Angus-Reid Polling

 

About three-in-five men and respondents aged 34-to-54 support issuing a citizen transfer for the Canadian jailed in the United States.

 

Most Canadians believe that the federal government should take action so that Marc Emery—who was jailed in the United States in September—can serve his sentence in Canada, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.

 

In the online survey of a representative national sample of 1,010 Canadian adults, 54 per cent of respondents agree with the Canadian government approving a citizen transfer so that Emery can serve his sentence in Canada. One third (33%) oppose this course of action.

 

The highest level of support for allowing Emery to serve his sentence in Canada is in Atlantic Canada (65%) and Quebec (59%). The only area where a plurality of respondents disagrees with issuing a citizen transfer in this case is Alberta.

 

Men (59%) and respondents aged 35-to-54 (57%) are more likely than women (49%) and respondents over the age of 55 (45%) to urge for a citizen transfer.

 

Emery was indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, conspiracy to distribute marijuana seeds, and conspiracy to engage in money laundering. In May 2010, Emery pleaded guilty to the charge of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana in a Seattle court. In September 2010, he was sentenced to five years in prison.

 

While 34 per cent of Canadians believe a five-year sentence is correct for this type of offence, 35 per cent believe it is too harsh and 19 per cent deem the sentence too lenient.

 

Analysis

 

A survey conducted earlier this month showed that public support for the legalization of marijuana stands at 50 per cent in Canada. For the past three years, it has become clear that Canadians are decidedly more likely to seek different guidelines for cannabis than for so-called “hard drugs”, such as cocaine or crystal meth.

 

On this particular case, a majority of respondents suggest that the federal government should allow Emery to return to Canada to serve his sentence—a recommendation first issued by his defence team in September 2010 and which was met with the concurrence of District Court Judge Ricardo Martinez.

 

By DHARM MAKWANA, Toronto Sun

 

VANCOUVER – A pollster’s error has convicted marijuana advocate Marc Emery in the court of public opinion, his wife Jodie claimed Monday.

 

Angus Reid Public Opinion released the incorrect findings of an omnibus poll on Canadian attitudes towards drugs, which included questions on if Marc Emery’s five-year prison sentence was too harsh or too lenient, and whether respondents agreed or disagreed with the federal government’s decision to extradite him to the U.S. to serve his time.

 

Jodie Emery said the wording of questions published by Angus Reid misrepresented his offence of mailing marijuana seeds to customers across the U.S. border.

 

"(The question is) absolutely untrue and it skewed the results because most people would support the extradition of someone who sold marijuana," she told QMI Agency. "The issue is seeds.

 

"The government is considering whether it should transfer Marc home or not, and in order to do that they’re going to try and gauge public support."

 

Angus Reid vice-president of communications Mario Canseco explained an automatic generator for statistical tables piped in the wrong questions and wrong results in the published document posted to the website.

 

The eight-page post was pulled hours later and a replacement omitted any mention of Emery.

 

"It’s the wrong question, it’s the wrong table. It never should have been there. We’re going to release the right questions (Tuesday) with the answers and the right definition on what he plead guilty to."

 

 

 

By: Marcella Bernardo, CKNW

 

More than a week after marijuana activist Marc Emery was transferred to a prison in a southern U-S state, his supporters continue working to bring him home to Vancouver.

 

The self-proclaimed Prince of Pot is now at a low-security facility in Folkstone, Georgia that mostly houses non-U-S citizens.

 

In September, he was sentenced to five years for selling seeds by mail and phone order, but lawyer and friend Kirk Tousaw says Canada’s Government can act quickly to bring him home, "We’d just really like to get Marc back here. Have him serve his sentence here right? He plead guilty. The United States has gotten their pound of flesh and that’s all they should get. We should bring Marc home, so he can be with his wife Jodie."

 

Tousaw says Public Safety Minister Vic Toews can bring Emery home by this time next year by simply writing a letter.

 

 

Here is the latest update from Marc – Dearest Jodie: On Thursday November 11th at 10am in Nevada Southern Detention Centre, a guard said, "Emery, roll up!", which meant I was outbound. I was taken with about 100 others to a series of tiny cells, where I waited until 3am (17 hours) to be chained with leg irons and handcuffs secured to a chain around my stomach, then put on a bus to Las Vegas airport.

We were at the airport at 7am but the ConAir plane didn’t arrive till around 10:30am. Still in chains, we were boarded onto the plane at around noon. I was the only Canadian. The plane first flew to Arizona and landed to let off prisoners going to Arizona federal prisons, and picked up more prisoners. The plane has room for over 200 prisoners. Then, still chained, we flew to Oklahoma City, the processing hub of the Bureau of Prisons, where we arrived around 5:30pm (central time) and were unchained during intake.

