cannabis

In an interesting story, Pursuit of drug case all smoke, no fire, by Joel Connelly of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer notes that:

With an ill-advised statement politicizing the case that also misspelled Emery’s first name, the DEA boss may help transform a publicity seeker into a Canadian martyr.

Seeking to stop his extradition to the United States — where he faces charges of trafficking in marijuana seeds — Emery’s legal team could use Tandy’s words to telling effect: Their client is being prosecuted for his beliefs.

more below the fold…
It is telling that Marc Emery’s first name misspelled in the statement that Joel Connelly received from DEA in the statement by Karen Tandy:

Consider the contrasting bluster of Tandy’s statement from the DEA home office in the other Washington.

“Today’s arrest of Mark (sic) Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture magazine and the founder of a marijuana legalization group, is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement.”

Why? Tandy gives us a handy dose of innuendo.

“Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery’s illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on.”

Why is it telling you ask? Because the same misspelling was in the press release from the United States Attorney’s Office, Western District of Washington:

“The tentacles of the Mark Emery criminal enterprise reached out across North America to include all 50 United States and Canada,” said Special Agent in Charge Rodney G. Benson of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). “Mr. Emery utilized the internet to sell his marijuana seeds throughout this country to customers no matter their age. He directed his business with efficiency, was motivated by greed, and will now be prosecuted for this illegal activity.”

So, the press release above and the one distributed, presumably by fax or email, to Joel Connelly and other reporters was written by the same people, or was copied from the same original draft. By the way, the word Internet should be capitalized as well. So Marc Emery, like so many other cases in the history of drug law enforcement, is being prosecuted for political reasons.

Marijuana drug law has always been political. Even the word “marihuana” is a political word. It is no accident that marihuana came from Mexican slang. As is my handle the proper name for this plant is Cannabis sativa. Do a search for the word in the U.S. Controlled Substances Act and you will find it. The original use of the word was in the The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, which of course was a pet project of Harry Anslinger. He was a master at media manipulation. Everything that he did was to make sure that his bureau did not end up like the Bureau of Prohibition, extinct. You see, the entire purpose of a government agency is to spend their budget this year and get more funding next year. All you have to do is to use the media to make people fear that which they don’t understand. It still works.

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