U.S. DEA Finally Gets Its Man

Just over four years ago, former U.S. DEA administrator Karen Tandy announced to the world that her agency had struck “a significant blow … to the marijuana legalization movement” by indicting Canada’s so-called ‘Prince of Pot,’ Marc Emery.

For nearly two decades Emery operated a successful marijuana seed bank operation in Vancouver, British Columbia — a venture which he used to directly fund cannabis law reform efforts around the globe, including the magazine Cannabis Culture, the internet site Pot TV, and the founding of the British Columbia Marijuana Party.

Emery’s seed business was hardly a secret. For many years, Emery mailed copies of his seed catalogue to Canadian politicians. A Canadian court convicted him in 1998 and sentenced him to a $2,000 fine. Undeterred, Emery continued to sell seeds — and pay federal taxes on his profits — up until his arrest. Canadian authorities were happy to accept his tax money, and officials at Health Canada, which oversees Canada’s legal medical marijuana program, often recommended that patients contact Emery for grow advice. Nevertheless, when the Feds came calling, the Canadian authorities were swift to throw Marc Emery to the wolves.

Even though Emery’s alleged crimes would have warranted, at most, a month in jail in his home country, Canadian authorities yesterday placed Marc into custody so that he can be extradited to the United States. Once here, he faces up to five years in prison for pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana (more than 100 plants) in violation of 21 USC 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(B).

But lets not kid ourselves. Marc Emery was hardly a high level target because he sold marijuana seeds to the U.S. — a simple google search will yield dozens of listings of competitors that presently engage in similar activities. No, it wasn’t so much what Marc did (“There isn’t a single victim in my case, no one who can stand up and say, ‘I was hurt by Marc Emery.’ No one,” he told the Vancouver Sun) as it was what he did with his money that aroused the ire of U.S. anti-drug officials.

And we have Karen Tandy’s own words to prove it.

Alternet: “Five Things the Corporate Media Don’t Want You to Know About Cannabis”

I’ve written previously about the mainstream media’s propensity to under report and distort stories that challenge marijuana prohibition.

Apparently my latest missive has hit a nerve — as it has quickly risen to become the most read story on Alternet.

5 Things the Corporate Media Don’t Want You to Know About Cannabis
via Alternet.org

1. Marijuana Use Is Not Associated With a Rise in Incidences of Schizophrenia

2. Marijuana Smoke Doesn’t Damage the Lungs Like Tobacco

3. Cannabis Use Potentially Protects, Rather Than Harms, the Brain

4. Marijuana Is a Terminus, Not a ‘Gateway,’ to Hard Drug Use

5. Government’s Anti-Pot Ads Encourage, Rather Than Discourage, Marijuana Use

Read the full text of the story here.

Conference 2009 – Saturday Agenda

Update: Audio from Today is now available

Associate Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School

Live audio streaming now from NORML National Conference

Check it out on http://live.norml.org – Rick Steves coming up soon, plus discussions from the founder of Oaksterdam, Richard Lee; Dr. Harry Levine on race and marijuana arrests; and California NORML’s Dale Gieringer on the current legal landscape there.

Conference 2009 – Friday Agenda

Travel Author and NORML Advisory Board Member Rick Steves

NORML Conference 2009 Thursday

Three hours of live audio from Thursday’s panels at NORML National Conference are now available at our archive of NORML SHOW LIVE. You’ll hear NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano on the science and medicine of marijuana, followed by a panel on patients, caregivers, and small patient collectives moderated by William Panzer, one of the co-authors of Prop 215.

Chris Goldstein and Russ Belville are collecting all the photos, audio, and video from the conference for upload as the day continues.

2009 Conference – Thursday Agenda

Panel Moderator NORML Board Member William G. Panzer, Esq.

NORML CON 2009 Agenda

For more details, see norml.org/conference. Click any event for more info.

NORML SHOW LIVE for three days at NORML CON 2009

NORML’s new talk radio program, NORML SHOW LIVE, will be streaming for three days at the 2009 NORML National Conference, “Yes We Cannabis”, live from the Grand Hyatt Hotel in San Francisco. These special three-hour episodes will be available at live.norml.org at the following special times and archived for download later just fifteen minutes after broadcast:

1. Thursday, September 24
   11:00am – 2:00pm Pacific Time
2. Friday, September 25
   11:00am – 2:00pm Pacific Time
3. Saturday, September 26
   3:00pm – 6:00pm Pacific Time

The show will be hosted by “Radical” Russ Belville, but with very limited commercial interruption and the occasional narration.  After the shows broadcast remotely in the difficult wireless environment of Portland’s Kelley Point Park and the noisy backstage of the Boston Freedom Rally, Russ is excited to present an indoor event that will take its audio directly from the conference PA system. (more…)

NORML SHOW LIVE from Boston Freedom Rally tonight – special time 3pm Eastern

[Update: check out the recording - a little tough to hear at times, but great interviews with Miss New Jersey 2006 Georgine DiMaria, High Times Cultivation Editor Danny Danko, rap star Styles P, MMA fighting champion Toby Grear, NORML founder Keith Stroup, a new activist patient named Lori, NORML New Jersey's Chris Goldstein, and live audio from 4:20 at Boston Freedom Rally. -- "R"R]

This weekend NORML SHOW LIVE comes to you direct from Boston, Massachusetts, for the twentieth annual Boston Freedom Rally. The live stream begins at the special time of Noon PT / 3pm ET (since Freedom Rally only runs Noon to 6pm ET) and continues for two hours.

You can listen to the show live three ways (and no, regular terrestrial or satellite radio is not one of those ways… yet):

1. Point your web browser to http://live.norml.org and follow the links to Show 003. (Or use the link on the powder-blue BlogTalkRadio player you see there on the right…)
2. Point your mobile phone’s browser to http://m.blogtalkradio.com/norml. Click the link at the bottom of the page for Shows and Blogs. Click the link for Show 003.
3. Call 347-994-1810 on your mobile phone. (“347″ is a New York area code, so long distance charges, if any, would apply. Probably only an option if you’ve got unlimited minutes and free domestic long distance.)

The show will also be archived about one hour following the live broadcast. You’ll be able to hear it all week on the embedded player to the right or by subscribing to it as a podcast on iTunes. (The live show should be available at 6pm Pacific and should stay on this page until Thursday. Click the “play” button to begin.) You can listen to last weekend’s show up until showtime.

We’re also taking your calls at the bottom of each hour. Dial 347-994-1810 to listen in on your phone and press 1 at any time if you’d like to speak to the host or guests. Your call will be screened and we remind you to have a question ready, keep it short and to the point, and avoid profanity (we’re not FCC regulated on the net, but if we want to take this to terrestrial radio, we need to act like it.)