That was over 12 hours being chained up, often to another prisoner. Intake took about six hours of mostly monotonous waiting, and by Friday at midnight I was one person in a two-man cell in unit E5 at El Reno, OK processing. It took 36 hours from "Roll up" to arrival in my cell here, a grueling experience.

I have been here six days now and may be shipped off any day toward my new designated privately-run prison, D. Ray James Correctional Facility in Folkston, Georgia. It’s an INS (Immigration & Naturalization Services) low security federal prison for "deportable aliens", which are non-US citizens. It used to be a state prison, but was closed and taken over by the prison industry giant, GEO Group, and turned into an INS low security facility. I was supposed to be sent to Taft FCI in California, but the BOP has changed it to send me as far away from you as possible.

Still, I really would like to get there so I can receive mail, my magazine subscriptions, do my transfer application back into the Canadian correctional system, and most of all, get visits from you every other weekend. I miss you more than anything in this hard and tough existence. I have been in prison eight months now, and it’s only because of you that I have made it, I’m sure.

Your visits to me will stretch across as long a path across America as is possible: Vancouver to Seattle, to Jacksonville in Florida, then a drive north into Georgia from there. The cost isn’t that much greater, just the time in the air. I’m glad my friend Loretta Nall will sometimes be meeting up with you and accompanying you to the prison I’ll be at, or your friend and employee, CC ad manager Britney, will be with you. The visits are going to be like at Sea-Tac FDC, so we can hold hands and I can kiss you at the beginning and end of the visit, and they may even be all-day visits (9am to 3pm) from what I can deduce, so I am so excited to be able to do that.

It’s unlikely there will be Corrlinks messaging there, but I’m happy to have it here at this Oklahoma City transfer facility. Corrlinks is so vital to keeping in touch with family and friends; it really does go a long way to making prison bearable. But I will finally be settled in and able to receive and write letters in Georgia. I was able to write to six of eight people I received letters from at Nevada Southern Detention Center, and feel bad I got shipped out before I was able to write to Trevor in Pennsylvania, who helped out on the Washington DC “Free Marc Emery” water bottle campaign event on October 30 at the Stewart/Colbert “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear”, or my good friend Howard Ulep, also in Pennsylvania, who writes me wonderful letters regularly.

I’m pleased to see the Canucks are at the top of their hockey division (Britney wrote me with updates), but I tell you, news was scarce until I got on Corrlinks today. I haven’t seen a newspaper or magazine in a month. I miss my subscription to Macleans; it is a great Canadian magazine and kept me up to date on my own country. I hope you can have all my magazines rerouted to D. Ray James soon after my arrival. I hope they deliver USA Today, the Atlanta Constitution, and hopefully the New York Times at the prison there. Hopefully it’s not too remote to get newspaper subscriptions!

The food here is very poor, and I look forward to ordering commissary at D. Ray James to supplement my diet. Sea-Tac FDC was a pretty good place in comparison with my experiences since, as I always had enough fruit there to maintain good regular health. Since then, I’ve had very little fruit, although Nevada Southern had some fresh vegetables with most meals.

I am impressed by your terrific blog of your experience campaigning for Proposition 19 in Oakland, which you read over the phone to me, as well as Catherine Leach’s great blog on the “Free Marc Emery” water handout and info event in Washington, DC that she and her husband Keith pulled off for you.

Your letters to me of November 11, 12 and 13 are so wonderful in the detail you put in. They are like listening to you talk to me in loving words and details across the universe in perfect clarity. Many times, like now, when I think of you and our great love, I want to break down and cry (and I often do), but you reassure me when you can and I pull myself together and pray for the better times ahead when we are reunited once again.

I have read two light fiction books: “Next week will be better” by Jean Ruryk, and Alexander McCall Smith’s particularly good “The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.” The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency is about this African woman in Botswana who sets up a detective agency, and is delightfully written. The romance of Botswana is quite affecting. There are five more in the series I’m hoping you’ll send me at some point. The Jean Ruryk novel is a sort of mystery that takes place around flea markets, and since I went to estate auctions and flea markets for years from 1975 to 1985 in London, Ontario when I was a bookseller and curio dealer, I found her situational detective story taking place largely at these kind of venues familiar and entertaining in her observations.

Since I was connected on Corrlinks yesterday, I have read many of the articles from the CC website Jeremiah emailed me, and Russ Bellville’s "10 Lessons from Prop 19’s Defeat" is terrific. Russ Bellville is a great writer and a genuine treasure for our movement. All his writings are exceptional insights and I do hope CC continues to carry the work he writes for NORML.

Eight months in prison is a long and very challenging experience, but so far I have gotten through it. I hope that in 12 months from now I am in Canada, getting released on parole as the law today would apply, and able to be home with you for Christmas. For that to happen I need political support in Canada and the US for approval from both the US Department of Justice and the Canadian Ministry of Public Safety.

Click here to contact the US and Canadian governments for Marc!

