadian consulate, so that will soon be at [federal] Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’ desk and he can approve it almost immediately,” she said. “Marc will likely be moved to a different institution somewhere in the U.S. in four to six weeks. He’ll still be called the ‘Prince of Pot’ but some people have joked about him being the “Prince of Prison” and things like that.” Until he is moved to Canada, Emery hopes to serve his time at a minimum-security prison in Lompoc, Calif., but he could also be sent to a jail in Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas or New Mexico. If Emery does get a treaty transfer to Canada, he could be on day parole as early as next summer and full parole by November 2011, said Jodie. The couple has been married since July 2006. Jodie said she keeps from getting depressed by staying busy running Emery’s store, his online magazine, answering emails and working on her political career with the B.C. Green Party. She said her husband will pass the time behind bars writing an autobiography and working on a Canadian voters’ guide to the federal election. “Marc’s always been a very positive person and that helps me, too, because I know that nothing comes from being worried or depressed,” she said. “When he’s released he wants to focus on me getting elected or on my campaign.” Since he turned himself in to U.S. authorities in May, Emery has been held in a prison on the outskirts of Seattle, said Jodie. “He’s a computer guy, so the guards ask him to refill the ink in the printer and fix the paper jams,” she said. “He helps a lot of other inmates with the visitation forms and setting up their phones. He helps Hispanic inmates with writing letters to the judges and with their paperwork.” Jodie said she has been able to visit Emery twice a week. “It’s a big room that can fit about 125 people, kind of like a cafeteria with knee-high plastic tables, and we have to sit across from each other,” she said. “We get to have a hug and a kiss when we first meet — you get 30 seconds to have a greeting — and a hug and a kiss when he leaves. And throughout the visit we’re allowed to hold hands but we’re not allowed to touch each other in any other way. “It’s wonderful to lean in really close to him and we just gaze at each other and talk for the whole time.” When Emery was sentenced in Seattle Friday, he got a tongue-lashing from U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg. “This is a very serious sentence for a very serious crime,” said Greenberg. “At the time of this investigation, Mr Emery was the largest distributor of marijuana seeds in North America.” He said Emery sold millions of marijuana seeds which were grown into millions of plants in the U.S. Emery sold the seeds by mail order and telephone to anyone who placed an order, “regardless of their age, regardless of their criminal association and criminal past,” Greenberg added. He accused Emery of selling seeds to “grow houses” throughout the U.S. and dismissed Emery’s claim that he was being prosecuted for political reasons. “It’s not a surprise that some of the grows that he supplied had firearms and booby-traps awaiting law-enforcement officers,” said Greenberg. “He essentially was adding fuel to this fire, the growing problem of violence surrounding marijuana grow-ops.” Martinez told Emery that regardless of the debate over whether Emery should be jailed, “the fact of the matter is that under the current law, there’s no question that your actions were illegal and criminal.” In a letter to the judge, Emery wrote: “Jail is a cruel and lonely place and I regret that my actions have brought me here. I admit that I was arrogant in flouting United States law.” theprovince.com