'USA Fuck Off'? I Thought Canadians Were Polite

Courtesy of Paul Feine, here are some photos from the protest in Vancouver that followed last week's arrest of Canadian marijuana activist Marc Emery:

The Drug War Chronicle has a detailed update on the case, including a discussion of possible grounds for refusing extradition and this revealing quote from a statement by DEA Administrator Karen Tandy:

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 US and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement…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.

I've yet to see a plausible explanation of why the DEA decided to go after Emery now, since he'd been openly selling marijuana seeds for a decade. Did it take that long to get the Canadians to cooperate?

Comments

[Jennifer]

Being told to "fuck off" is a lot more polite than having your sovereignity taken away. They're being far more polite than we are, in regards to this.

[dhex]

i thought this was an extradition treaty deal?

anyway, not to take away from the bullshit they're putting emery through, but since we've mentioned the loss of meaning in a post a few notches down...

what the bloody fuck is cannabis culture? like, fuck, man. that's just disgusting.

[Jennifer]

Dhex--

Even if you focus on the extradition treaty, I have a problem with this situation: he commits, in Canada, a crime with relatively minor penalties, and the Canadians ship him off to a country where he'll face a FAR more severe charge.

I'm just imagining what would happen if a guy shoplifted something here, and faced a year or two in jail, but instead we extradited him to Saudi Arabia so he could have his hand cut off.

[Phil]

You know, when you're in the position where you've got Canada -- CANADA, FOR CHRISSAKES, PEOPLE -- wielding "Yankee Go Home" signs, you are in deep shit. You have really fubared things.

[mk]

Emery is getting a raw deal and this is yet more F'd up WOD nonsense.

Off topic: those girls are pretty cute and they want me to fuck off. Don't I get enough of this sort of thing without having to deal with it on H&R? Aren't I safe from rejection anywhere?

[gaius marius]

very difficult to live on the periphery of a nation-state so deeply overwhelmed with its own hubris, be that in canada or iraq.

[Bob Basil]

As a citizen of Canada and a resident of Vancouver, I will cry me a river if Canada allows this supremely peaceful advocate and pothead to be extradited, a victim of the USA's other permanent war.

[D Allen]

Phil, this isn't a recent development. Many Canadians have been anti-US for a long time. In a lot of ways, Canadians have far more in common with European countries - "free" health care, sky-high taxes, heavy regulations, socially very liberal, anti-military adventurism, etc. - and look upon American individualism (at least in the economic sense) with disdain.

FWIW, I certainly agree with our Northern friends on this rally.

[Eric the .5b]

Gaius - there are freedom babes!

Is the CIA possibly involved? 😉

[Ruthless]

Yesterday I was briefly, mysteriously hijacked onto this thread, except it was even livlier than.
Canada, FUCK YEAH!

[Ruthless]

Bob Basil,
Have you heard of a seasoning shop in Napa, CA, by the name of "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Bob"?

[David]

but also to the marijuana legalization movement

Someone should remind Ms. Tandy that her job is to enforce the law, whatever the law may be. It is not to discourage lobbyists from trying to change a law they disagree with.

[Ickster]

David:

I thought that was the key point as well.

"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"

Since when is it illegal to lobby to get laws changed?

[gaius marius]

Is the CIA possibly involved?

lol -- aren't they always, mr .5b? 🙂

[Shelby]

a significant blow ... to the marijuana legalization movement.... Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on.

So now the DEA's remit extends to de-fundung advocacy? Did McCain-Feingold go to their heads?

[Greg]

I really can't believe a department in the U.S. government is openly stating its intention to use the law in order to prevent political speech that conflicts with its agenda. Is this new? I can't think of anything like this before.

[Captain Awesome]

Gaius-
Was it intentional or not to suggest that the good ol' USA is so full of itself that Iraq is now considered on it's periphery?

[Ruthless]

I now understand my mysterious cyber kidnapping:
There's an accidental link to a thread of 11-11-'02, if you keep clicking "ahead."

[B.D.]

Greg,

Was your query in gest? Seek out information on COINTEL-Pro about such practices in the 60s and 70s. There are other examples.