I’m hoping my American supporters will arrange meetings with any elected officials they know well and urge them to join the letters prepared for the governments in Canada and the US, and also have Canadians meet with their representatives for the same purpose. I dearly need their help in this regard if I am going to be able to be repatriated back to Canada. I’m hoping former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson and Texas Congressman Ron Paul will endorse our request for my return to Canada, along with other Congressmen and legislators in America, in addition to the many Canadian public officials who are already signatories to these two letters. I know you will do all you can for me to get home!

I hope you will be visiting me soon. My dearest wish is to see you.
My sweetest love, to my great soul mate,
Your husband
Marc

Latest video update from Jodie Emery about Marc:

By KELLY SINOSKI, Vancouver Sun

 

Vancouver’s Prince of Pot Marc Emery has been transferred to a low-security federal prison in Georgia for non-U.S. "deportable aliens."

 

Emery, who had expected to be transferred to a California facility, is now at the D. Ray James Correctional Facility in Folkston, Ga.

 

The facility, which had been a state prison known for violent incidents among inmates, was changed in October to an Immigration & Naturalization Services low-security federal prison for "deportable aliens," according to a blog entry by Emery.

 

In the entry, addressed to his wife Jodie on the Cannabis Culture website, Emery said the move was made to "send me as far away from you as possible."

 

Jodie said Sunday that Emery is doing all right and "trying to keep his spirits up" as he continues to apply for a transfer to serve his time in Canada.

 

Emery, 52, was sentenced by a U.S. judge to five years in prison for selling marijuana seeds to U.S. customers through his business, Marc Emery Direct.

 

Emery has been a political activist for three decades.

 

Norman Grant Smith, a marijuana activist, is urging Emery’s supporters to write to the federal public safety minister to petition for his immediate transfer to Canada.

 

Dearest Jodie: Last Thursday at 10am in Nevada Southern Detention Centre, a guard said, "Emery, roll up!", which meant I was outbound. I was taken with about 100 others to a series of tiny cells, where I waited until 3am (17 hours) to be chained with leg irons and handcuffs secured to a chain around my stomach, then put on a bus to Las Vegas airport.

 

We were at the airport at 7am but the ConAir plane didn’t arrive till around 10:30am. Still in chains, we were boarded onto the plane at around noon. I was the only Canadian. The plane first flew to Arizona and landed to let off prisoners going to Arizona federal prisons, and picked up more prisoners. The plane has room for over 200 prisoners. Then, still chained, we flew to Oklahoma City, the processing hub of the Bureau of Prisons, where we arrived around 5:30pm (central time) and were unchained during intake.

 

That was over 12 hours being chained up, often to another prisoner. Intake took about six hours of mostly monotonous waiting, and by Friday at midnight I was one person in a two-man cell in unit E5 at El Reno, OK processing. It took 36 hours from "Roll up" to arrival in my cell here, a grueling experience.

 

I have been here six days now and may be shipped off any day toward my new designated privately-run prison, D. Ray James Correctional Facility in Folkston, Georgia. It’s an INS (Immigration & Naturalization Services) low security federal prison for "deportable aliens", which are non-US citizens. It used to be a state prison, but was closed and taken over by the prison industry giant, GEO Group, and turned into an INS low security facility. I was supposed to be sent to Taft FCI in California, but the BOP has changed it to send me as far away from you as possible.

 

Still, I really would like to get there so I can receive mail, my magazine subscriptions, do my transfer application back into the Canadian correctional system, and most of all, get visits from you every other weekend. I miss you more than anything in this hard and tough existence. I have been in prison eight months now, and it’s only because of you that I have made it, I’m sure.

 

Your visits to me will stretch across as long a path across America as is possible: Vancouver to Seattle, to Jacksonville in Florida, then a drive north into Georgia from there. The cost isn’t that much greater, just the time in the air. I’m glad my friend Loretta Nall will sometimes be meeting up with you and accompanying you to the prison I’ll be at, or your friend and employee, CC ad manager Britney, will be with you. The visits are going to be like at Sea-Tac FDC, so we can hold hands and I can kiss you at the beginning and end of the visit, and they may even be all-day visits (9am to 3pm) from what I can deduce, so I am so excited to be able to do that.

 

It’s unlikely there will be Corrlinks messaging there, but I’m happy to have it here at this Oklahoma City transfer facility. Corrlinks is so vital to keeping in touch with family and friends; it really does go a long way to making prison bearable. But I will finally be settled in and able to receive and write letters in Georgia. I was able to write to six of eight people I received letters from at Nevada Southern Detention Center, and feel bad I got shipped out before I was able to write to Trevor in Pennsylvania, who helped out on the Washington DC “Free Marc Emery” water bottle campaign event on October 30 at the Stewart/Colbert “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear”, or my good friend Howard Ulep, also in Pennsylvania, who writes me wonderful letters regularly.

