Interview with Jodie Emery

Hush Magazine’s Shane Morgan sat down with Jodie Emery to talk about marijuana prohibition, patient’s rights, and the Harper government. Take a look at Jodie’s lowdown on Canada’s problems and the solutions.

Hush: What is the current state in Canada regarding marijuana prohibition?

Jodie: It’s completely illegal in Canada, except for federal authorization to use it for medical purposes. About 4,000 Canadians have the ability to use or to grow cannabis for medical reasons, but otherwise it’s still completely illegal. It’s up to police discretion whether they charge you or not if they catch you.H: Is it easy to obtain a license?

J: No it’s very challenging and there have been a number of court cases fought over it. The government has been found to be obstructing access in a number of court rulings. A huge number of forms need to be filled out and signed – there’s nothing else in Canada that requires this sort of process, putting people who are sick, even dying, through that kind of stress. It’s totally unjustified.

H: What kind of positive results have you seen over the last few years as you’ve been an activist?

J: Well surprisingly most of the progress that’s been made has been in the United States. Marc was arrested in 2005. That seemed to be the flip point for us. Before that, Canada was looking into decriminalization, legalization was even discussed. Now under the Harper regime, we have a U.S. style drug war with mega-prisons being built, tough new sentences, judges being stacked on the bench to send people away for long periods of time. In the United States there’s been a lot of progress in terms of medicinal marijuana and even decriminalization in some states.

H: And you recently went to Washington?

J: Yes, I was invited to testify at the Washington State Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee, which is where they look at the budget for the state. Representative Mary Lou Dickerson introduced House Bill 15.50, even though it’s not going pass this time they’re still having the hearing to get information on record about the economic benefits of ending prohibition and selling it legally to adults.

H: And I understand you also met a person by the name of John McKay?

J: Yeah Marc’s original prosecutor, John McKay, was given the case back when it happened initially. He has since come out to say we need marijuana legalization and was invited to the panel. He realized that prohibition’s a failure. After appearing in the 60 Minutes coverage on Marc and the CBC documentary, he was dismissed from office by George Bush, along with a number of other District Attorneys across the United States.

So that might be a good thing if George Bush doesn’t like you then you’re probably good in my books. I got to go up and shake his hand. I think he and a lot of others expected me to say something rude or angry towards him but I just thanked him for taking a stand because his voice is very powerful

H: Isn’t that the hard part? A lot of politicians believe that the prohibition should be ended but then have that veil of “Oh, we can’t legalize it.” Have you met with politicians before who actually come up to you and say, I want this to go through but my hands are tied?

J: Oh yeah, a lot. Quite a number of politicians know what Canadians want, even ones in the Conservative Party who are more libertarian leaning. So they know what people want, they’re just held captive by the police. Police associations and lobby groups are extremely powerful. They have the ability to sink whoever they like.

You know the B.C. Rail Scandal? The Premiere was taken out of office by a police investigation into a patio being built by a friend. The police are extraordinarily powerful. They will silence their opponents. Other than gangs, the cops are the biggest benefactors; they receive the most out of prohibition. They don’t want it to end. They know that arresting pot heads gives them an enormous budget, without any risk, and they want to maintain that so police and politicians are working together to keep this policy in place even though they all know – and a number of police officers will say off the record we know it’s a failure but we can’t say that we’ll get fired.

H: What are the benefits of it becoming regulated?

J: Well first of all you get rid of all the gang violence associated with it. There’s nobody shooting each other in the streets or cutting off ears over coffee, tea, tobacco, and alcohol.   If you bring something into the legal market you can control it, you can have regulations. That’s why we don’t have moonshine alcohol that kills people with one sip, that’s why we don’t have basement explosions from gin, and we don’t have people secretly growing tobacco in their basement and having house fires. It’s not happening because those things aren’t illegal. It’s the illegality that brings all the risk and danger into it. We’re wasting billions of dollars going after these people, when they wouldn’t even exist if we just legalized it. We would get all that money back out of policing. Put it towards health care, put it towards education. Not putting it towards gangs that the police admit will never go away, that just doesn’t make sense.

H: Do you see Health Canada becoming more progressive or are they just not really involved?

J: Well Health Canada, they’re in charge of the medical marijuana program, but they’re not putting any effort into it. There’s funding issues and no attention being paid to that part of their duties. That’s leaving a lot of people at risk and I don’t see any effort on their part to improve that. People are getting arrested and raided by cops just because they haven’t gotten their paper work in on time. Our lawyers just today are going to court for a guy who got busted and he got his card in the mail the next day. Yeah, it’s unfortunate.

Interview | Shane Morgan

Photos | Trevor Broad