I still say that Canada should just legalize it and the treaty issue goes away from the court's stand point.

[April]

Ruthless, I've come across that before, also. Weird little glitch that just gets stranger and stranger, the more you click "ahead."

[Ken Layne]

Greg -- That's the part that screamed out at me, too. (I mean, other than the hot Freedom Gals ....)

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.

Jesus fucking christ ... these monsters are now proudly celebrating their victory in shutting down political speech? It would be nice if Canada finally showed some backbone and sent the next DEA spook back home in a garbage bag. Nice, but utterly unlikely. A polite "Fuck You" is about all we're going to get; Canada has become a U.S. possession in all but name.

[Ruthless]

April,
Someone should link (who knows how) to the 11-11-'02 archive. It's cute.

[Phil]

D Allen, yeah, I know there's always been lurking anti-US sentiment up there, but it's always been hidden behind that veneer of Canadian niceness, and a very well-hidden realization that our big army meant they never had to spend the money on one. When it's right out there in the open, though . . . yeesh.

[B.D.]

Canada might do something about this. If they change their laws quickly, then they can avoid a skirmish on two fronts, which they definitely need to do. Two fronts, you ask? Yep, they're growling at Denmark, too.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1122288891895_37/?hub=Canada

[SPD]

So, the Bush administration has once again demonstrated to the world that there are two kinds of sovereignity: ours, and the amount we say you can have.

[Greg]

B.D. -

In no way was my post meant to be sarcastic. I will look into the example you gave. Not that I doubt certain agencies haven't made attempts at this sort of thing in the past, but to openly state the curtailment of speech as its intended goal? That to me is shocking, even in the era of W.

[Evan Williams]

I really can't believe a department in the U.S. government is openly stating its intention to use the law in order to prevent political speech that conflicts with its agenda. Is this new? I can't think of anything like this before.

I can. Remember the "legalize marijuana" posters that some cockeating congressman forced the DC Metro trains to remove? The posters didn't encourage anything illegal, just advocacy to decriminalize something. This is not new.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Canada gave us a nice middle finger when she recently legalized gay marriages. If she can legalize weed, it would be a perfect two-finger salute.

And she'll get quite a few citizenship applications from those who are really getting fucking sick about how things are going here.

[El Christador]

"USA Fuck Off"? That's terrible. In keeping with standards for civility to which Canadians are supposed to aspire, it really ought to have been "USA Please Fuck Off".

[Seamus]

I'm just imagining what would happen if a guy shoplifted something here, and faced a year or two in jail, but instead we extradited him to Saudi Arabia so he could have his hand cut off."

It's long been a principle of our law that if you commit an act abroad that has effects here, you can be made to ansswer in our courts. That's how we prosecute foreign corporate executives for antitrust violations. (Recently, we even went after some Yemeni cleric for violating federal statutes against providing material assistance to al-Qaeda, because he gave money to them abroad. I wonder if that means the UK could pass laws against material support to the IRA, then arrange to have the clientele of most South Boston pubs rounded off and sent across the pond or trial.)

So if the shoplifting here could arguably have an effect in Saudi Arabia (as if, say, the shop owner were a Saudi), *and* we had an treaty with Saudi Arabia that allowed extradition for such an offense, then yeah, we'd probably ship him over. Fortunately, we wouldn't ever sign a treaty with them that would require that (I think).

(Interestingly, after Holocaust denier Ernest Zundel was deported to Canada for immigration violations, the Canucks extradited him to Germany for having operated a Holocaust denial website in the United States that could be accessed in Germany, thus violating German law. The U.S. wouldn't have extradited him, since the offense isn't a crime under our law and isn't covered by an extradition treaty with Germany, but it is illegal in Canada. You might say Zundel's case is a more benign form of "extraordinary rendition," since I doubt the Krauts are actually going to torture him (as the Syrians, Egyptians, or Saudis might) for exercising his First Amendment rights.)

[Herman]

And she'll get quite a few citizenship applications from those who are really getting fucking sick about how things are going here.