 

I’m pleased to see the Canucks are at the top of their hockey division (Britney wrote me with updates), but I tell you, news was scarce until I got on Corrlinks today. I haven’t seen a newspaper or magazine in a month. I miss my subscription to Macleans; it is a great Canadian magazine and kept me up to date on my own country. I hope you can have all my magazines rerouted to D. Ray James soon after my arrival. I hope they deliver USA Today, the Atlanta Constitution, and hopefully the New York Times at the prison there. Hopefully it’s not too remote to get newspaper subscriptions!

 

The food here is very poor, and I look forward to ordering commissary at D. Ray James to supplement my diet. Sea-Tac FDC was a pretty good place in comparison with my experiences since, as I always had enough fruit there to maintain good regular health. Since then, I’ve had very little fruit, although Nevada Southern had some fresh vegetables with most meals.

 

I am impressed by your terrific blog of your experience campaigning for Proposition 19 in Oakland, which you read over the phone to me, as well as Catherine Leach’s great blog on the “Free Marc Emery” water handout and info event in Washington, DC that she and her husband Keith pulled off for you.

 

Your letters to me of November 11, 12 and 13 are so wonderful in the detail you put in. They are like listening to you talk to me in loving words and details across the universe in perfect clarity. Many times, like now, when I think of you and our great love, I want to break down and cry (and I often do), but you reassure me when you can and I pull myself together and pray for the better times ahead when we are reunited once again.

 

I have read two light fiction books: “Next week will be better” by Jean Ruryk, and Alexander McCall Smith’s particularly good “The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.” The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency is about this African woman in Botswana who sets up a detective agency, and is delightfully written. The romance of Botswana is quite affecting. There are five more in the series I’m hoping you’ll send me at some point. The Jean Ruryk novel is a sort of mystery that takes place around flea markets, and since I went to estate auctions and flea markets for years from 1975 to 1985 in London, Ontario when I was a bookseller and curio dealer, I found her situational detective story taking place largely at these kind of venues familiar and entertaining in her observations.

 

Since I was connected on Corrlinks yesterday, I have read many of the articles from the CC website Jeremiah emailed me, and Russ Bellville’s "10 Lessons from Prop 19’s Defeat" is terrific. Russ Bellville is a great writer and a genuine treasure for our movement. All his writings are exceptional insights and I do hope CC continues to carry the work he writes for NORML.

 

Eight months in prison is a long and very challenging experience, but so far I have gotten through it. I hope that in 12 months from now I am in Canada, getting released on parole as the law today would apply, and able to be home with you for Christmas. For that to happen I need political support in Canada and the US for approval from both the US Department of Justice and the Canadian Ministry of Public Safety.

 

 

I’m hoping my American supporters will arrange meetings with any elected officials they know well and urge them to join the letters prepared for the governments in Canada and the US, and also have Canadians meet with their representatives for the same purpose. I dearly need their help in this regard if I am going to be able to be repatriated back to Canada. I’m hoping former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson and Texas Congressman Ron Paul will endorse our request for my return to Canada, along with other Congressmen and legislators in America, in addition to the many Canadian public officials who are already signatories to these two letters. I know you will do all you can for me to get home!

 

I hope you will be visiting me soon. My dearest wish is to see you.

My sweetest love, to my great soul mate,

Your husband

Marc

 

 

By Catharine Leach, Cannabis Culture

 

Our campaign to hand out FREE MARC EMERY waterbottles and information at the Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear was a huge success thanks to the hard work of a small but dedicated group of volunteers. This blog will show you what can be accomplished when just a few people work together, and hopefully inspire you to invent your own campaign against the failed drug war.

 

Preparations Leading up to the Rally

 

The Week leading up to Oct. 30: I had posters made at a copy store by splitting the image files into a 16-panel (16 11” x 17” pages) document and then tediously trimmed with an exact-o-knife and cutting board the white edges off and then taped the panels together – this huge poster cost the price of 16 color copies and 1 roll of clear packaging tape!

 

We organized the printing of the www.PixelDreams.com designed post-cards and waterbottle stickers to be printed down in West Virginia where our West Virginia University SSDP volunteer, Matt, was able to pick up the labels and water. He then had his friends strip and re-label the 2,016 waters at his house!

 

We reserved a U-Haul for him (also in WV) and arranged for the rental and mileage, gas, and toll money, as well as the needed Sam’s Club Membership and the water order and payment. There were 63 cases of 32 16.9 fl oz bottles – it was an entire pallet worth and took two trips with a volunteer’s pick-up to haul it back to the house.

 

Road Trip Begins / Our Video-Blog ‘MarcCantSpark’ / Red Bull Vending Machines

 

Friday Oct. 29th: I was up at 6am sharp and off to work by 7:30am. Worked late, got home around 6:00pm. Packed with Keith, ate, filled up and hit the road by 8:00pm from Rhode Island heading down 95 South to Washington DC. We used our cell phones to upload videos to YouTube while on the road – Keith thought up MarcCantSpark for the YouTube Channel’s name.

