Emory is Kind Da Offside

There is a raging debate in Canada over the legal status of marijuana, and no where more so than in Vancouver B.C., home to some of the most loud mouthed and aggressive potheads in the country. Now, I don't care for drugs, but I will allow that there is room for debate over how such substances ought to be handled. The usual methods of debate should be good enough - flyers, newspapers, political debates, and so on. There have been some changes to our laws recently, notably the change to allow the consumption of pot to relieve pain, on a doctor's orders. The changes we have seen to date are not good enough for many of those who want full liberalization. Many of them want what they want right now. Which brings me to the subject of the Da Kind Cafe in Vancouver, and Mark Emory of the Marijuana Party, who is currently residing in a Saskatchewan jail. Both the cafe and Emory have taken their debates over the line. They are offside. Emory, in a dumb stunt, intentionally got himself arrested in order to prove he was an idiot. Oh, sorry, he wanted to prove that we are idiots. Boring story so far, I know. But now that Emory is in jail, he is using his time in the "slammer" to blog about his experiences, which you can read about on the B.C. Marijuana Party website. The Vancouver Province is reporting today, in an article by John Ferry (subscriber only) that Emory has used his internet access to ask his followers to picket and harass a woman in the neighborhood of the Da Kind cafe, simply because she was concerned that there was an elementary school nearby. Emory is reported to have asked people to picket her and call her a "Nazi." Her van has had a nail put into the tire. Even if no direct connection can be made between Emory's fatwa and the harassment she is now under, why is Emory allowed to have access to his blog while he is in jail? I could not find the entry asking marijuana activists to go on the offensive, so I maybe lazy and blind, or perhaps it has been deleted. There is no right to the internet in Canada. Denying Emory the internet would do not great harm. Do we allow more serious criminals the internet? Hell's Angels, the Mob, Triads? Maybe Al-Quaeda? They would likely be in a higher security jail, but we are so lame on justice issues I'm not much reassured. As for Da Kind, and even the Marijuana Party generally, does no one ask who their major donors are? How much can you raise from people immersed in the drug culture? There are working people who use the stuff but they are probably responsible enough to vote for larger parties because they know the country faces more serious problems. The responsible marijuana activist would do well to follow that route too. I suspect the people with the greatest interest in forcing the issue are the dealers themselves - Emory is an admitted dealer, for example. The operators of Da Kind are reported to have criminal records for fraud. Would it surprise anyone if they were merely a front for a larger, more motivated party that can't be seen to be trying to change public policy?