I wonder:
a) How hard that is?
b) How many people actually do it? It was a long running joke among (yawn) conservative bloggers that hordes of liberals shocked by the reelction of Bushitler did NOT start filing paperwork to immigrate north. Still I imagine somebody tried.

[bubba]

This guy intentionally sold drugs to the US, benefiting from the high prices he could get in a country that banned marijuana. He took his chances. I'm not even a little upset about this particular instance. He isn't some helpless hippy caught with a few seeds in his pocket. He wasn't arrested for selling pot to Canadians. He's a freakin' dealer with US distribution who sought refuge in another country. This is the purpose of extradition treaties: To arrest people who commit crimes in your country, even if they are hiding in another.

Yes, marijuana should be legal. No, it is not.

[Jennifer]

Herman--

I looked into it a couple of years ago. If you're not going to declare refugee status there's MAJOR paperwork involved.

[jc]

Since accoring to the courts EVERYTHING is interstate commerce, then logically it means everything is international commerce. Therefore, everything on the planet is subject to the US criminal code.

[D Allen]

Anyone convinced that Canadians are hard-core beacons of mild manners and hermit-like politeness needs to catch a hockey game up there. 😉

[SR]

"Since accoring to the courts EVERYTHING is interstate commerce, then logically it means everything is international commerce. Therefore, everything on the planet is subject to the US criminal code."

Amazingly enough, no! The Supreme Court has been pretty consistent for the last 150 years that in the absence of an express statement from Congress that a law is to be applied extraterritorially, its operation is confined to the territory of the United States. Of course, Congress has dealt with that by simply boilerplating statutes with language applying them globally....

[saw-whet]

Jesus, El Christador, It's "USA, please fuck off." Punctuation is important, especially in Ca? Nada.

[Russ D]

"USA, please fuck off." should really follow Canadian grammar:

"US, please fuck off, eh."

[saw-whet]

I looked into Canadian citizenship back in '77. I was told that I would need to be independently wealthy or have a skill in demand that the current crop 'o Canadians didn't have. I did work up there illegaly and when I crossed back over I knew that that was as close as I'll ever get.

But really, we gotta fight the bastards, not run away. And if it's too dangerous to fight 'em (which it is) then we need to lay low and see how things pan out. After all, if we leave, they'll have to change the name to the United States of Insufferable Jerks and Christo-Fascists.

[Stevo Darkly]

On immigation to Canada in the months since last November's elections:

A very recent article about this. (From yesterday. Reuters, via Yahoo News.)

[ME]

At the very least I hope this will convince many in the "US-out-of-everywhere" crowd to support freedom of ingestion for informed competent adults. Of course I have a habit of hoping for implausible things.

I didn't read the whole thing or most people's comments. I have no idea if anyone suggested that already.

[grylliade]

Anyone catch this little gem, from the asshole attorney who indicted Emery?

"'The fact is, marijuana is a very dangerous drug,' Sullivan said. 'People don't say that, but right now in America, there are more kids in treatment for addiction to marijuana than every other illegal drug combined.'"

I like the weaseling there. He doesn't say that more kids are addicted to marijuana than every other illegal drug combined. He just points out that more kids are in treatment for addiction, which may or (more likely) may not be correlated with how many are actually addicted. Asshole. Use the drug war to get people to go to treatment for their "addiction" instead of going to jail, then use those inflated numbers to support the drug war.

It's times like these that make me understand how people who shoot abortion doctors feel. Not that I'd do anything about it - respect for others' lives is about as important as it gets for most libertarians - but I understand. I don't think that it's quite bad enough yet, but if the time comes, I'll be on the front lines of the revolution. This sort of thing must be stopped.

[Akira MacKenzie]

Mmmmmm... pot legalization honeys.

No really ladies, I'm from Onterio. I'm not some fat geek from Wisconsin. Now, how well do you girls like each other? I mean, are either of you bi-curious? 😉

[Shem]

Jennifer-If you have a job skill that's something that they need, then you can get quite a bit of the paperwork waived. Plus, the list of needed jobs is really quite long at this point. My cousin is a teacher and he decided to head for Canada a few years ago, and he said that they'll bend over backwards to help people with valuable skills, especially if you intend to move to one of the less popular provinces like Manitoba or Alberta.