 

Another friend helped with acquiring the web address www.MarcCantSpark.com and used his wonderful creative talents to make it much more exciting than the video blog actually turned out….it just got sillier the later it got.

 

By the way: Red Bull Vending Machines along the highway here on the East Coast REALLY DO EXIST … Keith, my ever-dependable co-pilot, was always looking for signs of drowsy-driving and insisted on rest and refuelling before going on.

 

We traveled from Rhode Island to Connecticut, to New York, to New Jersey, to Delaware, to Pennsylvania, to Maryland, and then on to DC. We traversed 7 States, plus the District of Columbia – 420 miles in 8 ½ hrs with two tanks of gasoline.

 

Marc Calls us on the Road / Rendezvous with the U-Haul in D.C. / Headquarters Start-up

 

We had the great honor of receiving a collect phone call from the Famous Marc Emery himself around 11:30pm in Connecticut, and we told him how things were going and what our plans were once we arrived. He reinforced some tips: "Remember: tell them to TAKE ONE, people take orders, if you ask them if they want one, they will always say no."

 

Marc Emery is such a leader, whether from Cannabis Culture’s HQ in Vancouver or from a Federal Penitentiary in the USA. He wished us safe travels and said he’d call again Saturday to see how it went. We uploaded a video blog right afterwards, being so excited to have talked with the Prince of Pot himself!

 

While I drove, Keith worked on the Hemp Wicks to hand out at the Rally. We bought a roll of it for $25.00 at our local head shop, Ethnic Concepts on Wickenden Street in Providence. He’d cut a 3-4 foot length of it and wrap it into a bundle with a label. They were homemade return address sticky-labels designed and printed from a computer with the Free Marc logo, and read "SPARK FOR MARC!" and "www.FREEMARC.ca" on them. We had our volunteers hand them out at our water stations to supporters.

 

Saturday Oct. 30th: we met up in DC at a McDonald’s Parking lot with our WVU SSDP volunteers, Matt and Jamayla. They had the U-Haul loaded and ready to go into town. I eagerly had Matt open the hatch of the U-Haul so I could photograph a pallet’s worth of water for an amazing logistical and political feat that would hopefully be an inspiration to all by the time I could reflect on its impact. I worked on the early morning phone calls to the volunteers that had contacted me throughout the week and arranged to meet them at Metro Center Station around 7:30am. Text Messages, Google Chat, email, and phone calls all from the palm of my hand at 6:30am thanks to a Smartphone…more on THAT dependency later…

 

We were all sleepy and hungry so we headed out for a breakfast joint open at 5:30 in the morning … we found a little hole in the wall 24-hour diner with an Obama Mural painted on the side of it (and a Hitler moustache scribbled on it…) called Steak ‘n’ Eggs. We ate, Sparked for Marc in the parking lot, chatted with the help taking out the trash from the diner, then headed into town. We plastered our 16-panel FREE MARC Poster onto the U-Haul – The Marc-Mobile was rolling!

 

We followed Matt and Jamayla because he knew the city very well from living and working there before. It was still early on a Saturday, so we thankfully found parking meter spots right in front of the Metro Center Station on the 12th and G Street Corner! We parked, unloaded quickly and started getting things going right away. My phone went off constantly all morning until so many people were in the city that we lost all cell service for many hours. We had our volunteers meet us at the Metro Center.

 

The Volunteers Pull Through / Water Station Drop-Spots / Police Interest

 

Our first volunteer bright and early was Jacob. Matt quickly had him ride shot-gun in the U-Haul to the Smithsonian Museum Station on the National Mall. They unloaded two large towers of the 32-case waters, the Post-Cards, the Hemp-Wicks and then got politely kicked out by a vendor selling water nearby. (I’m surprised yet grateful this was the only time it happened!) So he moved a few blocks down and stayed there with no problems and still plenty of foot traffic. Meanwhile Matt had returned with the U-Haul to load up MY car’s trunk with more water for the next water station and volunteer.

 

Our next volunteer, Heather, showed up at Jacob’s station and helped out with the waters and fliers and headed into the crowds with the Post-Cards and her friends when the March to Keep Fear Alive started.

 

Our 3rd Volunteer showed up around 8:00 am, Nick, and he was dressed as an exuberant Uncle Sam ready to don his Free Marc tee and get right work. He had so much enthusiasm and energy despite it being so early and chilly in the morning, it perked ME right up! People were now pouring out of the Metro Center station to walk the 2 blocks to the National Mall for the Rallies.

 

Keith was questioned by a Police Officer on bicycle.

 

"What do you have going on here today?" he asked. "Oh well we’re here today for Marc Emery a political activist imprisoned here in the US – we are giving away FREE water to raise awareness."

