On Friday July 29th, marijuana activist Marc Emery — the 47-year-old leader of the British Columbia Marijuana Party — 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.
Jennifer Garner, in an article titled Canada Now Officially 51st State, suggests that “the highest levels of the Canadian provincial and federal governments were involved in setting up the (US-authored Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters treaty between the US and Canada) investigation and raid, in the process raising obvious issues of Canadian sovereignty and revealing to Canadians in a very stark way that Canadian law enforcement can sometimes be a tool of US drug agents.”
Vancouver Police spokesperson Howard Chow admitted that Emery’s selling of marijuana seeds “is not enough” for him to have been arrested by Canadian authorities acting on their own, and confirmed that the arrests came solely as a consequence of DEA motivation and information.
Libby Davies, Vancouver East NDP Member of Parliament, stated that the arrests go against the views of most Canadians, who support decriminalization of marijuana and who had not demanded that Emery’s marijuana businesses be shut down.

“I think it’s very disturbing that the Vancouver police department is raiding a local business and arresting people for the U.S. war on drugs,” Davies told The Vancouver Sun. “It feels to me like the long arm of U.S. enforcement reaching into Canada.”

Here’s the video of the US DEA press conference. In this video, Halifax Police provide information on their role in the arrest. At BlogsCanada, Canadians have begun to express their alarm at Emery’s arrest, detention and possible extradition, taking the federal government to task — most pointedly federal two others are wanted in the United States to face charges of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, conspiracy to distribute seeds and conspiracy to engage in money laundering. Mr. Emery was in Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia, where he was scheduled to speak at a music festival that raises funds for the organization, Maritimers Unite for Medical Marijuana.
Mr. Emery spent Friday night in a Halifax holding cell, and was remanded to another correctional facility by midday Saturday, where he’ll remain pending arrangements to transfer him to British Columbia early this coming week.