[Shem]

Ruthless-What are you talking about?

[anomdebus]

I took the DEA statement to be gloating, not justifying.
This, btw, is why it is a bad idea to have laws on the books that nobody enforces. If Canada just got rid of the laws they don't really want to enforce, this wouldn't be a problem.
And no, I don't believe the US is going to invade Canada if they legalize marijuana. At worst, they would just seal the border. They would have trouble getting anyone behind that much less actually make it happen.
Canada agreed to the specific treaty that is being used. That the US is taking advantage of it is not a crime, unless ridiculousness is a crime.

[MIkeG]

I used to know Marc pretty well, back in London, Ontario. He ran the "City Lights" bookshop (used books), and was the resident Rand expert. Always had a full bookcase of all her works right by the cash register.

He used to be a fairly loony lefty, but became a fairly rabid Objectivist in the early 80's. He even founded the Freedom Pary of Canada, who ran a few candidates for provincial parliament.

I've always thought the reason he was an Objectivist/Libertarian was that it gave him an intellectual justification for his amazingly large drug intake.

[thoreau]

I think the reason for his arrest and extradition is blindingly obvious: He broke ranks. He sells an illicit drug while pushing for legalization. The other drug dealers won't stand for that.

[Jennifer]

Shem--

Yes, I'd looked into becoming a teacher; I was already one in Massachusetts. And I went so far as to download a sample of some Canadian teachers' tests (and scored well enough to qualify), but I saw symptoms of the same things that made my teaching experience in the States so miserable: references to Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) and other trendy acronyms and jargon.

Now, it's nice to know I could fall back on that if I really, really had to. But, although America has degraded to the point where I'd gladly go to Canada if I could have the same career I have now, America will have to get a LOT worse for me before I'll be desperate enough go to Canada and be a public-school teacher.

[T Mills]

Selling marujiuana seeds?
That's legal over here in the UK.
Its like its legal to sell unprepared magic mushrooms but not to prepare them for use as a hallucinogen or posess them in such a state.
Some enterprising shop keepers have discovered this resulting in various sorts of hallucinogenic mushrooms being sold openly all over London...
(as for banning that, the government is too busy banning protest outside parliament or giving itself and the police/security services more and more extreme power)

[Ruthless]

Shem,
You ask ME what I'm talking about?
Ask Ham and/or Japeth.

Any Canadians wanting to invade us, know you have a friend in Sinincincinnati. I'll collaborate to beat the band. Especially with any French-speakers from up Quebeqois way.

How do you say, "Bring it on!" in French?

[Bob Dobalina]

FWIW, I certainly agree with our Northern friends on this rally.

I don't. Buncha Canuck pansies, afraid to stand up to the US...

[StoneyBaloney]

A more apt metaphor is an American selling Nazi memorabilia to the French.

And the US extradites him for French prosecution.

[Shem]

Jennifer-FWIW, apparently just about anyone with certification in some line of work can get the same treatment that teachers get. I guess they're really hard up for people up there.

Ruthless- I would ask them, but Ham is still a little upset over the whole eternal curse thing. I was aking about the glitch to which you made reference. I still have no idea what you were talking about.

[Shem]

Actually, I was "asking," not "aking."

[Ruthless]

Shem,
Ak April.

It's a trip... trust us. Through the Tunnel of Luv.

Can you search the archives here for the date to which I refer?

I'm incompacitalized.

Bob Dobalina,
You are not one of "US." Fuck off!

[Shem]

...Did you just call me April?

Whatever. The post is interesting...A discussion that went on for over two years, filled with people who I've never seen before. Metaphorically, of course. Maybe it's actually a hole into a parallel universe, or maybe an anti-government faction is passing messages back and forth, coded in Anti-Canadian language. Either way, we know where the longest H&R post in history is now.

[Rhywun]

hordes of liberals shocked by the reelction of Bushitler did NOT start filing paperwork to immigrate north

The election of Bush was just a *sign* of things to come. I can see a possible rising tide of anti-gay legislation driving lots of people north. But drugs are pretty easy to get for most people, so our insane drug "war" isn't enough to drive folks north.

especially if you intend to move to one of the less popular provinces like Manitoba or Alberta

Uh oh - it's Toronto for me, or nowhere at all. I wonder if they need computer programmers. Plus, I'll take a Canadian winter any day over a disgusting sweaty NYC summer.

