NEWS: DEA Arrests Canadian...In Canada

Originally posted by Duzey
Do you remember this statement you made earlier in the thread?

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
The subject was arrested on charges of selling an illegal substance, in person, in the United States. Pot heads might not like it, but there is nothing unusual about this arrest.

I do remember saying it and that's why I made this statement.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
I was wrong about his having personally sold such items within the US....

[edit on 2005/7/30 by GradyPhilpott]

Yes, and I had made my comment about DEA's shopping in Vancouver before you made that statement.

So in essence, we are in agreement on the facts presented at this point, and any further quibbling about it would just be silly......

Originally posted by Duzey

So in essence, we are in agreement on the facts presented at this point, and any further quibbling about it would just be silly......

Indeed.

[edit on 2005/7/30 by GradyPhilpott]

Is the Yale still about? I played the tables in bars not the lady strippers.

please don't presume.

Dallas

Yes, the Yale is still here and, as always, is the best place to go for a night of blues. I hope they never shut that place down, it is a favourite of mine.

I didn't mean to presume what you did in the bar. I had spent many an evening playing pool in the Blueboy and have been seen at the Marble Arch on occasion, as well.

And being female, I wasn't there for the women either.

Here's their homepage, so you can remember your good times spent there.

www.theyale.ca...

Anyone who's in Vancouver or travelling through, who likes rhythym and blues, must check this place out.



[edit on 30-7-2005 by Duzey]

Originally posted by DeusEx
Now I as a person have no objection to pot use. However, the fact of the matter is that most of the drug trade is funded by organized crime. So, every dime bag you buy goes largely into the pockets of gangs and bikers. That is where my objections come from.

This is far from being a "fact of the matter." We're not talking about complex and difficult to manufacture drugs like heroin or coc aine, we're talking about a relatively simple to grow and cultivate plant. It doesn't require importation from a third world or any other complications that would beg an organized criminal empire to coax it into the end user's hands.

To say that marijuana money goes into the pockets of gangsters and "bikers," whatever the hell you mean by that, is completely ridiculous and I think you should retract this off-the-wall statement.

Zip

If you don't believe that most marijuana sales are controlled by organized crime, then you are sorely mistaken. In fact all marijuana sales are conducted by criminals, organized or otherwise.

For example:

www.usdoj.gov...

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
If you don't believe that most marijuana sales are controlled by organized crime, then you are sorely mistaken. In fact all marijuana sales are conducted by criminals, organized or otherwise.

For example:

www.usdoj.gov...

Very true, this is why I'm all for legalization(Gov't control) and putting them out of business.

Originally posted by Zipdot
To say that marijuana money goes into the pockets of gangsters and "bikers," whatever the hell you mean by that, is completely ridiculous and I think you should retract this off-the-wall statement.

Really? The large-scale productions we see nowadays are too large for individual ownership and maintenance, meaning that larger organizations such as the Hell's Angels or other organized crime groups must be taking a hand in these grow ops. It stands to reason then that those same groups are the ones transporting and selling the pot across the border. In fact, there was a recent bust relating to this very subject.

www.rcmp-bcmedia.ca...

In total, investigators seized:

1 - in excess of 20 kilograms of methamphetamine

2 - in excess of 20 kilograms of coc aine

3 - in excess of 70 kilograms of marijuana

4 - Restricted and Prohibited Weapons which include 5 Handguns, fully automatic weapons including silencers, 11 sticks of dynamite with detonation cord and blasting caps, 4 grenades and an assortment of ammunition

5 - in excess of $200,000 Canadian currency

6 - 250 kilograms of Methylamine (a precursor for the production of ecstacy)

7 - 2 methamphetamine laboratories

Considering the general rarity of the weaponry, and the amount of pot listed, I would say that this raid (among others) has confirmed what police have been saying all along- groups like the Hell's Angels and Rock Machine have been trading pot for guns and harder drugs. And lookit that- more than 70 kilograms of weed. Now, weed is pretty light, so where did it all come from? They grow it themselves, and they profit from it. Sure, there are a lot of individual growers out there, but they can't compare with 1200-plant operations that organized crime is running.

Oh, and by 'biker' I mean 'outlaw biker, specifically Hell's Angels, since they run about half of my country'. I apologize for the ambiguity of my statement.

DE

In BC, the Hells Angels control virtually 100% of all cross-border drug traffic. It is a huge industry, one of our largest, in fact.

It's known as the marijuana capital of Canada, a haven for potheads, where grow-ops spring up at such a rate that police can't keep up with the multibillion-dollar industry that rivals tourism and forestry with its economic clout.

It's British Columbia, where the words "This bud's for you" have nothing to do with beer.

...snip...

"The marijuana grow-ops, we get 5,000 reported to us every year but we're only able to deal with or bust about 30 per cent of that," Nadeau said.

In 2003, 4,514 grow-ops were reported in B.C., with an average of 236 plants per grow, Nadeau said. That's up from 1,489 grow-ops six years earlier that averaged 149 plants each.

