Religion could save Emery

[Pepper]

http://www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=12137

Religion could save Emery
By charlie smith

Publish Date: 11-Aug-2005

Pot-TV’s Chris Bennett says the U.S.
is waging a holy war on marijuana.

BC Marijuana party officials are planning a constitutional challenge on the grounds that Canada’s prohibition on pot violates people’s freedom of religion. Kirk Tousaw, campaign manager for the party, told the Georgia Straight that he and others were researching this issue before the July 29 raid on BCMP headquarters and the arrests of president Marc Emery and two associates. “We had in fact planned to bring the challenge, and still do plan to bring the challenge within the next couple of months,” he said.

Tousaw said that Rastafarians, Gnostics, and certain sects from India use marijuana as a sacrament. He added that a Pot-TV employee, Chris Bennett, has written on the subject of cannabis in the Bible, and also uses the drug as a sacrament. “So we have thought about bringing that kind of challenge because there is no exemption currently for sacramental use of cannabis,” Tousaw said. Bennett told the Straight that he first made the links between marijuana and spirituality while reading the Book of Revelations about 15 years ago. He cited a passage that mentions a “Tree of Life” that bears 12 different “manners” of fruit and produces leaves that are for the healing of the nations.

“I was overcome with this feeling that light was pouring into my body, and I started thinking that all these fruits are like the paper, the fuel, the hemp, seed, food, and the healing leaves was medicine,” Bennett said.

Bennett said he then began collecting references to religion and marijuana, which led him to write two books. He has since concluded that the Bush administration is conducting a “religious war” against marijuana because Bush’s religious mentors, including preachers Billy Graham and Pat Robertson, have linked modern drug use to sorcery in the Book of Revelations. Bennett claimed that’s why John Walters, U.S. director of national drug control policy, is promoting faith-based treatment as an alternative for young drug users going to jail.

“It’s like Christians converting the pagans,” Bennett said. “This is why they have such a fear of this thing: they see it as the pagans burning their sacrament.” Tousaw said that any constitutional challenge based on religious freedom would be separate from Emery’s extra-dition hearing. However, Tousaw claimed that if the court struck down Canada’s marijuana prohibition because there is no exemption for sacramental and religious use, it could have an effect on anyone facing extradition on marijuana-related charges. A prerequisite for extradition is that the person must be charged with something that is also a crime in his or her home country.

“It’s quite complicated, because when a court deems a statute to be unconstitutional because it violates the Charter, technically that statute was unconstitutional from the very day it was enacted,” Tousaw said. “Certainly we would think very carefully about saying in Marc’s case: if marijuana prohibition was invalid during the time for which Marc Emery is charged with marijuana-related offences, those offences did not exist in Canadian law. Therefore, he could not be extradited for those offences.” The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees freedom of religion. Section 1 states that these rights and freedoms are only subject to “reasonable limits...as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”.

After Emery was released on bail, he told CBC Radio that he felt he had been chosen by God to liberate marijuana users. Emery did not return a call from the Straight, passed along through Tousaw, to discuss his religious views.

Bennett said that Emery started on this mission after a woman fainted outside his City Lights bookstore in London, Ontario, several years ago. “She said, ‘When I was outside of your store, I had a vision about you and a leaf, and money’,” Bennett claimed. “She kind of, in many ways, prophesized [sic] the whole Marc Emery story before it was to take place.”

If Emery is extradited to the United States, he faces a prison sentence of 10 years to life if he is convicted on charges of conspiracy to distribute marijuana, conspiracy to distribute marijuana seeds, and conspiracy to engage in money-laundering. His associates Gregory Williams and Michelle Rainey- Fenkarek have been charged with the same offences and are also facing extradition hearings.

[The GCW]

Chris Bennett

&

Marc Emery

et al.

have helped Me know who I Am.

To Christ God Our Father, The Ecologician, and Our Spirit of truth, in My prayer time and time with Our Father, I thank Him for the work from the Cannabis Culture Magazine and some of the writings from Chris Bennett.

I have learned about Our Spiritual realities in part from the insight from Emery and Bennett.