[Ak UthRless]

Below from an e-mail to my excellent buddy, Eolake:

I live in Canada and through my efforts I opened the Ontario market to XXX videos by the method of myself being charged with obscenity three times.

I was able to operate the business without having anyone else involved with the store. You see, the store was fully automated with Video Vending machines that operated 24/7.

In Canada, the Province of Quebec had legalized the sale and rental of XXX Videos before 1985.

Ontario, through it's well paid police force, kept Ontario, the last Province in Canada, free of adult videos.

I started renting used XXX videos that I obtained from Quebec, and six months later the business were raided with guns drawn, I and the business were charged with obscenity.

I was found NOT guilty and my main defence was based on information produced by the Federal Government offices of Stats-Canada. Every incident where the police are involved is reported to them. Stats-Canada follow it to the conclusion of the case.

Stats-Canada reported that the highest incident of sexual assault was in the Province of Ontario where no XXX videos were available and Quebec, that had XXX videos for 14 years, at that time had the lowest incident of sexual assault in all of Canada.

I asked the Court, "If XXX videos caused sexual assaults, then the Province with the most XXX videos MUST have the highest incidents and the Province with NO XXX videos must have the lowest. The fact is however the exact opposite exists. The Crown attorney responded by stating that the residents of Quebec "Do Not Complain".

David C

Read above, Shem.

[Russ R]

In a case of grass being greener, I'm a Canadian living and working in Toronto right now, and seriously considering relocating to the USA. Why?

[rant]

I believe that you Americans have a whole lot more freedom than we do. Examples:

- Taxes. Canadian Tax-Freedom Day arrives in late-June vs. early-May in the USA. The marginal tax rates on income above CAD $100K are absolutely punitive (~45% - 50%).

- You can't buy beer, wine or spirits in Ontario except at the provincially operated Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) shops. The LCBO is the world's single largest purchaser of alcohol.

- Right to bear arms? Dream on.

- Individuals can't legally purchase healthcare services from a private provider. They can get in line at the provincially run hospital.

- The Canadian Radio and Telecommuications Commission (CRTC) regulates the minimum amount of Canadian Content, that must be broadcast over every channel. When we watch the Superbowl, all of the good commercials are replaced with local Canadian commercials. We never got to see the "GoDaddy.com" ad.

- The "Big Five" Canadian Banks (RBC, BNS, TD, CIBC & BMO) are prohibited from merging. Foreign banks are prohibited from buying them. All by the say-so of the Finance Minister.

- The Prime Minister is the Leader of the House of Commons. Head of the Executive Branch, appoints the Senate, the Supreme Court and, the Head of State. In other words, the PM has unrestricted power over the entire country, yet his name doesn't even appear on 99.6% of election ballots.

- Our "Charter of Rights and Freedoms" begins by subordinating its constitutional protections to "such reasonable limits as prescribed by law", and includes a "notwithstanding clause" which allows any goverment to legislate in direct and acknowledged contradiction of the constitution, provided the law has a 5-year sunset clause.

- Instead of "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness", Canada was founded on the principles of "Peace, Order, and Good Government".

Too statist for my liking.

[/rant]

[Truthless]

Russ R,
Come on down! (to Sinincincinnati)

Or move to Quebec, and stop complaining?

We feel yo paign.

[Stevo Darkly]

By the way, if anyone would like to hear a hardcore libertarian's viewpoint from deep inside Canuckistan, check out the "Subversive Liberty" Web site of anarchocapitaliste Pierre Lemieux at http://www.pierrelemieux.org

Lemieux's critiques of his own government's policies will help cure your "grass is greener" syndrome. (For us Yankistanis down here in Lower Sub-Niagaran America, I mean.)

[El Christador]

Uh oh - it's Toronto for me, or nowhere at all. [...] Plus, I'll take a Canadian winter any day over a disgusting sweaty NYC summer.