It's not uncommon to see some grow-ops with over 1,000 plants, he said.

...snip...

New organized crime groups are becoming a huge part of the marijuana industry in B.C., Nadeau said.

While Asians and Vietnamese are increasingly growing the pot, outlaw biker gangsters are brokering it, Indo-Canadian gangs are transporting it and white-collar criminals are laundering the money that injects about $7 billion a year into the province's economy, he said.

B.C.'s reputation as pot capital solidified by discovery of secret tunnel

That is one of the reasons so many Canadians support the legalization of marijuana for the reason intrepid gave. The reasoning is if you give the government control, it would cut into the profits for the gangs.

The only problem with this that I see is that is does nothing to address the cross-border traffic, so the gangs will still be involved unless the RCMP and Border agencies have better luck than they've had so far or the government invests a lot more money into law-enforcement.

edited to replace link with one that still has the story posted.

[edit on 1-8-2005 by Duzey]

Uh please correct me if I am wrong (and I am NOT - I HATE our Arrogant Government) but the D.E.A. has
NO JURISDICTION in the SOVEREIGN COUNTRY of CANADA!!!!

Was this already mentioned? Did I miss it?

The D.E.A. is a Law Enforcement Arm of the U.S. Government & U.S. Laws. What gives our Government the right to Dictate to Canada what it's Laws or Cannabis Policy should be? What gives the D.E.A. the right to Arrest Canadian Citizens? If I were a Canadian I would be OUTRAGED - I would tell those Fascist Tools to go back home - maybe they should try arresting the PILL pushers while they are at it (but then who will Pay Off our Politicians?)!


[edit on 1-8-2005 by Seraphim_Serpente]

Originally posted by Seraphim_Serpente
Uh please correct me if I am wrong (and I am NOT - I HATE our Arrogant Government) but the D.E.A. has
NO JURISDICTION in the SOVEREIGN COUNTRY of CANADA!!!!

Get a grip and read the source material. The headline to this thread is fasle and reflects poorly on the integrity of ATSNN. The DEA did not arrest these individuals and the US does not dictate the internal affairs of Canada. It appears that the two governments cooperated to bring this individual to justice.

'Prince of Pot' held over seed sales

SEATTLE - Marc Emery has built a multimillion-dollar business selling marijuana seeds and paraphernalia while thumbing his nose at authorities in his native Canada, even challenging them to arrest him.

Friday, the man known as Canada's "Prince of Pot" was arrested in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on a U.S. indictment charging him with selling millions of dollars worth of marijuana seeds to customers throughout the United States.

Emery, the 47-year-old leader of British Columbia's Marijuana Party, has earned about $3 million a year selling the seeds through his Internet Web site and by mail, federal officials said. Emery and two accomplices, Gregory Williams, 50, and Michelle Rainey-Fenkarek, 34, were arrested by Canadian authorities on a warrant issued by federal officials in Washington state.

source

The problem for law enforcement isn't only the size and scope of the online marijuana trade. Online drug vendors can easily hide their identities and locations, and marijuana Web sites often are registered to people in countries such as Canada or the Netherlands, where drug laws are more liberal and less stringently enforced.

Canada has rapidly become a major supplier of potent varieties of marijuana with names such as Quebec Gold and BC Bud. The cultivation and sale of the plant is estimated to be at least a $7-billion-a-year industry in Canada, according to the National Post Business magazine, a Canadian journal.

Marc Emery, a Canadian marijuana activist, claims to have sold at least 4 million pot seeds through his Web site. "We have never heard of anyone ever having a problem as a result of ordering or receiving seeds from us," his site declares.

Payne said that though the DEA worked closely with law enforcement agencies in other countries, it didn't have jurisdiction over foreign Web site operators.

"We can't go into Mexico and arrest somebody," he said. "Again, it's really difficult to enforce."

Gisela Wieser-Herbeck, a drug control officer based in Vienna, Austria, said multinational efforts such as a rapid information-sharing system for law-enforcement agencies from different countries must be developed to shut down the Internet drug market.

"You have to depend on international cooperation," she said. "In a concerted action you can go very far in closing down these operations."

source

American Potheads Suddenly Concerned with the War on Terror

Marc Scott Emery 'Prince of Pot' has been arrested by the DEA and RCMP.

(I-Newswire) - At a time when Osama bin Laden is still hiding in a cave in Afghanistan, when we have 2000 soldiers dead in Iraq and more dying everyday with no end in sight, when our country houses 2.5 million prisoners ( more than any other country in the world ), when the whole country and even Congress are slamming the ONDCP because they have used their $11 billion budget to target pot smokers while meth has run rampant we somehow find the resources to invade our sister country Canada and enforce our draconian drug laws on her citizens over some pot seeds.

This action would not be justifiable even if our drug policies were working but to force another country to abide by US laws that have failed miserably and have caused untold societal damage and erosion of our constitutional rights and civil liberties defies all logic.

Is it any wonder that people all around the world sit and plot our destruction? It is this very kind of "Imperialist Intervention" in the affairs of sovereign nations that causes Americans to be targets of "terrorists".