Thank You.

New Peace.


The Green Collar Worker

[The GCW]

"I'd also like to thank Marc Emery for his gallant efforts in helping many people know about our historical, spiritual and Biblical culture and how it relates to this sacred spiritual plant."

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1304/a11.html?397

[Echo]

Chris Bennett is a brother!
_________________

[The GCW]

HERE IS A NEW POLL RESULT

from Cannada.

999

Canada: A Sovereignty Issue?

The poll conducted by The Strategic Counsel for The Globe and Mail and CTV found that 58 per cent of Canadians oppose the extradition of Mr. Emery. CONT.

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1323/a01.html?397

[The GCW]

POLL:


Should Marc Emery be extradited to the U.S.?

Yes 251 57.05 %


No 189 42.95 %


http://www.vancourier.com/

[Torkel]

Current poll results:

[Torkel]

Current poll results:

[Pepper]

Should Marc Emery be extradited to the U.S.?
Yes 253 38.69 %
No 401 61.31 %

[Stokes]

Should Marc Emery be extradited to the U.S.?
Yes 260 25.95 %
No 742 74.05 %
_________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Where love is, there God is also.

-Mahatma Gandhi

[HalfDead]

Well what I would like to know is... Is this another one of Marc Emery’s run around games like his 3 months in jail campaign just to make money? I'm just wondering why he didn't yell religious rights when he didn't say anything about them throwing him in jail the first time... Its one thing to, I donno exploit this plant the way everyone does but, to blend it in with a religion an then exploit a religion just so you can keep making money isn't fair to allot of people that are really trying hard to make things work for a lot of hard working people out there.

Its just funny though how they will run out just to grab marc emery when you have just as bad as people misleading other people the way NORML does they should go after them if they go after Marc Emery that’s just the way I see it.. I mean they are all misleading people, witch is wrong... Marc Emery sells seeds, NORML lies to the people in to braking the federal law of medical “Marijuana”… Because if they really did care for anyone they would just go MPP rout regulate it for everyone.

So I’ll sit here and ponder on this one for a while…

[zero]

One of the Ministry mandates is that we do not sell our plants or any part of them.

Even the THC ministry cant help you if you get caught selling.
_________________
www.shoutwire.com
www.spikedhumor.com

"I understand that fear is my friend, but not always. Never turn your back on fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed."

[sara]

hey, I too need to pay rent and eat, done enough charity up until now,
if i don't sell my plant I have no food.religion or not religion.
_________________
“When one is connected above,’’ he said
quietly, “he does not fall below.”
OINK OINK OINK OINK OINK...

[HalfDead]

Well we all have to eat its just called playing by the rules I would say... I mean it’s really funny how Emery is the only seed vender the US is going after... But yet they will let him keep running pot TV and sell his magazine.... I just wonder when all the lies and bs games will stop and people start really fighting to free this plant like owner and creator of the THC-ministry is doing. Again you have to eat and the working people of America needs to eat also and they can't do this when their work is under fire from being fired from their work just for smoking Cannabis. But its ok for them to drink wine and beer on company paid time, then turn around and get a tax right off for it... It would be nice for my wife to pass the blessings of the Cannabis plant around just like they do when they drink on the clock. So if Marc Emery or anyone wants to sell anything to do with cannabis maybe they should tax it rather then try to claim religious rights.

TAXATION OF MARIJUANA SUBSTANCES

(Title 44, Chapter 49)

The law requires dealers of illegal drugs to purchase tax stamps from the Rhode Island Division of Taxation and have them affixed to marijuana or other controlled substance packets, bags, bottles, etc. Holders of drugs seized without the appropriate tax stamps are subject to an assessment plus a penalty equal to 100% of the tax. The tax rates are as follows:

$400.00 on each 10 dosage units of a controlled substance that is not sold by weight or portion thereof

[sara]

why would anyone tax any plant that grows in a garden?
I have few hunderd peyote's growing I would like my garden to grow what I need.
_________________
“When one is connected above,’’ he said
quietly, “he does not fall below.”
OINK OINK OINK OINK OINK...

[HalfDead]