12/18/09 – Mark Emery – The Scott Horton Show

Alright y'all, welcome back to the show, it's Anti-War Radio, Chaos 95.9 in Austin.
And of course, anti-war means anti-drug war.
And our next guest on the show today is Mark Emery, they call him the Prince of Pot, I'm not sure who does, but somebody does.
And he's on the phone right now, he's a publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine, perennial candidate for mayor of Vancouver.
And well they say that you got a story to tell, I guess why don't you start us off Mark, with the beginnings of your story, maybe starting with why you're in Canada, you're an American right?
I'm a Canadian, I'm in Vancouver.
Oh you're a Canadian, I thought you were like in exile or something up there.
So I've been an activist for about 20 years, about 20 years ago, I started a phenomenon called overgrowing the government.
Back in the 1980s, there was no movement in North America, and there was no real activism going on to legalize marijuana and the prohibition, and get people out of jail in the early 1980s, they started accelerating the drug war in the United States, so that we went from 380,000 people in jail in 1980, to 2.4 million people in jail right today in the United States, and that's because of the explosion of the drug war, mandatory minimum sentences, three strikes and you're out, all these terrible things came in to heavily increase the incarceration rate.
And there were very few protests, if any, throughout the United States and Canada in the entire 1980s.
In Canada it got so bad that they had banned books and magazines about marijuana in 1987, and many of the hemp stores, head shops were put out of business by new laws, so we had a new round of repression throughout the 1980s, and I decided to combat that, starting in 1990, with challenging the ban on marijuana books and magazines here in Canada.
It took us five years, but we finally got the government's bad law repealed, and then we started working on medical marijuana here in Canada, and industrial hemp, and we got those made into law and had somewhat effective programs for those sort of things, and then I've been working on legalizing marijuana across North America, and what happened in 1994, I started selling cannabis seeds to raise a lot of money, and using that term overgrowing the government, and for example, one of the phenomenal things we did, we gave away $4 million to US and Canadian activists from 1994 to 2005, and one of the great things I did, that's only paid off this week, was in 1998, I gave $5,000 to a group in Washington D.C. who were petitioning to get medical marijuana on the ballot in the District of Columbia, and our $5,000 was their first amount of money they got to start going in and getting signatures, and then later on that year, the initiative passed, but unfortunately the Congress, through the Bar Amendment, stopped it from being enacted, and then earlier this week, they finally repealed the Bar Amendment after nearly 12 years, and so that $5,000 I contributed back in 1998 is finally paid off, and now there is medical marijuana available in the District of Columbia.
So we were giving money away to all sorts of groups to get all these ballot initiatives done.
We at one time gave $10,000 to a ballot initiative in Colorado and the same amount in Arizona, and a combination of about $15,000 to $20,000 for Alaska initiatives, so we were very active throughout the 1990s and the early part of this decade, and then in 2005, the DEA decided to come up to Canada and try and put me out of business, which they did do, and having me arrested in 2005 in July, and sought me for extradition to the United States for my activist activities, and are now about to get the satisfaction of that, because it would appear I'll be extradited to the United States in early January.
Well, it says on the website here that you went ahead and pled guilty in a plea deal, I guess, to make sure, I guess they agreed to drop the charges against your two friends.
What is it that you guys are accused of doing?
Well, distributing marijuana is the one charge that I'm pleading guilty to in the Seattle courtroom later on in January, because ultimately they were both threatening to put my friends in jail for a long time, but as well, they were basically saying that, you know, I was one of the most serious marijuana drug kingpins in the world, the DEA and the Justice Department had put me on their top 50 most wanted in the world, and said I was the most wanted in all of Canada for distributing these seeds, I didn't actually distribute marijuana, I just sold these seeds to consenting adults, so they wouldn't have to buy their marijuana from the inner city and they could grow their own and this sort of thing.
And the Justice Department used phenomenal hyperbole and started calling me a major drug dealer and, you know, made it look like I would be looking at 30, 40, 50 years in jail, so I thought...
Well, you know, I don't know if I can...
I'm sorry, I haven't really looked into this case enough, and I can't really expect you to incriminate yourself, but, I mean, what are they saying, that you were like Pablo Escobar and you had all your own private security, you know, 18 bad guys with rifles and the whole works, or... and how does that compare to the truth of your seed business?
Well, the reality is we didn't have any gang or anything like that, and, you know, I've never touched a gun since I was about 12 years old, and there's certainly no guns in any my organization here, I mean, one of the things we've done is we've put out Cannabis Culture magazine since 1994, we put over 3,000 videos out, we had the first marijuana video service, which we started in January 1st, 2000, POT, P-O-T dot TV, we put out 3,000 videos about marijuana before something like YouTube came along in 2006 and made it ever so common, and we sponsored initiatives, ballot initiatives...