 

"That’s the word I wanted to hear," he answered, meaning "FREE", and Keith asked, "Would YOU like a Free Marc Water?" and he politely said no thanks and took off.

 

It was great to see the Street Vendors setting up shop alongside us and asking who Marc was and why this had happened to him. Street vendors talk to folks all day, they can be a great source for word-of-mouth telling of Marc’s story. As an immigrant himself, the vendor I spoke with empathized with the fact that Marc was taken from his own country and forced to serve time in a foreign one. He agreed that there is no justification for this. Everyone – whether you believe in what Marc stands for or not – should realize the absurdity and atrocity that has taken place by this extradition and 5-year sentence. Marc is now serving time for having and using his political voice for drug-policy change. By the way: Marc didn’t have to pour millions into OUR [United States] marijuana law-reform movement – he chose to – and is a martyr in a cell for that like so many others right now, thanks to prohibition.

 

Another volunteer, Jeff, showed up next, so we packed up the Saturn again, now plastered with FREE MARC posters covering both sides’ rear doors, and headed out to a new water station; We found a perfect spot right on Jefferson (appropriate) and dropped about a dozen cases and Post-Cards and taped a Free Marc Poster to the utility box on the sidewalk. Jeff is a seasoned marijuana activist and participated at the July 4 Freedom March in DC; “FREE WATER! FREE WATER HERE! FREE MARC EMERY – FREE WATER!” he shouted loud and clear and got a crowd in seconds. I snapped some shots, jumped back in the car and fought the heavy traffic back to the Headquarters at Metro Center.

 

Trevor was our next volunteer and he brought along his two friends, Nico and Syd to help. We gave them their shirts and put them to work right away; Trevor works for a printing shop and was able to get permission to use all the left-over paper stock from past orders to print out Free Marc double sided handbills! He brought them along to the water station. We rolled out, headed for another densely-populated spot on the Mall and decided that H Street at the White House end was perfect. I put on my hazard lights and pulled over to the curb to let Trevor out and unload. A DC Police Cruiser pulled up behind me and over his loud speaker called “MOVE YOUR VEHICLE NOW – MOVE YOUR VEHICLE NOW!” so we managed to unload 2 or 3 cases and I was forced to roll-out. Trevor rocked it, despite undercover and uniformed officers watching his every move from then on. He bumped into a group from Vancouver, BC, and they expressed their gratitude that folks here in the states were fighting for Marc Emery, their Prince of Pot.

 

Meanwhile I was rolling out from Trevor’s spot with coffee for the other crews and fresh supplies. The DC Police Cruiser followed me down 13 all the way to the National Monument and then got stuck at a red light as I turned left onto Jefferson. Jeff had already given away all the waters, donned his werewolf FREE MARC t-shirt wearing costume and headed into the crowds with his backpack loaded with Free Marc Post-Cards to hand out. I pulled over, grabbed the trash, grabbed the poster, and headed on to Jacob and Heather’s station at the Smithsonian to load him up again with supplies and give Jacob a hot coffee to stay warm. Jacob said his favorite part was watching people’s reactions when they tried to give him money for the water and he refused saying they were free for Marc. He said most folks he talked to that day were responsive to Marc’s case, and eagerly asked questions about Marc and our water campaign.

 

The March to the National Mall / Prison for Pot RANT / Torontoist Journalists

 

I headed back to the HQ at about 11:00am and the trains were so backed up that folks were pouring out of Metro Center Station to get out of the overcrowded subways. Our HQ was busy like a hive, and we were down to 2 cases by 11:30am. Once the water was gone, we loaded up with Post-Cards, Posters, and T-Shirts, and marched into the National Mall to rendezvous with the crowds gathering for the event.

 

Nico and Syd held the fort at Metro Center, and made sure that any other volunteers trickling in got their shirts and post-cards and posters to hand out to amongst the massive crowds. Nico and Syd ROCKED ALL DAY! I’m telling you – they showed up so early, and yet stayed till the cows came home passing out SO MANY Free Marc Post-Cards, and delegating the volunteers into the crowds. They even helped me roll my car from one side of the street to the other side’s curb when my battery died from its hazard lights…and yes, the car was ticketed multiple times for the crappy parking job. They requested it be towed – all while we were busy downtown so I had no idea!

 

We marched down to the National Mall from 12th St. and the crowd just got more and more thick the further we marched. We chanted and handed out Post-Cards, paused at good traffic areas to talk and pass them out, and then when interest waned we’d grab our posters and march on to a new spot. We were looking for TV cameras but I couldn’t even find a Port-a-John the entire day.

 

The crowds were UNREAL. It ended up getting so thick that we were ass-cheek to elbow and stuck in a sea of people unable to move. We wormed our way north a block carrying signs over our heads and double-tasking with Post-Cards in the other hand. It’s amazing how ambidextrous one is forced to be in these types of situations. I managed to hang my son’s old Easter Pail off my purse, allowing a hand to constantly reach down into the bucket and hand out to people passing me. Keith would reach in the pail behind me and do the same thing. He had the tact to stick them in people’s bags passing by.

