Greetings TCN/Untax/Checkmatrix readers and/or Otherwise:
This event occurred six days ago. Since I know some people on these mailing
lists know of marc Emery and his mission I am passing along this short history
of another travesty of the 'Police State' that is becoming all too common even
here in Canada.
tjk :)
www.cyberclass.net
PS: This information which is now posted at The Marijuana Cyberclassroom www.cyberclass.net/emery.htm was forwarded to me as an OLP (Ontario Libertarina Party) Announcement from John Shaw. webmaster for OLP - www.libertarian.on.ca
From: Marc Emery <m.emery@shaw.ca>
Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2002 06:01:19 -0800
To: <muggles2@cannabisculture.com>
Subject: Marc Emery & Coral Clay Raided by Victoria Police
At 3.30 a.m. in the quiet morning time of Tuesday, March 5, only hours ago, Marc
awoke to the telephone at his Victoria home, on Fernwood Rd., which he shares
with partner Coral & Coral's son Dylan.
On the third and obviously persistent attempt, Marc answered the phone.
"Mr. Emery"
"Yes."
"This is the Victoria Police. We have your house surrounded (!). we have a
warrant to enter the premises. Please go out your front door, do not go back
into your house, out onto the sidewalk. Is there a child in the house?"
"Yes."
"and Coral Clay?"
"Yes."
"Please have yourself & Ms. Clay go out the front door..."
"Hey Coral, get up, we're being raided. Coral, get up, we're being raided by the
Victoria Police. we have to go outside..."
"Jesus Christ! That's crazy."
Me looking chilled in my underwear out on the sidewalk. Coral came to the front
door just getting her top on.
One cop came out of the darkness being this big moving truck cop truck. Then a
procession followed whereby they explain they had a warrant, etc., but outside,
so I said, would you like to come in? So eight cops sheepishly troop in, because
I'm not the least bit disappointed looking and they know this isn't going to be
as juicy as they fantasized (and they sure were, we get to that...).
The warrant I get from this young cop (VPD 221 - Constable Colin Brown) doing
his best unthreatening "let me explain why we're here..." when within a few
seconds and a cursory look at our very middle class home with no grow op or
anything odd, realizes his fishing expedition has come up empty.
"On Wednesday, I was walking by a smelled pot. So we got a warrant to enter your
property to look at your electrical meter, which seemed a bit higher than
normal. I smelled what now appears to be your dryer exhaust vent, but I thought
I detected the smell of pot coming from it when we executed the earlier warrant
Saturday."
I also pointed out that our next door neighbour is a Victoria cop and left an
ominous note in our mailbox on Thursday saying he smelled pot and that we'd
better 'take care'!
"Oh, he had no part in this,..."
"Oh, I'm sure!..." I added, not convinced.
So then they proceeded to troop out. Young cop Brown asked, do you have pot
here? I showed him our stash, our righteous half ounce of twigs and stems, and
alas, some rather grotty old bubblehash. "Looks like good BC bud" he adds. So I
give him a big of verbal jousting. "You can get a search warrant based on
someone's second hand pot smoke?"
He fudged around this with his corroborative evidence, the exhaust vent, which,
since it IS (Eureka!) actually connected to the dryer, always smells of Vanilla
BOUNCE fabric softener sheets, could not possibly emit pot smells. We have no
equipment of any kind running in the house so the electrical usage is below
normal for a typical house in winter.
So obviously he has just invented the 'smell' and is merely inventing some
rather low threshold for power use. And since none of his assertions turn out to
be true, it is obvious that any police officer can get a search warrant by
literally lying and making up whatever information they require to get in your
house.
The terrifying thing is that any pot smoker in Canada could have their homes
invaded by big uniformed secret police Nazis because of second hand pot smoke.
Oh yeah, he ran my vehicle plates, and noted "as you are aware, Mr. EMery, you
do have quite a history." Yeah, but not for a grow op, and what I do do, I do
pretty publicly.
"We have no argument with your smoking marijuana, we're not here about that",
the cop reminded us twice. "If that's so, why are you here at 3.30 AM in the
dead of the morning? That's peculiar. And it turns out that the only correct
thing is you smelled pot."
Anyway, that's as much as we wanted to hear so I ended with , "Officer, you can
go now..."
As it turns out, the police left our self-confessed stash and since the warrant
outlines a variety of things they are searching for, including things we do
have, like pots, soil, fertilizers, but they are used for the over 100 flowers
(crocuses, daffodils, potted porch flowers) we have around the property, so they
leave everything here.
The warrant, a cheesy photocopy of a fax warrant (these things are a worthless
'protection' of our rights and they look worthless too!), says
"Whereas it appears on the oath/affirmation of Constable Colin Brown, a peace
officer in the Victoria Police Department, that there are reasonable grounds for
dispensing with an information personally and in writing, and that there are
reasonable grounds for believing that there is a controlled substance or
precursor, a thing in which a controlled substance or precursor is contained or
concealed, offense-related property, or thing that will afford evidence in
respect of an offense under the controlled Drugs & Substances Act, namely:
"Documentation relating to occupancy, marihuana plants, pots, lights, ballast,
capacitor assemblies, fans, blowers, fertilizers, scales, and documentation
associated to the production of marijuana."
The phrase ,"and other paraphernalia" is crossed out on my photocopy, which
comes after scales.
The Justice of the Peace who issued the warrant, three hours prior, out of
Burnaby, B.C., was a D. Maihara.
--- Marc
You are invited to read about other examples of a 'Police State' at the Big Brother Cyberclassroom: www.cyberclass.net/policestate.htm