Well, is there any truth to the idea that major marijuana distributorships at the top levels were working for you, that you were some sort of, you know, apex of a giant organization that had control over the dealers from, you know, below, and that kind of thing?
Is that what the government is even claiming?
No, there's nothing like that involved.
They just didn't like my politics and our advocacy, that's all.
And they used the, you know, the seed business that we had as somewhat of an excuse, but I was a mouthy guy, and our money was going to some incredibly valuable stuff, and so we were very successful, that money was being used in a lot of good ways, and it just annoyed them.
I'm surprised you haven't done any research on this, though, I've been in several movies, and here in Canada we have a movie called Prince of POT, U.S. vs.
Mark Emory, you can see that on YouTube, but it's been on television here many, many times.
Well, I smoke a lot of weed, but I don't read much about it.
Well, here's one thing you should do, that you should urge your listeners and yourself to go to CannabisCulture.com and learn about me, because I like to think I'm, you know, a significant, if not the preeminent activist in North America for the last couple of decades, and that basically we developed the movement that you see now with the money that we gave away, the millions of dollars we gave away, in a period where there were no sponsors for the movement.
You can see this covered in a variety of movies made about me, and look, I've been on 60 Minutes, they did a great feature on me in 2005, I've been interviewed by the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time Magazine, The Economist, Rolling Stone, National Geographic has featured me in three programs in the last year alone, so, you know, if people Google Mark Emory, the Prince of POT, which is what CNN gave me, CNN did a special on me 12 years ago, in 1997, and it went worldwide, and it's a great little show, and the 60 Minutes episode is good, plus the national media here in Canada, CBC News, has done numerous good projects on me, and they all end up validating all my claims, because I've been more thoroughly vetted and researched than almost anybody, any other activist in our movement, for sure, and they always end up concluding that what I tell them is correct, because, you know, the evidence simply supports our position there, so CannabisCulture.com is where it's all at, and Free Mark is the phrase that's on all these t-shirts, we just heard Tommy Chong, we've seen on the Jimmy Fallon show, and Bill O'Reilly, and TSMBC wearing a Free Mark t-shirt, Tommy Chong's a good friend of mine, and Tommy's been in jail nine months for just distributing bongs in the United States, so he's well aware of what it's like to go to a U.S. federal penitentiary, and that's what I'll be doing probably quite soon, and I hope my American friends will research my story, and perhaps have a vigil out front of the jail, whenever I've been put in jail in Canada, my supporters usually set up a vigil outside of the jail, in fact, always, and are there 24 hours a day, every day, I'm in jail.
I recently was just, got out of jail, in anticipation of my exodus from the United States, I was in jail 52 days, up in North Fraser, maximum security, and there was a vigil outside that jail for 45 days straight, 24 hours a day, quite a large little tent city of people and supporters, so hopefully when I'm in the U.S. federal penitentiary somewhere in the United States, my supporters will put up a vigil for me outside of the jail, so that people will be aware I'm in that jail.
And so you've been sentenced to five years?
No, that's going to happen when I get extradited to Seattle for sentencing.
But basically that's what you and your lawyers have agreed to, to get your friends off the hook, right?
That's right, and there'll be a big rally in Seattle, organized by the people who organized the Seattle M-Fest, so anybody in the Washington state area will be encouraged to attend the rally on the day of my sentencing in Seattle.
Yeah, well, you know, I think people ought to think for a minute just about how crazy it is that you literally have prosecutors extorting people, threatening the liberty of third parties for selling seeds, for selling pot seeds, when we all know that tens of millions, tens of millions of Americans smoke weed.
The felony here is pretty obvious, the crime is pretty obvious.
And here the U.S. government extorting the Canadian government into handing over one of their citizens for selling, again, seeds for weed?
I mean, come on, y'all.
You know, two million people arrested every year, just on pot, in this country.
And now, you know, we have Canada, you know, God knows what they threatened them with to make them bow to the pressure here, or maybe they didn't even have to, who knows.
But this whole story, Mark, it's pretty disgusting.
Well, the interesting thing is, change is coming, though.
The United States is in the midst of a huge upheaval, and the great thing is, is because President Obama is in office, and it's not because he is directly doing anything, but unlike George Bush, who would oppose any local or state initiative, the President has ordered the Justice Department and the DEA not to interfere in state initiatives, and now we see a lot of medical marijuana activity going on throughout the United States.
We see a cannabis cafe opening in Portland, Oregon.
We see marijuana being sold in dispensaries throughout Colorado in a very aggressive manner.
We have legalization ballot initiatives coming up this year, in 2010, both in California and Nevada.
So we're about to see a momentous change in the United States towards legalizing marijuana for adults in states like California and Nevada, and there'll be more.
And hopefully this will eventually influence the federal government to change its marijuana laws, give the people in jail for marijuana an amnesty.
You know, in the United States, there's still people in jail for life, for just growing marijuana.