Toronto also has disgusting sweaty summers.

[Shem]

Oh my ghod, I think that the thread on Canada that Ruthless stumbled upon is melting his brain like a slice of cheese on a radiator. Is this like "The Ring?" Will it happen to me too? I'm too young to have my brain melt out of my ears;)

I'm just kidding, of course. I think I understand, although I still have no idea what exactly you clicked that pointed you to the weird thread in the first place.

Rhywun-BC is nice, if you can handle literally not seeing the sun from November to March. It's like living in Seattle, only the girls are more attractive and there's a higher quantity of decent bands that actually play in town as opposed to heading for some gods-forsaken rock in George, Washington in order to test the loyalty of their fanbase. Or so it seems...

[Russ R]

"Or move to Quebec, and stop complaining?"

Moving to Quebec wouldn't solve much, and it would add a few new problems.

Yes, the Quebecois are a little less puritanical than their Anglo counterparts, but I can't say that the appeal of readily available liquor and porn is enough to get me to move.

On the down-side, the taxes in Quebec are some of the highest in the country. Plus the seperatist government is openly hostile toward Anglophones, to the point of banning displays written in English, and my French-speaking skills are truly abyssmal.

I've spent a fair bit of time in the beautiful province, but it'll always be a vacation destination at best for me, and not a home.

[oz]

Between gay marriage and a not militarized drug war Canada is more American than is America.
The drug war is an odious beast.
DEA agents are the moral equivlents of runaway slave hunters. They may be technically upholding the law, but their actions stand in contrary to the prinicples of freedom and liberty laid down by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Fuck em, the only good DEA agent is a dead one.

[Ruthless]

Russ R,
Does oz' comment make you even more reluctant to come down?

"Canada is more American than is America."

Proud to be an Amurikan... yeah, right.

I'm thinking more in terms of moving to Riga, Latvia, or New Zealand, myself. How about that?

[David Rollins]

moving to Riga, Latvia, or New Zealand, myself

New Zealand? You wanna talk about needing some paperwork...libertarian free-trade paradise that it is, they're not quite there on the subject of open immigration. They use some bizarre point system of education, age, and ethnicity, or something.

I'd love to live there, if they had any decent investment banks to employ me. A definite candidate for retirement (as a non-resident, wink wink) -- right up there with Switzerland.

[Russ R]

Ruthless,

As a practical matter, I'm not too troubled by either the War on Drugs (since I'm not into doing drugs), or by the lack of gay marriage rights (since I'm not into doing guys). Of course I'm opposed as a matter of principle to America's position on both subjects, but, self-interest being what it is, I'll focus more on the issues that pertain to me.

So I'd happily give up the plentiful marijuana and my right to gay marriage, in exchange for some lower taxes.

[Jennifer]

DEA agents are the moral equivlents of runaway slave hunters. They may be technically upholding the law, but their actions stand in contrary to the prinicples of freedom and liberty laid down by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

I'll be using that line in the future.

[oz]

The reason any reason reader should care about the drug war and gay marriage is obvious.
A free person is free, and has the right to be intoxicated or marry the person of his or her choice.
This trumps the marginal tax rate by a mile. Even for sober straights.

[Russ R]

oz:

"A free person is free, and has the right to be intoxicated or marry the person of his or her choice. This trumps the marginal tax rate by a mile. "

Does a free person not have the right to decide what to do with his/her income? Income taxes are the single biggest restriction on freedom, and enable every other restriction.

Without the funding derived from taxation, the government would have no capacity to enforce whatever other regulations it might choose to enact--drug wars or gay marriage bans.

You might notice that freedom in America has been on a steep decline and the size of government has correspondingly grown since the ratification of the Income Tax Amendment.

Trump that.

[oz]

Easy. Holland.
Drugs prostitution and gay rights.

[Ruthless]

"Does a free person not have the right to decide what to do with his/her income? Income taxes are the single biggest restriction on freedom, and enable every other restriction."

Russ R.

What you said explains why librarians keep having one-night stands with true-blue Repuglicunts.

[Stevo Darkly]

Yes, too bad. But all rights are rooted in property rights.