 

We talked to so many people I can’t recount them all, but like I said earlier, the main reaction was empathy, then disgrace, then wanting to ask more. There was a couple with a 6-year-old at one of the spots along our march that asked many questions and then patiently explained it to their son. It reminded me of the frank and honest conversations I have with my own 6-year-old about prohibition.

 

We were scouted out by the Yahoo Ask America team to do our Marc Emery “Rant” on their AskAmerica.Yahoo.com "soap-box" with their megaphone. (It can be seen on our YouTube Channel “MarcCantSpark” albeit sideways because there was some miscommunication on how to film with the cell phone.) So I followed the staffer to their news van, waited my turn and did my Prison for Pot rant!

 

We sat and rested there for a while and spoke to folks that listened to my speech and passed out the Post-Cards to the crowds gathered at the news-van.

 

We then headed back to the Metro Center station to wrap up our day. On our way back to the car and U-Haul, out of 215,000 people, we managed to bump into three Journalists from Torontoist.com! They asked where we were from, took down our names and interviewed us about our Free Marc campaign! The news article can be found here.

 

We gave them each a Post-Card, got free Torontoist pins, wrote their names down, and marched on. We chanted, answered people’s questions, passed out Material, took photographs, and made it back to the cars by about 4:00pm. Nico and Syd were still rocking the Metro Center Station with their posters and Post-Cards, wearing their T-Shirts with pride, and hitting up every passer-by!

 

A Rally for All Rallies / Packing up and Heading Out / Another Call from the Prince of Pot

 

THIS rally was a Rally for all Rallies. I saw some of the funniest signs and slogans I’ve ever seen, and the mood of the crowd was joyful, silly, and free-spirited. I saw lots of "Legalize Pot" signs, "Yes on 19" signs, and one that read "Retired CIA Analysts for Sensible Drug Policy" being touted by a man in his 60’s with a big pot-leaf on it. I saw "Legalize Everything" signs and "Just Say Now" signs, and the random "God Hates Snuggies" sign or "WHY AM HERE?". It was amazing, and I am so grateful I can now say we were there! (I seriously would like to see this become an annual event.)

 

We packed up, cleaned up, thanked out volunteers, took the tickets off my car, and decided to chance cranking the car despite the dead battery – low and behold the Ganja Gods smiled on us and the old Jalopy started right up! We fought the heavy traffic and pedestrians out of the center of the city to a quiet park and parked our car to rest. We still hadn’t slept since Thursday night!

 

Marc called us while we were resting and we told him all about the busy amazing day and the joy in his voice immediately solidified our effort in my heart. We told him about our MarcCantSpark site and the video blog and how 14 people volunteered for us all day. We told him about the posters on the U-Haul and the sea of Marc Posters and T-Shirt wearing volunteers who worked HARD for his cause all day. He was so grateful and so excited. We arranged with him to send the photos and news articles to him at his detention center right away so he could see how wonderful and amazing it was!

 

We slept at the park for an hour. Then Keith woke me up around 6:30pm to head out of the city and find a place to sleep. I was very tired, seeing double, getting behind parked cars thinking they were in traffic, Keith saw the signs of my exhaustion and insisted we stop in a quiet dark parking lot to sleep. We got on the highway and it was totally jammed. Everyone must have went out for dinner after the rally and decided to go home all the same time. It was horrible; my car was overheating; I was so tired; we struggled to the Greenbelt MD exit ramp and pulled off into a CVS parking lot. We got some chips and dip and soda, ate to our delight, and drove on for a dark spot to sleep.

 

We made another video blog before going to bed, Sparked for Marc again, and drifted off to sleep; Keith in the passenger seat brought down flat and me in the back seat with our son’s bed’s comforter to keep warm. The night passed quickly and other than a couple times Keith woke up cold (I am a notorious blanket-stealer in bed), we slept fine. We woke up at 5:30 am and headed out for breakfast and fuel. We stopped at a gas station in Maryland and got the Sunday edition of the Washington Post. The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear had made the front page. I sent the article to Marc after reading it with excitement and delight and an overwhelming sense of purpose and satisfaction. We made great time driving back, didn’t get any traffic jams other than at a couple toll booths, and rocked our “GOOGLE MARC EMERY” sign in our rear window for the 8-state, 420 mile trip home. We stopped to pee off the highway and left Free Marc pickets in the ground alongside the interstate before heading on.

