Marc Emery on 60 minutes

[bONES]

read it here

[Chewie]

i am looking forward to it...i just interviewed marc in jan.

[zero]

As I know many feel this guy is of course something of a monstrous putz although I respect him for taking the hits in terms of the arrests and the incarceration in Saskatchewan (62 days! Trafficking! A Joint!). The whole reason to bring decrim in is not necessarily on some compasssionate or pie eyed liberal grounds but simply because of the disparity in enforcement between jurisdictions and regions in Canada. I would need Stone Mtn. to answer this better but I would see the issue procedurally in terms of our own system of government as similar to same sex marriage. The pollster Allan Gregg made this argument in a recent Saturday Night magazine article (The Christian Comeback, November 2005):

The debate on same-sex marriage is a perfect example: you never hear Paul martin arguing, say, that loving families are the cornerstone of society, that the ritual of marriage creates a network of support for those who wed, and that this ritual is a benefit to society regardless of sexual orientation. Instead, they defend their stance on political, procedural and legalistic grounds: tolerance demands that we embrace gay rights; the courts have ruled in favour of same-sex marriages in eight province; therefore this is a charter issue that must be applied to all, equally. True to form, the Liberals put the issue to rest in the House of Commons with a backroom procedural trick that shut down debate, avoiding the need to argue their case.

Interestingly, and this part of his argument also has a correlation with the pot issue, his piece was about the rise of politically minded Christianity in this country and of course the states. The success of the right is their ability to tap into the rich vein of shared spiritual values. The ineffectiveness of the Canadian Left is their inability to articulate their positions based upon the values they hold dear.

[timouse]

the irony of the interview was the DEA guy continually saying "I don't care about his politics or his cause, he is guilty of a felony and will face possible life improsonment." Cut to Emery, who says that 2 people in canadian history have been charged with selling seeds and the most recent punishment meted out was a $200 fine.

vive la difference.

[CyberHippie]

Off topic - Cowboy, what's your avatar from? It's not from a movie called "Wizards" is it?

[mattm]

I don't know if I like this whole getting the americans into this. They are completely crazy as far as prohibition goes and way to religious for that to change anytime soon.

It's also really scary that we now have an american government up here (I refuse to believe that Stephen Harper's governement is Canadian so please don't try to convince me). Notice the RCMP guy saying they should have paid more attention before and we wouldn't have such a big problem now? I still don't see the problem here. You CANNOT justify legal alcohol and say weed is bad, you just can't.

"I think that we, law enforcement, have been too tolerant of the marijuana industry and perhaps should have acted sooner," Rintoul said.

"When the marijuana thing sort of hit in the '80s and the grows continued, we were a bit naive and perhaps didn't do our job right then to educate the public, educate the courts, educate ourselves to the hazards."

[color:purple]Alright, lets have a bunch of drunk folks driving around fighting each other and commiting nice acts like rape but man we should really educate the population on weed, it's absolutely terrible (I've seen Reefer Madness man, I've seen what Pot can do to people).

my two cents. If I don't stop now it'll be my several hundred dollars as I really hate prohibition and get really worked up anytime an issue like this comes around (even an article simply talking about Emery hitting 60 minutes)

[Freak By Night]

Why not use Emery as a bargaining chip in the softwood lumber dispute? Harper could say: "Well give you Emery, but you remove all duties and tariffs on softwood lumber. Hell, we'll even throw in a two-four".

Think the yanks will go for that?

[mattm]

I think they'd take it and then probably just put emery away for life and conviniently forget we had an agreement and things would be back to normal.

[Freak By Night]

I think they'd take it and then probably just put emery away for life and conviniently forget we had an agreement and things would be back to normal.

Ahhh... you're a veteran observer of US-Canada trade relations.

I'd like to see what Kelly_Anne has to say about this subject...