And until we as Americans take a strong stand against it we will never be safe in this country again...nor do we really deserve to be.

I call on all Americans, regardless of their position on marijuana, to join forces and let it be known that the citizens of our country do not support the actions of the D.E.A.
We never elected the D.E.A. and they DO NOT represent us or our interests.

FREE MARC EMERY!!!

Company US Marijuana Party

source

www.king5.com...

www.herald.ns.ca...

I HATE our Arrogant Government

Have you considered emigration?

Quote: "I find it funny that there aren't problems with the law below the border with Prozac, Xanax, hell, Crazy Glue. Then again, those product make money for Big Biz.

Quote: "Well many common products sold by major companies, including the famous Coca-Cola, included highly addictive drugs before they became illegal."
"



Exactly! Everything in LIFE has the Potential to be an Addictive Drug - Food, Sex, TV, the Net & so on - would you like to Ban & Censor (actually its already happening) these as well - just because they pose a Potential for Abuse?

Can't you see that this position is Ridiculous? Growing a PLANT is "Manufacturing"? Mailing Seeds is "Distribution"? FEDS in Washington D.C. ordering Canadian Police to Arrest its own Citizens?

So what is the Solution here? What do you propose? That we Continue to Arrest & ImPrison a TON of Citizens EVERY YEAR - including Non-Violent & otherwise Productive members of Society (this is what is currently going on in the U.S. - a WHOLE LOT of Tax Payer Money is spent on it & all we ever hear is more Propaganda from the Government).

Or should we allow ADULT CITIZENS so make their own decisions in their own Life! To live in FREEDOM & LIBERTY (remember those concepts)! This is our RIGHT as long as we are not harming others! Prohibition is a RIDDICULOUS position in the 21st Century! Emery wasn't Forcing people to Order Seeds from him - people bought them because they wanted them. Perhaps "Growing their own" was their solution to having to deal with Criminal Gangs & Mafias - did you ever think about that? Did you actually just link to the Department of "In-Justice" - that is the most Hippocritical Department that has ever Existed! Ashcroft was a JOKE!

I LAUGH now when I hear Conservatives say that they are against
"Big Government" - Government meddling into our lives has Expanded Exponentially under the Republican Bush Administration - more than ever in history! Bush may spew a whole lot of Rhetoric about "Freedom" - but the Sad & Obvious truth is that EVERYTHING is more Controlled than ever!

Have I considered Emigration - NO - I said I Hate the CORRUPT U.S. GOVERNMENT - NOT my Country! I am an American! What I am considering is full out Political War to remove these Corrupt Fascist Jerks from Office in 2006/2008 & FULL OUT Civil Disobedience, Resistance, Verbal & Mental REVOLUTION!

I FIGHT for the Rights that I KNOW that I possess - because I know that if I don't Fight for them & Exercise them, that they will be taken away from me - Yes, this is possible even in America! Give me LIBERTY or give me DEATH (I like that - it has a nice ring to it - I think I heard it somewhere before - I wonder were)!

[edit on 1-8-2005 by Seraphim_Serpente]

[edit on 1-8-2005 by Seraphim_Serpente]

Originally posted by Seraphim_Serpente
What I am considering is full out Political War to remove these Corrupt Fascist Jerks from Office in 2006/2008 & FULL OUT Civil Disobedience, Resistance, Verbal & Mental REVOLUTION!

Gotcha!

[edit on 2005/8/1 by GradyPhilpott]

Quote: "Gotcha."

Just how is that?

Originally posted by DeusEx
The DEA is facing serious opposition as Vancouver police raid a marijuana store on their behalf. Among those arrested was Marc Emery, head of the local Marijuana Party.

 

www.canada.com
VANCOUVER -- Police have raided a Vancouver business run by the head of the B.C. Marijuana Party.

And it looks like the raid was ordered by the U.S.

....

The charges outlined in the warrant indicate it is on behalf of the American government.

Emery and two other people are accused of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, conspiracy to distribute seeds, and money laundering.


Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

I am confused. This guy was selling pot seeds online. Why did BC police only act when prodded by the Americans? I am disappointed in VPD, but I have suspicions that due to Emery's status as 'folk hero' and 'politician', they feared the backlash from his many customers and stoned well-wishers.

Now I as a person have no objection to pot use. However, the fact of the matter is that most of the drug trade is funded by organized crime. So, every dime bag you buy goes largely into the pockets of gangs and bikers. That is where my objections come from.

Again, disappointment. The VPD/ RCMP should have been busting down this guy's door a long time ago.

DE

EDIT: The spelling!

[edit on 29-7-2005 by DeusEx]

Your disapointment is just that, your disapointment. I don't care if your disapointed. I don't think my brother who was incarcerated for growing his own marijuana so he doesn't have to buy imported marijuana from mexico which may or may not have been sprayed with toxic chemicals by our government cares either. If you are disapointed by the Vancouver Police Department, then don't live in Vancouver. If you don't like marijuana, don't smoke it. It's pretty simple.