 

Thanks and Props / Persistence and Diligence / Impressions and Reflections

 

I want to thank Marc for having this amazing idea and for pushing me and Jodie to pull it off. I want to thank PIXELDREAMS for designing the wonderful Free Marc Waterbottle Stickers and the Free-Marc Post-Cards self-addressed to the US Dept. of Justice. I want to thank Jodie for helping with the cash needed to pull this off. I want to thank Dana Larsen for coming to the rescue when we were down to the wire for paying for the printing of the Stickers and the Post-Cards. They would not have been paid for and printed in time without his quick action and generosity and TRUST. I want to thank Matt and Jamayla, our West Virginia University Law Students-slash-Anarchists (go figure) that stepped up to the task and made sure everything was ready and paid for and loaded and transported to DC in good time. I want to thank his WVU SSDP volunteers, Jamayla, Anthony, and Jhesse, from Morgantown, West Virginia for their hard work. I want to thank my Husband of 11 years, Keith, for all his love and support. I want to thank Steve, a seasoned D.C. resident who helped me with the logistics of the city and the train stations there. I want to especially thank our volunteers: Panama, Heather, Jeff, Jacob, Trevor, Nico, Syd, Oliver, Brian, Nick, and one girl dressed as a devil (you know who you are!) for all their amazing work and efforts in making Marc’s dream a reality.

 

It’s now been a week since the rally and it is finally starting to sink in as to the magnitude of this accomplishment. Overall I was reaffirmed of my belief in the amazing will-power to gather and fight for a cause we Americans are capable of. We had volunteers from Ottawa, Canada, Austin, Texas, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, West Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Georgia, Florida, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., and Maryland, plus Keith and I from little old Rhode Island. This campaign was organized, planned, coordinated, and paid for within two weeks of October 30. It was coordinated and communicated and led between Jodie in Vancouver, Matt in West Virginia, Marc from Prison (unit he was transferred and our communication was cut-off) and Keith and I in Rhode Island.

 

This whole campaign started with a pen hitting a paper, and writing Marc a letter. My husband and I were watching the Colbert Report when the March to Keep Fear Alive was first announced, and my husband said, “We should go and hand out Free Marc fliers!” so I casually mentioned the idea to Marc in one of my letters. Look what came about from that choice to write a letter with a simple idea. We are capable of this. We just need our hearts in the right place. Everything else follows from there – as long as our drive is persistent, our communication consistent, and our goals crystal clear.

 

I have only more enthusiasm and drive after this event. I won’t stop until Marc is home with Jodie for Christmas again. I hope we can all share that goal and fight for it in our own creative ways. We all can make a difference, one drop in the pond at a time, and this rally was proof of what can be accomplished when people work together. Complete strangers, now friends forever, linked by a Canadian who fought for and is being punished for what we all believe: Marijuana Prohibition Must End! Free Marc Emery!

 

By Mike Howell, Vancouver Courier

 

Ever wonder what local marijuana enthusiast Marc Emery is thinking as he spends his days in a federal prison in Washington State?

 

I asked that question after reading a piece in the New York Times Sunday about the Proposition 19 ballot initiative to legalize and regulate marijuana in California.

 

The vote was yesterday, after the Courier’s deadline.

 

As expected, Emery is his effusive self on the issue, stating his opinion on what he has dubbed "Marc’s prison blog." His writings are available for all to see at cannabisculture.com.

 

"I hope people in our movement did not buy into the propaganda put out by the treasonous miscreants I call ‘Traitors Against Proposition 19,’" Emery wrote in his latest entry from SeaTac prison. "The self-serving prohibition profiteers who have been telling people to vote ‘no’ are disgraceful for trying to defeat what will be the greatest single opportunity for progress in our movement ever. I hope there are more people out there saying ‘vote yes on Proposition 19’ so we can see victory–California becoming the first state to legalize cannabis anywhere on earth!"

 

Had Emery not been convicted of selling marijuana seeds over the Internet to U.S. customers, you know he would surely be in Oakland, the epicentre of the campaign to legalize weed. He will, however, be involved–by marital extension.

 

His wife Jodie is in Oakland and has volunteered on the campaign since Sunday, according to Emery’s blog. Cannabis Culture editor Jeremiah Vandermeer joined Jodie on her trip and was expected to be webcasting live Tuesday night from Yes on Prop 19 headquarters in a marijuana trade school dubbed "Oaksterdam."

 

If the initiative passes, it will be legal for anyone in California over 21 to possess and cultivate small amounts of marijuana but would leave many of the details concerning the sale, production and taxation to local governments, according to the Times article.

 

A victory for Emery and his fellow potificators (that’s my word) will undoubtedly have an effect on illegal B.C. bud shipments across the border.

 

Some cops say it will increase shipments, while criminologists predict a positive vote will put a dent in the province’s marijuana trade.

 

Even if the initiative fails, the groundswell of support–a Gallup poll released last week in the U.S. found a record 46 per cent approving of legalizing marijuana–is expected to stoke the marijuana movement in other states.

 

Either way, Emery will eventually get a better sense of how Californians feel about legalizing marijuana when the self-proclaimed Prince of Pot is transferred to Taft Correctional Centre in California, about 90 miles northeast of Los Angeles.