Now, my philosophy all my life has been, no one should go to jail for a peaceful, honest lifestyle choice, and marijuana is a peaceful, honest lifestyle choice.
The reason it's made illegal, the reason governments around the world have always been hostile towards marijuana, is because it creates critical thinkers.
It creates voters and citizens that don't accept the dogmas of the government of the time.
So, you know, we're not always obedient to the book of the law or the book of the Bible or the book of the Koran.
We are critical thinkers who question authority.
That's the most serious sin marijuana people do, is we question authority.
And marijuana has always been associated with anti-war movements.
When Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs on in 1971, it was because he associated those opposed to the Vietnam War, both in Vietnam, among the soldiers, and in America, amongst the students and protesters, with their marijuana use.
So marijuana has been associated with anti-war, pacifism, questioning authority, and these things are always considered very dangerous to any government of its time, especially since governments thrive on obedience.
So marijuana, the War on Marijuana, and the wars we experience here in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, are all associated.
The marijuana culture has always been the leading group against war, and this is why the War on Drugs by Richard Nixon was accelerated by him, and then by Ronald Reagan, and then certainly by George Bush.
Yeah, well, I think that probably does have a lot to do with it all.
So anybody can grow their own weed in their living room, and so it's hard to, even if they legalized it, it wouldn't get rid of the underground market.
People would still just sell bags of weed to each other the way they always have, only it would be a lot cheaper.
But the opportunity for the government to take a giant cut so they could spend that money killing people or whatever, like they do with tobacco, is, you know, they're not able to do it like that.
Well, in fact, California's legalization initiative, done by Richard Lee of Oakster Dam University, has financed this ballot measure that will be on the November 2010 ballot.
It provides for everybody in California to be able to grow marijuana in a 5 by 5 foot space, so it's about, you know, 10 to 15, 20 plants that everybody in California will be entitled to grow.
So that will change the landscape quite substantially for all people in California and ultimately all people in America.
Well, and you know, here's the thing, too, that I think is part of this.
For people who, and you know, as I know you well know, there are people who just can't get over the idea of legalizing drugs.
They say that's the same thing as telling children that it's okay or something, and they just can't get past that.
But even they have got to realize the difference between, you know, a criminal syndicate that actually is maybe armed and dangerous, because when you create a black market, sometimes, you know, in major distribution of the products, you will have some pretty shady people, perhaps.
But you also have people who are completely peaceful people, like yourself, an activist, who's being treated as though you're Pablo Escobar, even though that isn't part of the charges, that you're actually the kingpin of anything.
That it's all because you're an activist, and that's above board, but you're treated as though you're some kind of dangerous Al Capone sort of character, and everyone has got to agree that that just is not right, that, you know, people who are violent criminals are violent criminals, everybody else isn't.
You know, even if you're defrauding, you know, old people, millions of dollars, you still get, you know, a fine.
You don't get five years in prison.
Well, the American prison system is fairly draconian, and they do actually give severe charges for so many different crimes.
Jail is simply not a good place to put people if you want to have a better society.
A lot of people come out of jail more angry, more helpless, more confused, more unable to cope.
So, you know, people do come out of jail in the United States, so by having a punitive jail system that hurts people is only creating more criminals for the future.
So we certainly need to reassess the fanaticism with which people think others ought to go to jail, and for what purpose those jails do now.
In my case, you know, unlike a lot of people, I have a fair degree of support from Americans and Canadians.
I have millions of supporters throughout the United States and Canada, whom I expect will demonstrate on my behalf throughout America.
When I was, the day I went to jail, in September 28th, in anticipation of this extradition, there were demonstrations all over the world on my behalf, in almost every American state, and most European countries, in Costa Rica and Peru and Australia, so, you know, I won't be alone in that regard.
I won't be ignored, and so I have a support base throughout the United States and Canada.
So, you know, my 20 years of work on behalf of legalizing marijuana has certainly not gone unnoticed, and I encourage people to go to CannabisCulture.com and Google Mark Emery, M-A-R-C-E-M-E-R-Y, and find out all the incredible work I've done for the last 20 years.
It's a great story.
It's been covered in lots of movies and television programs and magazine articles, and this month alone I'm in a Norwegian magazine called Gattevisa, and there's articles written about me in languages almost in every language on the earth.
Yeah, well, good luck to you.
I hope that, I don't know, your lawyer can figure out a way to get you out of there.
Five years in a cage for selling pot seeds seems a bit unfair, but...
Well, my activism will continue.
My wife will be operating Cannabis Culture and CannabisCulture.com in our store downtown here in Vansterdam, we call it, Vancouver, the Cannabis Culture headquarters, so people are encouraged to follow what happens to me, and protest what happens to me, and write me letters in jail, and keep track of what happens to Mark Emery, the Prince of Pot.
All right, everybody, it's CannabisCulture.com for Mark Emery.
Thanks a lot for your time on the show today.
Thank you for having me.
Bye now.